Tower of Somnus

The Galactic Consensus arrived on ships as large as skyscrapers, followed the trail of century-old television transmissions to welcome humanity into the galactic community — and recoiled in horror at what they found. They installed a relay to warn other ships of the embargo, but more importantly, gave humans access to the Tower of Somnus: a multiplayer game played in one's sleep, intended to teach humanity proper behavior. Kat Debs, a hereditary employee of one of the megacorporations that ruled the world, eked out a meager existence in a massive arcology. She dreamed of earning enough money to buy her freedom and was more than willing to break a law in the process. When offered the chance to enter the Tower free of corporate control, she takes it — because players retain the fantastic powers they earn in the game when they wake up. A perfect opportunity to take control of her destiny, or die trying.

Kat beat the bad guys and scored a pile of credits. What she didn't expect was for the mastermind behind her plight to survive — and to do her a favor by enrolling her in a GroCorp corporate college. She knows the arcology, but this is a chance to earn enough credits to set her family up for life. But people are disappearing, and betrayal lurks around every corner. Kat is out of her depth, and everyone is playing for keeps. Only by relying on every erg of power she's scavenged from the Tower of Somnus does she even begin to stand a chance — though that power may come at a price that isn't hers to pay.

Kat revealed the Stallesp plot: the aliens never meant to abide by the rules of the Galactic Consensus, choosing to ask forgiveness rather than permission for interfering with Earth and its corporations. Now she is fighting a lonely war against the invasion, trying to buy enough time for help to arrive. Her allies are gone or preoccupied, forcing her and the few friends she's made to root out the invaders without formal support. As her investigation heats up and reveals a situation worse than she ever imagined, Kat must confront an unpleasant truth: not all of humanity's enemies are aliens.

Kat paid for her position with blood — hers and those who stood in her way. Now she has finally climbed to a spot where she has real power and can improve things the way she thinks is necessary. But power comes with complications and obligations, and enemies who don't like to share authority. While she may be one of the strongest humans alive, physical and magical strength hasn't prepared her for the politics and backstabbing that can end her life just as quickly as a knife in a back alley. Infiltrators and samurai are gunning for Kat on the orders of her political rivals. In a race against time, she must unmask her enemies before her friends and family pay the blood price.

Katherine Debs clawed her way up from the slums to the peak of the corporate world. Her enemies have been banished to the shadows by the monopoly she holds on advanced alien technology — but she knows how dangerous a knife in the dark can be. Someone is rising through the system at an alarming rate, not many levels behind her and gaining fast. With corporate dominance, political power, and her own life on the line, Kat must get stronger faster than her mystery opponent, unlocking the tower's deepest mysteries as she goes.