The Fifth Inflection

What if you've been frozen in stasis for a hundred years for a crime you may or may not have committed?

An impoverished young man, Jagat, is found guilty of murder. For his crime, he is sentenced to the highest form of punishment-the sleep of death for a century, with the promise of revival should his innocence ever be proven.

But his act sparks a bloody conflict in the great city of Peruma, with the Commune, an anarchist collective of workers, revolting against the Council, which has ruled Peruma for four hundred years. Drained by a war without end, Council and Commune negotiate a hundred-year treaty that is to be enforced by an impartial body: the guardians of the Confederation.

And now, a century later, the Charter is a week away from lapsing. Tensions run high in Peruma. As an uncertain future looms, Nila, a young guardian, is approached by a mysterious woman who insists that Jagat's case be reopened before it's too late. Drawn by the prospect of undoing a possible historical injustice at a fraught time, Nila agrees. But as she begins to unearth the past, forces, known and unknown, thwart her at every turn.