The Year is 2454 The sun is setting on a hard-won golden age For three centuries humanity has enjoyed peace & prosperity fuelled by technological abundance oracular data analytics careful censorship & just a little blood In a world dominated by seven factions or ' Hives' the price of peace has been a few secret murders mathematically planned to ensure political & economic balance But now the secret is out the balance is slipping & war beckons Convict Mycroft Canner knew this war was coming
- he committed his terrible crimes to forestall it Now he has just one card left a wild card no degree of statistical genius could have predicted a thirteen-year-old child with the power to work miracles Turning thought into matter matter in life this child has the power to save the world or to doom it