A brain is, after all is said and done, an interwoven web of electron pathways. From this maze of bio-logic circuitry are manifest the choices and actions by the "self" or what the "self" considers to be morally justified. But in the race to replicate the brain in a computer lab, what might the "self" do if the monetary prize is so high, the time too short, and the consequences of failure too life threatening? Competing for a $30 million prize, a team is developing an unmanned lunar rover that performs well, perhaps even a bit too well. Aerospace writer Midge McConnell becomes suspicious of the hidden technologies behind the rover's performance. Her investigations will take her from Hollywood, to the halls of academia, through the Air Force's Satellite Surveillance Headquarters, onto a lethally guarded Texas research site, inside an exotic lakeside Chinese Traditional Medicine Sanatorium, and to a rocket launch base inside of China.