The "reality dysfunction" is a break in the fabric of time that allows the dead to return by possessing the bodies of the living. As more and more star systems fall to the possessed, the Confederation starts to collapse economically and politically. With the human race now in imminent danger, Quinn Dexter plots the Final Night -- from which humanity will never recover. But on the far side of the Orion Nebula, an alien god may hold the solution to the crisis...if only Joshua and Syrinx can discover it before it's too late.