Rose Franklin
Rose is introduced in the Prologue in a first-person narrative account of the events which took place on her eleventh birthday. She went for a ride on her bike and fell into a square-shaped hole the size of a house that had been hiding a giant metal hand. That little girl grows up to become Dr. Rose Franklin, PH.D., senior scientist working for the Enrico Fermi Institute whose life work will be devoted to finding the rest of the body parts spread across the planet that connect to that metal hand.
The Interviewer
The framework of the novel is structured as a series of interviews with significant players in the events which unfold. There is just one interviewer and he is basically a mystery wrapped in an enigma rolled inside a tortilla. Which is to say that while he makes a concerted effort to be inscrutable while projecting a sense of dangerous power, he does occasionally let personal information slip.
Mr. Burns
Mr. Burns is initially introduced as the subject of File No. 230: Interview with Unknown Subject. Actually, he rather quickly suggests the interviewer address him as Mr. Burns. He will later be the subject of File No. 255: Interview with Mr. Burns Occupation Unknown. He alone seems capable of getting under the interview's skin by virtue of knowing personal information about him which he should not know.
Kara Resnick
Technically, Chief Warrant Officer Kara Resnik. She pilots a helicopter for the U.S. Army. To suggest she is a hotshot with an attitude would be flogging a stereotype, but her predictable nature is ultimately redeemed by her unexpected elevation to the role of moral compass. Her role in gathering the sleeping giants eventually leads ethical dilemmas that one more rightly expects will be centered in the character of Rose, the scientist.
