"One of the leading global writers of hard science fiction."
—The Innovation Show
"Lerner's world-building and extrapolating are top notch."
—SFScope
Dashiell Hammett meets Andy Weir
The Company Man, lowly accountant for the filthy-richest business in the Belt, has modest aspirations. Air and water not endlessly recycled. Food that had not been freeze dried and rehydrated. A few quiet days at home. And, if he can just figure out how, ripping off the company a bit. Alas, working as he does for evil geniuses, that final ambition seems impossible—until, at the end of an interminable trek among remote company mining asteroids, a mysterious emergency preempts his return flight.
Someone has discovered a flaw in the company's legendary security. If people must die to exploit it? That, apparently, isn't an obstacle. Or even the least of the consequences, in the Belt, elsewhere in the Solar System, and across Earth itself. With the body count rising, even the vast fortunes at stake cease to matter—and only the Company Man has a chance of averting interplanetary disaster.
