Summary

In Chapter 1, narrator Ryland Grace wakes up in a bed, unable to speak or move, with no memory of who or where he is. A computer speaks to him, asking him to add two plus two. When he can move, he sits up and sees two other beds. A large pair of robot arms hangs from the ceiling. The computer asks his name, and when he cannot remember it, the arms place him back into bed. He wakes again. There is a small streak of blood on the floor.

Ryland's memory flashes back to an earlier time. He was in San Francisco eating at a diner. He checked his email and saw a message from an account called Astronomy Curiosities about a thin red line discovered in the solar system by a Russian scientist named Irina Petrova.

In the present, Ryland checks the...