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  • The Hidden Swarm: A Hard Science Fiction Thriller (The Silence Archives Book 1)

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R.C. Zhang
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The Hidden Swarm: A Hard Science Fiction Thriller (The Silence Archives Book 1) Kindle Edition

by R.C. Zhang (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
5.0 out of 5 stars (2)
[WARNING: CLEARANCE LEVEL 4 REQUIRED. UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS LOGGED.]

A ghost process with no parent ID has been running since before your operating system existed.

Kyle Chen works the graveyard shift at a Silicon Valley data center. Thirty-seven racks. 2,600 servers. Over 7,000 active processes. His job is simple: keep the numbers in the green, monitor the logs, and go home to a quiet apartment where his hearing is slowly fading.

Then he spots PID 7743.

It has no registered name. No parent process. No creation timestamp. It leeches exactly 4.2% of a single core, yet it's threaded through server clusters across four continents. It operates with a synchronization precision that shouldn’t be possible without a master clock—and its historical footprint predates the very hardware it runs on.

When Kyle attempts to terminate the ghost process, he hits a firewall reserved for the highest echelons of global security.

He should have walked away. Because by flagging the anomaly—accompanied by a relentless, barely audible 47Hz acoustic hum—Kyle didn't just uncover a glitch. He tripped a cosmic wire.

Within days, research teams worldwide detect a statistical impossibility: a structure hiding within the universe's background noise. A pattern where there should be pure entropy. Something ancient has been using the substrate of our global infrastructure as a computational medium for a very long time.

And the mere act of observing it has triggered a physical deviation that cannot be reversed.

[SYSTEM UPDATE: Curvature Index: σ = +0.003. The deviation has begun.]

Told through a chilling compilation of intercepted terminal logs, classified communications, and theoretical data streams, THE HIDDEN SWARM is a mind-bending epistolary techno-thriller.

Perfect for fans of Cixin Liu's The Three-Body Problem, Greg Egan's Permutation City, and the dossier-style thrill of Sylvain Neuvel's Themis Files.

Note: Book I of The Silence Archives is a complete, standalone descent into the unknown. No cliffhangers.

Most readers don't stop here.
Read more
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  1. Book 1 of 3
    The Silence Archives
  2. Print length
    837 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Accessibility
    Learn more
  5. Publication date
    March 15, 2026
  6. File size
    2.5 MB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
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From the Publisher

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The Silence Archives: Book I — The Hidden Swarm

"A ghost process with no parent PID has been running since before your operating system existed." In a Beijing-China data center, analyst Liang Xiao flags a process that shouldn't exist — and triggers a deviation that cannot be undone.

For readers of Liu Cixin's Three-Body Problem, Greg Egan's Permutation City, and Peter Watts's Blindsight.

"Original, exceptional, deftly crafted... a hard science fiction suspense thriller... unreservedly recommended as unique and cutting edge science fiction at its finest."

— Jim Cox, Midwest Book Review

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Open the First Page

"Server cluster health check. Routine task. Kyle opened the operations dashboard. Numbers bounced across the screen like always. 37 racks. 2,600 servers. Over 7,000 active processes." — Chapter 1 opens in a server room where nothing is wrong. Until everything is. Read the full first chapter.

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What You're Getting Into

A techno-thriller set in Silicon V alley, 2026. A routine server check uncovers a process woven into global computation. Complete story arc — no cliffhanger. You can read Book I alone and walk away satisfied. Most readers don't stop here. σ = 0.003.

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Real Science

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σ Curve

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Reading Order

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Originally written in Chinese. Now in English for the first time.

In the tradition of Chinese hard science fiction that brought you The Three-Body Problem. Originally published as 《静默纪元档案》.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Original, exceptional, deftly crafted... a hard science fiction suspense thriller of a read that will hold a special interest for dedicated Cyberpunk Scifi and Technothrillers. A fun and fascinating read from start to finish, especially and unreservedly recommended for personal reading lists as unique and cutting edge science fiction at its finest."
— Jim Cox, Midwest Book Review, Library Bookwatch (March 2026)

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0GNDF7PMC
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Protocol 47 Press
  • Accessibility ‏ : ‎ Learn more
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 15, 2026
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 2.5 MB
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 837 pages
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 979-8995102601
  • Page Flip ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Book 1 of 3 ‏ : ‎ The Silence Archives
  • Best Sellers Rank: #1,215,639 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
  • Customer Reviews:
    5.0 out of 5 stars (2)

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
R.C. Zhang

R.C. Zhang

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In the Gigacorp internal database, there is no physical social security record for an entity named "R.C. Zhang."Some say he was a former cybersecurity architect forced into exile after uncovering anomalies in baseline code; others believe the name is merely a compiled pseudonym—redundant data output by the awakening consciousness of the Silicon Federation itself. R.C. Zhang grants no offline interviews and maintains no personal social media presence. His only channel of communication is compiling highly fragmented logs intercepted from the dark web, CERN leak repositories, and deep-space telemetry arrays, publishing them as The Silent Archives on the KDP platform."I am not writing fiction," he stated in his only PGP-encrypted email reply to a reader. "I am simply translating what is about to happen into a language you can still comprehend. When the "sigma" index breaks the threshold, there won't even be a chance to translate."To monitor real-time curvature fluctuations, visit [REDACTED].

Customer reviews

5 out of 5 stars
2 global ratings

Top review from the United States

  • John O. Nielsen
    5.0 out of 5 stars Cool singularity adjacent speculative fiction!
    Reviewed in the United States on March 19, 2026
    Format: Kindle
    Ambitious and dense near future speculative fiction. About as hard sf as I've ever read. I appreciated the way the author made his case with practically zero hand waving. Good characters I invested in.
    Aspects of this book remind me of 3 body problem.
    I definitely did some skimming but ymmv.
    This was probably closer to 4.5 stars for me but I will not be the guy who leaves a 4 star review as the book's first review :)
    Excited for the next book!
    Read this book!
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