MALILA CHIU is trying to escape the prison-state known as the DEMOCRATIC UNITY; she evades capture, meets the Higginses, (who run the beltways) and is re-united with HECATE JONES, a childhood friend she thought dead. They must travel unobserved to where the Rampart, the nation’s security wall, touches the Savannah River in Georgia, its weakest link. Hecate has made her own way from Nyork, avoiding the ghoul-like SUGAR, old friends-turned traitors, and the might of the Unity. After crossing Delawear Bay she is found, half-dead by WILLIAM YEATS BUTLER (Will, code name RUPERT), the first American spy able to infiltrate the CORE, in its total reality (both “Inside” and “outside”). Nursed back to health, Hecate abandons Will to protect his identity. Unknown to Malila, Colonel, now, GENERAL EUSTACE JOURDAINE has become convinced that Malila still lives and starts an unrelenting pursuit of her. This serves Jourdaine’s purposes well as he has persuaded the Unity leaders to back an invasion of Aytlana, the capital of Jorga, in late summer. Using his CORE Presence, Jourdaine the ability to use the CORE as an unlimited construct and sets in motion his plan at a stealth coup d’ etat, leaving Jourdaine its soul master. Jourdaine’s presence, a virtual entity named Cain, alone for ages within the CORE, finds evidence of another personality, something it had never experienced before. The entities are Frog, Will’s rapidly-becoming-sentient interface, and Edie, Malila’s discarded metaphract, who is slowly deteriorating because of Malila’s abandonment. Once they meet, they determine that although their “riders” would love nothing more than to kill each other, the entities have more in common with each other. To save Edie, the three each mirror themselves into a new sort of computer entity, EffieCee (FEC), a braided amalgam of themselves. Once Malila and Hecate have been reunited, they try to make their escape via the underground anti-belts to reach America. They learn they are being stalked by a lurching grotesque figure. Tracking the creature to its lair, they attack and succeed only in an armed stalemate. Discovering the creature is an injured Will Butler, trying to regain the safety of his home territory, they combine forces. With access to an auto-doc, Will is treated and improves greatly. The three travel together and eventually make their way to the border. Here Will declares that he and Hecate are in love and, since he is now well enough to travel, will remain in the Unity as spies. Alone Malila enters Jorga, a province of the Outlands and captured at the border by Jourdaine. JESSE JOHNSON, Malila’s one-time captor and now estranged friend is the first man to have a life expectancy of over one-hundred seventy years, has left eastern Kentucky and is now in Saint Louis, after visiting with an old friend-enemy, Speaker, a sentient plant of the Scorch. Speaker believes the Unity is sick and dying. It takes little imagination to realize that the one nation the Unity will attempt to conquer to avoid its demise is America. At the headquarters for Colonial Logistics (the military department for the frontier). Jesse shares his concerns about Malila’s recapture and a possible invasion by the Unity with his commander, GENERAL GAGE THOMAS. Jesse reveals that he replaced Malila’s implant with one of his own design, allowing Jesse to track her. Jesse has old enemies. The Synthesis, a secret organization who believes Ageplay to be an obstruction to their political goal to surrender America to the Unity for reunification, make a good attempt to assassinate Jesse. He survives. General Gage, to protect hime, sends Jesse as an observer for the launch of the RSAN Illionois, a new stealth air-ship, one of a fleet of advanced rigid airships with adaptive technology. While aboard, Jesse discovers that he is still surrounded by people who are not as they seem. He avoids another assassination only with courage, guile and the help of JAKE STEINER. While on its maiden voyage, the Illinois, discovers the first evidence that Malila Chiu has reentered the Outlands. Jesse leaves the Illinois to arrange to meet malila and escort her to General Thomas. Even as he is arranging the expedition into the deep Scorch, Malila is captured at the border by Jourdaine. Gloating over her capture, Malila reveals she know about his scheme to become the sole ruler of the Unity even as she is releasing on of Will’s information trackers into the Savannah River to inform American intelligence of the facts. Jourdaine, distressed that Malila is no longer compliant and submissive, handcuffs her and throw her into one skimmer as he takes another one to return to his headquarters through the Southern Gate in the Rampart. They never make it. Both skimmers are struck from the sky by the Illinois, using it CBP apparatus, funneling supercooled high-altitude air to ground level. The Jourdaine’s skimmer crashes on land and all are presumed dead. The skimmer Malila is riding in fares no better. Bound and disoriented, she is rescued by a mysterious agent, Splanch, one of the sentient plants of the Scorch. He has a proposition for her.