The Vital Abyss
Chapters - James S. A. Corey
Story: The Vital Abyss
Paolo Cortazar narrates his journey from a grieving young man on basic support in Brazil to a morally unmoored scientist working on humanity's most dangerous discovery. After his mother's death from a degenerative brain disease, Cortazar enters university to study nanoinformatics, where he develops drug dependencies before eventually recovering and landing a position with Protogen through his old friend Aaron. During his intake, the charismatic Antony Dresden subjects Cortazar to a magnetic brain treatment that suppresses his capacity for moral reasoning, transforming him into what Protogen calls 'research' - a brilliant but amoral scientist. Cortazar participates in the study of the alien protomolecule on Phoebe Station, helps murder the Martian research partners, and watches in awe as Eros Station's population is sacrificed to feed the protomolecule experiment on Thoth Station. When Belter forces capture Thoth, Cortazar and the other prisoners are held in a single large room for years, during which he manipulates a fellow prisoner named Brown by feeding him false analysis of the protomolecule data while keeping the true discovery - a stable nonlocality device, essentially a gate - to himself. His gambit ultimately succeeds when a Martian officer recognises his superior understanding, and Cortazar is selected as the prisoner to be traded, beginning a new chapter in service to Mars's study of the ring gates.
POV: Paolo Cortazar·On page: Antony Dresden