In a divided future were the social order is enforced by an intra-dermal ID chip, the only way seventeen-year-old slum-born thief, Cassius, can keep above throttling poverty in the Crates and earn enough to fix his sick little sister, is a generous bid on his auction day for fertility conscription.
Dragged along on her sister’s auction day, his privileged opposite, Joebi, just wants to avoid an event she views as barbaric, having opposed the Chattel Contract her whole life. Imagine her embarrassment, when in a rare impulsive act, she saves Cas from vengeful gangers and certain imprisonment by bidding on him. Now Joebi’s bought a boy, whatever will she do with him? Such mismatched unions always fail.
But this catastrophe − binding a straight-laced loner to a charismatic, streetwise Crater − is just the beginning of their troubles. And Joebi has a secret, the unravelling of which threatens to expose a plan set in motion centuries before that will hasten the end of the dying world. Racing from opulence to his desperate shantytown, where the environment is as deadly as its residents, survival depends on Cas and Joebi overcoming their differences and fighting together to uphold a system they despise. Or witness the passing of humanity and all they love.