*36:00:00*

The clock activates so suddenly in my own mind, my mind involuntarily jerks a little aside. The fog vanishes, dissipated in an instant as though it never was. Memories arrive slotting into place, their edges sharp more than enough to leave furrows, and abruptly I know. I am aware who I am.

I am Lia Johansen, and I used to be named to get a prisoner of battle. She resided in the Tiersten Internment Colony for two years, so when they negotiated the come back of the prisoners, I was presented with her memories about Nova and sent back in her place.

And I am a genetically manufactured human bomb.

Lia Johansen was made for only one purpose: to slide onto the strategically positioned New Sol Space Station and explode.

But her mission would go to hell when her clock malfunctions, freezing her countdown with just two minutes to visit. With no Plan B, no thoughts of her former, and no identification besides a name stolen from a dead POW, Lia does not have any idea how to proceed next. Her existence gets a lot more challenging when she fits Michael Sorenson, the real Lia’s childhood closest friend.

Attracted to Michael and his family members against her better wisdom, Lia starts learning what this means to live and like, and to be human. It is only when her countdown clock begins sporadically losing period that she realizes even duds can still inflate.

If she wants any possibility at a future, she must discover a way to unlock the secrets of her past and stop her clock. But simply because Lia digs into her roots, she starts to suspect there’s far more to her objective also to this battle, than meets the eye. With the destiny of not really a space station but an entire empire dangling in the total amount, Lia races to find the truth before her time-literally-runs out.