The Sons of Heaven
Kage Baker
 The novel brings together the various threads begun during previous volumes. It takes place mostly in 24th century, over the final 20 years leading up to the Silence in 2355, the point beyond which the future of the Company is unknown. The Botanist Mendoza, disabled and psychologically scarred by the attempts of the Company to destroy her, is dealing with the three incarnations of her lover, whom she first knew as Nicholas Harpole in the 16th century. Two of them are imprisoned in her cyborg mind, while the third, the Victorian secret agent Edward Alton Bell-Fairfax, has taken over the body of the latest incarnation, Alec Checkerfield. Edward is showing signs of megalomania. The four of them, along with Alec's artificial intelligence known as Captain Morgan, are hiding in the deep past, hundreds of thousands of years before the present. This is to allow them to recover from their trials and mount their own campaign against the company, for which they laid the foundations in The Machine's Child. In the 24th century, Facilitator Joseph, having given up his quest for Mendoza after she disappeared, is putting the fix in again. This time it is on behalf of his own foster-father, the Enforcer Budu, who is intent on destroying the Company in his own way. To do this he will revive the army of Enforcers who have slept in Company bunkers for millennia, like heroes out of legend. Strangely, William Randolph Hearst is a necessary part of this plan, even if Hearst would like to be the hero Roland. Preserver Lewis, after being captured by the strange little humanoids known as Homo umbratilis, is slowly recovering from their attempts to kill him as a way of developing a new way to destroy the Company cyborgs. He finds himself in a situation similar to that in the Arabian Nights: as long as he can keep telling stories, a princess of the little people will bring him food and water so he can repair himself. Fortunately Lewis is a Literature Specialist and knows many stories... Bugleg, the mortal Company scientist encountered in Sky Coyote, is now so afraid of his own creations, the cyborgs, that he allows himself to be persuaded to spread a new poison among them, the result of experimentation on Lewis. His accomplice is a Hybrid, a genius born from both humans and Homo umbratilis. Bugleg himself has some umbratilis in him, it seems. Suleyman, Executive Facilitator for North Africa, and his protégé Latif, continue their efforts to seek out the places where the Company has buried its mistakes, and rescue missing cyborgs such as Lewis and Kalugin. The rival power groups headed by Labienus and Aegeus gather their forces for the final showdown. But things must be done correctly. They face off across the table at the sumptuous Banquet At The End of Time. Preserver Victor, who has realized he is a carrier of deadly diseases, designed to be activated when the Company needs them, creates his own appropriate form of retribution for what was done to him. Above all the Silence looms. After 11 a.m. California time on the 9th of July 2355, there are no more transmissions from the Company to its operatives in the past. As the time approaches, the disruption becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The mortal executives of the Company cower in a bunker, while the different cyborg factions schedule their various assaults on the Company for that time.