Summary

Chapter 1 starts with a character named Red, whose responsibility is to “climb up time’s threads into the past and make sure no one…muddle[s] the futures her Agency’s arranged (1). Among the wreckage of her latest murders meant to ensure the future proceeds as planned, she looks for one person who Red knows will try to “twist to her own ends all Red’s grand work” (3). She finds a note that indicates this person remains alive, but she worries reading it will be a trap that will make her seem like a “double agent” to her boss (4). She burns it. A “seeker emerges” and finds the ashes of the letter; meanwhile, the planet disintegrates (5). The seeker reforms the letter and reads it. It is from someone named Blue, who is on the other side of the war the Agency is waging...