werkmeister

173 years ago, the world was changed by Project Pluto. Led by the Russian scientist Ansel Wiseman, Pluto was a secret nuclear project built around the unusual behavior of Xenon-135 inside an extremely powerful reactor system. Officially, the project was part of a revolutionary attempt to develop a new form of nuclear technology. But its true purpose was far more dangerous. When the reactor's behavior suddenly escaped prediction, power and temperature surged beyond control. The resulting catastrophe destroyed the facility, consumed most of the project, and scattered the truth behind what had happened. Then came the contamination. Cesium and other radioactive materials entered the environment and the global food chain. A contaminated luxury food product unknowingly carried the disaster across the world, contributing to a catastrophe that eventually killed roughly sixty percent of humanity. Yet Pluto did not truly end with the explosion. 173 years later, the world still lives with its consequences. Radiation remains in the land. Resources are rationed. Families have been broken apart, and even those who survived are never certain how long they have left. Among them is Hadiel, a sixteen-year-old boy who has grown up in this damaged world without ever accepting it as normal. Fascinated by science, history, and philosophy, he spends much of his life trying to understand the past. Then, inside an old school library, he finds a book. Its name is Werkmeister. The book appears to describe a forgotten science—something called harmony, a principle capable of making things that should be completely different exist as though they were one. The deeper Hadiel reads, the less sense the book makes. And when the traces of Pluto begin to connect with what he finds inside Werkmeister, he is forced to confront a possibility that should have remained buried with the old world: The catastrophe of 173 years ago may not have been the end of Project Pluto. It may have been its beginning.