It is seven years after the first outbreak of the sweats. Stevie Flint and Magnus McFall have both washed up on the Orkney Islands. A rural community is clinging to survival and a generation of orphans, who barely remember a time before the pandemic, are reaching maturity. Magnus’s foster son Shuggie is fourteen years old and angry. He and his friends blame the adults for the loss of the technological wonders of the past.

When the foster parents of Shug’s girlfriend Misty are found murdered and the young couple vanishes, Magnus fears the worst. He and Stevie set off on a quest into the decaying city of Glasgow and into the heart of a post-apocalyptic world they tried to leave behind.