The empire runs on precision.

Conspiracy runs on chaos.

When a revolutionary new mechanical computing system is installed in St. Louis, the heart of the North American Empire, engineer Patrick McNeel and Imperial official Martin David expect gears, punch cards, and bureaucratic headaches. What they don’t expect is sabotage.

A bungled train robbery. Missing guards. A vanished mathematician. A trail of quiet murders. As the machine is assembled piece by piece, someone is dismantling the Empire just as methodically using misdirection, fear, and bloodshed to draw Imperial forces away from where they’re truly needed.

What begins as a technical project becomes a deadly game of misdirection, pitting innovators against insurgents, and exposing cracks in the political machinery holding an entire continent together. As the Imperial Watch and shadowy intelligence agencies scramble for answers, McNeel and David uncover a truth more dangerous than any broken gear: The machine was never the real target.

An alternate-history thriller of steam, steel, and subversion, Gears of Conspiracy explores how easily the mechanisms of power can be turned and what happens when they break.