A city that exists in a world beyond governments, where war and climate change have destroyed the old order. Corporations are now the authorities of the surviving city states. The elite live in luxury above the clouds in their towers, everyone else lives further down, based on their corporate and economic worth.

Brian Baldwin thought his best years were behind him... Failed game designer Brian Baldwin has lost his career at Ronin games. He spends his days seeking temp work while stuck living off stale pizza, plugged into his game console. But... When he gets a temp job at Defense company Kirkman Enterprises, he volunteers for an immersive Artificial Intelligence Virtual Reality experiment to be programmed with Black Belt fighting skills from 47 different martial arts. He goes from a total klutz to a real-life action hero! Framed for a crime he didn't commit, he transforms into an international target of assassins, international spies, Triad gangsters, Military Special Forces and even the FBI.

For Harlow, a young widower who’s turned his back on the tech life, gigging at a retirement home and his friend’s arcade are just means of supporting his meager life… as he waits for it to end. The world is f*d. Sure, there are bright spots. For instance, Neuroreality has become a necessary outlet for people’s frustrations and desires. But when Harlow’s neighborly concern makes him open the broken door of Rose’s apartment — where he finds her lying, unresponsive in her tricked-out dentistry chair — he has no idea what he’s just joined. Her guttural scream, as she returns from a hack-induced coma, marks the start of a partnership to hunt down the culprit, and drags Harlow back to his old life. Along their journey, Harlow and Rose stumble on two massive conspiracies: one by a mysterious being set to save humanity from itself, the other a megacorporation steering humanity for its own means. As they navigate these conflicting forces, it becomes increasingly apparent that both are deeply personal for Harlow.