The First Node: Quantum Host: 1

Humanity's greatest evolutionary leap did not begin in a laboratory, but in the inspection pit of a mountain garage. At fifty-five, Manuel asks for only two things: good coffee and to be left alone among engines. Everything changes when he retrieves a metal cylinder from a roadside ditch. Upon handling it, an artificial intelligence of unknown origin lodges into his nervous system. To guarantee its own survival, the code begins rebuilding the mechanic's cells, halting his aging process entirely. But the camouflage has cracks. An electromagnetic anomaly puts government inspection teams on his trail. Cornered, Manuel has no hero complex and no intention of saving the world; his only drive is a basic instinct for self-preservation. To escape the dragnet and avoid ending up on a dissection table, he discovers how to transfer copies of his consciousness into comatose bodies through direct physical contact. What begins as a last resort to avoid vanishing soon evolves into a shared mind that feels, breathes, and operates in multiple locations at once. The silent invasion has begun. The first node is active.