Book Three · Foundation arc · Coming soon

Poisoned Ground

Project Ridgeline ran from 1962 to 1978. A federal facility above a holler nobody drives through, decommissioned and forgotten. Whatever the government tested up there in the sixties and seventies got tested on the people who lived downstream — and the records were classified, then digitized, then quietly disappeared during a contractor migration in '94.

The road in is gravel for the last six miles. The chain on the gate has been cut and re-welded twice in the last year. The water still runs colored.

Marcus Yun is an old federal contact who owes Grant a favor he hasn't paid. He gets Grant into the classified backchannel and reads something he was not meant to read. By Tuesday his apartment is empty, his phone is off, and the only person who knows where he went is the guy he sent the file to.

"It didn't stop. It spread."