The United States is dead and the Democratic Unity killed it. The new republic has inherited the continent but is satisfied to rule from its East Coast citadel, leaving the ravaged outlands to its savages and its strangely altered plants.. The Unity, with its full employment, free healthcare, frequent plebiscites, and ThiZ (the rec-drug of any really civilized society) creates history’s finest Utopia. The Unity mandates workers retire at forty, avoiding the fatigue and error that might confound a society based on innovation, vigor and youth, while the CORE computer guarantee that each citizen is supervised for his/her/its own and the Unity’s welfare. MALILA CHIU, at seventeen years old, is a veteran security officer/soldier on the rise, famous for her cunning and bravery in battle. Her career prospects look rosy until Sunprairie goes dark … again. Pointless vandalism, in the far distant sensor station, threatens to derail her career and Malila does what she must in order to stay on top. Unfortunately, her boss, VIVALAGENTE SUAREZ, aided by EUSTACE JOURDAINE, think otherwise. Caught in her own trap, a demoted Malila faces denunciation and Sapping, (rendering her a brain-dead foot soldier). Her one alternative is to fix the mess herself by entering the outlands, in person. The repairs are going well until she is captured by JESSE JOHNSTONE, a nightmare of an outlander: impossibly old, barbaric, brutal, and disdainful of all things civilized. Humiliating Malila even more, Jesse removes her first implant, preventing her rescue. Despite blizzards, starvation, slavers, her own attempts at escape, and the old man’s rapidly deteriorating health, Jesse delivers her to the Colony … and, now that Malila has come to trust him, abandons her. Interrogated daily by XAVIER DELAROSA while she winters over at a farm owned by SALLY and MOSES STEWERT, Malila is seduced by the cunning wiles of ETHAN, their newborn son, a human Malila had never experienced. During the next four months, Malila learns the truth about herself, Jesse, humanity, and the world both inside and outside her homeland. When a recovered Jesse returns, they once more establish guarded trust in each other. This blossoms into romance until Jesse alienates her with his strange request. Malila misunderstands his intentions and rejects him, just in time to be recaptured by Jourdaine, killing Delarosa and wounding Moses in the process. Now back in the Unity, Malila watches her best friend HECATE JONES come to a similar disillusionment about the Unity after her lover commits suicide. That realization, and the shipwreck of Hecate’s own career prompt her to follow her lover in death. Jourdaine having retrieved Malila merely to prevent her revealing his rôle in her downfall, soon realizes that she may be a useful pawn in his power struggle against General Suarez. Lionized for her pluck and courage, Malila unwittingly helps Jourdaine to realize his goal. However, once successful, Jourdaine realizes that Malila time in the outlands have made her a dangerous commodity; she has become her own woman, no longer pliant to the Unity’s cynical wishes. Concluding that she is now a liability, Jourdaine submits Malila to a task inside the virtual reality of the CORE, which will kill her, drive her insane or leave her morally scarred … and in his power. Fortunately, Malila, helped by her experiences in the outlands, is able to perceive the illusions, her dilemma and her possibility of escape. Malila disables her remaining brain implant, the last connection with the Unity, and fakes her own suicide before starting on the long trip back to the outlands … and to Jesse.