Status Updates From The Hermetic Millennia (Cou...

The discovery of a series of notes -- the antagonist's cliometric studies of the paths the future will take, including critical crises that the protagonist had to intervene in.

The interrogation of a man from one of the earliest eras, with a very early form of implants. Our protagonist is trying to find out who the Blue Men are working for, why they seem so blithe about the consequences of raiding the Tombs and stealing people's belongings, abusing the sleepers and the technology that is supposed to be keeping them safe.

Finally we have some clues to a puzzle from the beginning of this volume -- the destruction of the cities. Runaway nanotech computronium certainly might well lead to the nuclear option.

Our protagonist must redirect the Chimerae so his identity is not revealed.

The game of cat and mouse continues. How long can our protagonist maintain his secret identity, especially when the fast-talker has worked with him before, and is of uncertain alignment? And what are the Blue Men up to? Who's pulling their strings? Are they planning to commit mass murder when they get what they want?

The rest of the story of the fast-talker, including a confrontation between Hermeticists. Our protagonist continues to work on getting into the Tombs, and communicating with the other awakened sleepers.

Our protagonist has another revived sleeper to interrogate. He's from the end of the Chimera era, and refers to himself as one of the Kine, but he talks like a fixer or shyster, promising everything with a smart-ass flair.

Our protagonist recruits two other revived sleepers to get into the Tombs, since he alone can't get around the various defenses for which he no longer has the necessary accesses.

Our protagonist now interrogates a Matriarch of the Nymphs, who started as a rebellion against the eugenics laws of the Chimerae, and ultimately descended into an absurdity of hedonism in which having sex was a way of saying hello. Her story of the duel of the Necromancer and the Judge of the Ages.

Our protagonist discovers that Soorm the Hormangaunt has deceived him, and things are both simpler and more complicated than he'd been led to believe.

The interrogation of one of the Thaws, a genetically engineered troop that only vaguely resembles a human being. His story of loyalty and betrayal, of mentors and battles. A cynical era that makes me think of Larry Niven's Known Space, and particularly the era of the body banks, when easy transplantation reduced far too many human beings into so much raw material.

Our protagonist continues his masquerade as a Chimera (an artificially created military race) in his effort to discover what exactly the Blue Men are up to.

A confrontation with one of the Blue Men, who notices how many languages the protagonist speaks, and how it doesn't quite square with his cover story.

Our hero has been awakened into a frozen world. Much of the biosphere has been destroyed by a meteor that may have been sent by the villain. The Time Tombs are being raided by little blue men. People from a multitude of eons, often the sole survivors of their peoples. Albeit some seem to be almost parodistic, although not quite to the point of straw-man societies.

Our protagonist awakens and is now trying to piece together just what has happened since he last went into biosuspension, and why it's so essential that he be fully awakened, rather than just thawing the brain enough so he can think and communicate.