The founders of the Awakening understood that if the world is ruled by the young, it is not enough for obsolescence to be planned; it must be enforced. Citizens in the Collective live to explore their passions, desires, and even their depravity. Sonia desires nothing less than a means to escape.

Like all citizens, Sonia lives with a lifeclock embedded in her skin that counts every moment of her life to her 25th birthday, when she must fulfill her Somnus Obligation of mandatory suicide. Those who fail this Obligation are hunted as defectors.

Dante has spent half his life hunting and killing defectors. Ninety-one days before his 25th birthday, he decides to follow his only passion-to learn where defectors go.

With Dante’s guile and Sonia’s cunning, they follow a path through the Collective’s decay, to the very edge of civilization, and learn what, if anything, lies beyond.