Every neon-stained gray dawn on Praeceps reveals the body of another ‘impossible person' floating face down in the drainage canals. That could change, but first a man must fall in love with a machine. On Praeceps the rain never ends. There are no crimes because there is no law. The Syndicate controls Precip City with a brutal security force made up of off-world mercenaries the locals call Toads and they call SynSec. Under their watch, even possible people have no rights or recourse. Sancho Panza Borkman grew up here and hated it enough to leave the first chance he had, but returned to help his aging father. To make ends meet, he took a job working for the one force strong enough to bring down the Syndicate, the Galactic Consortium. One year ago, the Galactic Consortium sent its latest machine mind, Garde T-31, to Praeceps to validate the need for GC administered rule of law. The people and the crimes against them began to get counted. Then the anomalies started. Rain stops falling. Praeceps goes silent. Constructed minds die. Panza must find the source of the anomalies before T-31 is destroyed or watch his home world and the GC fall to a corrupt force now capable of destroying the machine minds that bring justice and order to the galaxy.