When Helios Came Down

In 1966’s atom-bright dawn, a NATO-funded 'sun machine' meant to end fuel scarcity becomes a runaway star over the Pacific. Its radiant flare awakens a galactic parasite—an invisible, telepathic mote that rides light and invades human thought. Scientists, pilots, and small-town families mirror strangers as civilization frays beneath military orders and mass hysteria. A lone physicist and a clairvoyant nurse race to shut the synthetic core and sever the parasite's light-borne link before Earth is forged into a luminous, thinking hive.