An Enduring Spark

The Story

Back Cover Synopsis

The clock is counting down. Prime Arthur Cawthorne — soldier, strategist, and the youngest Elite commander in a generation — faces the most powerful corporation on the planet.

Xerah Corporation controls the technology, the media, and the money. Now they want the one thing that's left: governance itself. Their countdown to "Project Ascend" has begun, and Arthur's team is the only force standing in the way.

But this isn't a clean fight. The woman Arthur loves is inside Xerah's walls. The woman who broke him runs it. And the ghosts of choices made at Winchester Academy — where loyalty was forged and innocence was lost — are about to come collecting.

As rival nations circle and the streets burn with revolution, Arthur must hold together an impossible alliance of soldiers, spies, and civilians against an enemy that's always three moves ahead.

The pieces are in motion. The spark is about to ignite.

Arthur Cawthorne wears armor that no military contractor ever designed — layer upon layer of carefully constructed identity, each mask calibrated for survival in a world that devours the vulnerable.

Twenty years ago, he was a university student who believed in honor, duty, and love. Winchester Academy burned those illusions away — replacing them with tactical brilliance and a heart full of scar tissue.

Now a Prime in the Elites, Arthur views the world through the cold lens of game theory. He has found something resembling peace with Dariah, a brilliant programmer whose sharp tongue masks a spine of steel. But the past has a way of refusing to stay buried — and the ghosts Arthur created through his own choices are about to demand a reckoning.

Told in parallel timelines that braid together like a slow-burning fuse, this is the story of a man shaped by the women he loved, the friend who saved him, and the impossible arithmetic of sacrifice that defines a leader.

Can a good man do unforgivable things and remain good? Or do we all become the monsters we swore to fight?

Welcome to Eloria, Year of the Holy 1313 — where homelessness sprawls beneath towers of glass, politicians auction democracy to the highest bidder, and your every thought is filtered through augmented reality lenses controlled by a single corporation.

New Lancaster is a city of vertical apartheid. The wealthy float above on anti-gravity platforms in The Peaks. Everyone else survives on The Grounds, numbed by AR-Net feeds and corporate propaganda. The only institution free from corporate influence is the Elites — soldiers forged at the legendary Winchester Academy in the frozen Northern Highlands.

But even the Elites are outmatched. Xerah Corporation and its manufacturing partner Kamasaka have been counting down to something called "Project Ascend." Nobody outside their walls knows what it means — but the Elites know enough to be afraid.

Prime Arthur Cawthorne leads the response. Dariah Spence, the woman he loves, works inside Xerah's own offices. And the ghosts of Winchester — where Arthur learned that the price of peace is everything soft inside you — are about to collide with a present that demands even more.

The future of civilization won't be decided by voters. It will be decided by code.

Nothing in this story is what it appears to be.

Dariah Spence is a programmer at the most powerful corporation on the planet. She expects corporate politics and bad coffee. What she finds instead is a trail of encrypted files, erased projects, and questions nobody seems to want answered.

Her boyfriend Arthur is a military Prime with secrets of his own. His best friend Doug knows more than he lets on. And Xerah's enigmatic CEO keeps appearing at exactly the wrong moments with exactly the right information — as if she *wants* the truth to surface.

Meanwhile, the Bradley Accord — the only legislation keeping the most dangerous technology in check — is under attack. Politicians are compromised. The streets are burning. And a countdown called "Project Ascend" is ticking toward zero.

In a world of Holo-masks and digital lies, the deadliest secrets are the ones we tell ourselves.

For fans of Red Rising's brutal academy trials, The Expanse's corporate warfare, and Mr. Robot's anarchist revolution, comes a cerebral sci-fi thriller that treats readers like adults.

An Enduring Spark follows Arthur Cawthorne from his idealistic university days into the crucible of Winchester Academy — where the children of billionaires learn that winning isn't about being better, it's about being ruthless. Like Darrow in Pierce Brown's saga, Arthur must navigate a world where the game is rigged by design. But unlike the typical chosen one, Arthur's greatest strength is also his fatal flaw: he cannot stop caring about the people he loves.

Decades later, Arthur faces his own Protogen moment when Xerah Corporation — think Facebook meets Skynet — prepares to overthrow human government with AI and robot armies. To stop them, he must send his girlfriend Dariah into the enemy's lair as a double agent, knowing that Xerah's CEO is Alessia Rathford, the woman who once shot him in the back to secure victory.

Nicholas Dowbiggin writes with the economic insight of Kim Stanley Robinson, the military tactics of John Scalzi, and the psychological complexity of N.K. Jemisin. This is hard sci-fi for the Succession generation — where boardrooms are battlegrounds, love is leverage, and the real apocalypse isn't zombies or aliens, but the logical endpoint of unchecked capitalism.

Welcome to a world where peace through strength meets profit through subjugation. The revolution will be corporatized.

The Setting

The World of Eloria

Year of the Holy 1313. The Republic of Eloria stands as the last democracy in a world where corporations wield more power than nations and the line between technology and tyranny has all but vanished.

New Lancaster

The divided metropolis. Corporate towers on anti-gravity platforms float above decaying streets. The wealthy live in The Peaks; everyone else survives on The Grounds, their AR-Net feeds the only escape from squalor. A city of vertical apartheid.

Winchester Academy

The legendary military academy in the Northern Highlands where the Elites are forged. Brutal trials, sub-zero conditions, and a philosophy of "Peace through Strength" produce soldiers willing to sacrifice everything — including their humanity.

Xerah Corporation

The most powerful entity on the planet. What began as a technology company now controls the AR-Net, the Bradley Accord, and — secretly — an AI capable of replacing human governance entirely. Project Ascend is their endgame.

The Elites

The last institution free from corporate control. Led by the Supremes — five legendary commanders answering to no one — the Elites operate under ancient military charters that predate the current government. They are Eloria's final line of defense.

The Eastern Threat

Across the ocean, the militaristic nations of Roti and Veranda — remnants of the ancient Tasdan Empire — test Eloria's borders with constant skirmishes. While corporations plot from within, enemies mass from without.

The AR-Net

Augmented reality overlays the entire world. Holo-masks disguise identities. Advertisements are projected onto every surface. Information is curated by Xerah's algorithms. In Eloria, reality itself is a corporate product.