Unknown Universe

On March 21, 2013, the European Space Agency released a map of the afterglow of the big bang. Taking in 440 sextillion kilometers of space and 13.8 billion years of time, it is physically impossible to make a better map: We will never see the early universe in more detail. On the one hand, such a view is the apotheosis of modern cosmology; on the other, it threatens to undermine almost everything we hold cosmologically sacrosanct.

A snowy night. A train making its way through the mountains of Austria. Asleep in one of the private compartments is a very important passenger, a scientist who has created something others desperately want. Precautions have been taken to ensure the man’s safe passage, but even with a highly skilled bodyguard onboard, the trip does not go as planned. When the scientist vanishes, Jonathan Quinn and his team are sent in to locate him before the secrets in the man’s head can be extracted. Because if that happens, the world would change forever.