Humanity has sixty days to prove it is more than a prediction.

Beneath the Moon’s Shackleton Crater, Commander Elena Reyes’s drill strikes something that should not be there. Her engineer is badly injured. The machinery keeping them alive begins answering to an intelligence that has watched Earth longer than human civilization has existed.

Humanity comes to know it as the Presence. It has studied our wars, our cooperation, and the damage we carry beyond our own planet. Its proposed correction will restore Earth’s biosphere.

Humanity will not survive it.

There is one opportunity to challenge the judgment: sixty days to make a case for our continued existence.

On Earth, systems auditor Elias Vale recognizes the logic of an irreversible decision. Eight years ago, an automated medical system withdrew his sister Clara’s life support before a human reviewer could hear her appeal. Now he and the artificial intelligence Aegis must confront a judgment that encompasses everyone. And they cannot honestly dismiss the evidence against humanity.

As infrastructure fails and governments fight over who has the right to speak for the species, Elena and her injured engineer struggle to keep humanity’s fragile connection to the Presence alive. On Earth, the people preparing a defense are already struggling to protect those they love.

But showing that humanity can be compassionate will not be enough. The Presence has seen our kindness. It has included it in the calculation.

The Human Anomaly is a hard science-fiction novel of first contact, planetary catastrophe, and the struggle to defend imperfect lives against a judgment that leaves no room for another chance.