Four Seconds

Rick Anderson tracks freight for a living, and the lattice behind his ear is killing him. Dr. Moore will not give him a date. If he never reaches again, maybe the summer. If he keeps spending himself, not the summer.Victoria Mallory runs what is left of Holt's programme from a flat above the Trieste container port: a Cyprus shell, a thinning spotter network, and a bank of candidates whose lattices were seated but never woke. She has a glove of her own that cannot touch a network — it can only ride inside another key. Copying Rick's working pattern needs his yes.Daniel Gao, the nephew from Toronto, is her sleeper and does not know it. She burns him so he will run to Rick. Across Asia, banked keys wake and ask for Chicago. Rick spends himself holding them steady. Elena finds that once a second operator is invited in, there is no revocation — only the service lead under the scar: four seconds that unseat the lattice and kill the host and anyone seated in him.Thursdays suit her. Cindy's old desk. He says yes.Four Seconds is the third and final book of the Accidental God series.