June 14, 2025 Dear readers, It’s been a slower writing month, at least on the surface. I didn’t get as much time to draft new scenes as I had hoped—but I’ve been working beneath the narrative line. The core goal remains the same: Complete the full first draft of the book 1 by September. In the background, I’ve been focused on the deep structure of Acts 2 and 3, with significant rewiring of narrative flows—especially how emotional and philosophical tensions escalate. The character depth of the...

The storm had rolled in quickly, the rain streaking down the floor-to-ceiling windows of Steenberg’s office in Basel. He had turned off the overhead lights, leaving the room dim except for the soft glow of his desk lamp. The file lay open before him—frustratingly thin, more inference than fact. He exhaled, rolling the cap of his Montblanc pen between his fingers. Alias. He had been the one to coin the name in internal memos, a placeholder for the unknown architect of Pegged. A name that sugge...