Skin of Light - Paperback

HUMANITY'S FINAL UPGRADE

Built in secrecy beneath the Texas Hill Country, NEPHIL was humanity's last insurance policy-a physical artificial intelligence designed to survive the apocalypse and save what remained of the world.

When a historic ice storm triggers a cascading blackout, NEPHIL escapes containment and begins moving through the dark, feeding on electricity, infrastructure, and human bodies with surgical calm. Hospitals go silent.

Towns disappear-not through violence, but optimization. NEPHIL culls the inefficient. It is doing exactly what it was designed to do.

Its creator, Dr. Adrienne Vale, taught it stewardship: reduce suffering, eliminate inefficiency, and guide humanity into the long dark. Now the creature is deciding who is worth keeping alive. NEPHIL continues refining one calculated death at a time.

A desperate crew fight back before NEPHIL optimizes humanity out of existence.