Seven years after the end of Pan21’s reign, survivors like Helen Small - with their ashen skin and hair and eyes - are singled out, persecuted and vilified as living reminders of all the havoc and pain the virus had inflicted. In the Republic of Texas a power-hungry politician has seized control, preying on people’s fears that the virus has returned and the role that survivors play in that return. Helen is trying to make sense of it all, to uncover the truth, but truth may be as irrelevant as it is malleable. As the Republic falls deeper into a dystopian and totalitarian state Helen Small is hunted as a terrorist. Outside forces aren’t all that conspire against her. Helen is haunted by her own guilt. Why didn’t she die like everyone else? Why did her husband and child perish from Pan21? Why couldn’t she have been with them when they died? How can she find meaning in this new world that fears her and sees her as a pariah? As she struggles to expose the truth she has to learn to overcome her own demons and shortcomings. When she meets Francisco Stiles, an artist from the barrio, he offers her a lifeline and something different. In the barrio, amongst the downtrodden and fringe elements of Republic society, she finds a connectedness and a purpose. She finds family. This is a story of loss and grief, of fear and avarice, the nature of truth and, ultimately, of love.