After failing alien technology has caused a fall of civilization, exposure to it finally produces humans capable of replicating and fixing it. In a struggle to bring together the shards of America, will it be reunification under democracy - the revival of the Union? Or will it be consolidation by conquest, as a tyrant pursues dreams of empire? As war is coming to the remains of the Midwest, the court "wizard" of Rado fights not just for his Governor, but for his dream: a school to train adepts to weave the psionic magic needed to forge a new hybrid infrastructure.