Protecting his family isn’t easy for Starke Coven. Miles below the surface of an inhospitable earth and struggling to make ends meet in a heartless society, Starke works his legal maintenance job during the day, runs contraband through the dangerous underbelly of the city during the nights, and struggles to manage a depressed mother and fatherless younger brother at home.

When Menrva, a geneticist in the subterranean city of survivors known as Bunker, responds to a call for help from Cowl, her former best friend, and Bas, a renegade cyborg, she makes a vital mistake and places all three of them in danger. As they struggle to escape City guards, cyborg soldiers, desperate scavengers, and ravenous aliens, they find in each other something they never expected: family.

With everyone he cares about either dead or long absent, Cowl Coven has lost interest in life. Despite the endless distractions of a high-profile job as a programmer in the Hub and nightly runs into the chasm below for the black market, he still finds himself looking for a way out. When a hacked piece of data reveals what seems to be human life on the desolate, alien-infested surface of Earth, he thinks he might have just found it.