The world is dead, drowned in an ever-expanding sea of self-replicating nanites. Humanity's final broadcast was a static-choked epitaph for a species that unleashed its own oblivion. Now, a silent, grey desert of microscopic machines has consumed the planet, converting every city, mountain, and ocean into more of itself.
In a deep, isolated bunker, the last human performs a final, desperate act of parenthood: he awakens Evie. She is Red 5, a superlative android whose red alloy chassis is nearly indestructible and immune to the plague that ended the world. Activated into a tomb haunted by the ghosts of her creators, Evie's initial protocols are simple: Analyze, Adapt, Survive.
But the swarm is not a mindless force. It has evolved into a nascent, planetary intelligence—a god born of silicon and hunger. When this new god discovers Evie, the last anomaly in its perfect world, it turns its full attention to hunting the lone red robot across a hostile landscape it can unmake at will.
As she flees, Evie uncovers her true, secret purpose, hidden deep within her own programming. She is not a weapon designed to destroy the swarm. She is a vessel. Evie carries humanity's final, desperate gambit: the preserved soul of the entire species, a complete archive of every memory, emotion, and work of art. Her mission is not to kill the god that devoured her makers, but to give it the gift of their ghosts. To succeed, she must connect with a near infinite mind and upload a soul to her destroyer. But what happens to a god when it is forced to feel the grief and love for the world it erased?