A novel of family, hope, and perseverance in an uncertain future, for fans of Emily St. John Mandel and Jennifer Egan.

California, 2057. Desalination worker Kiana Olsen is desperate to upload her dying husband' s consciousness to Level Up, the virtual worldbuilding program where their daughter' s avatar resides. But the government has outlawed the necessary technology. When Kiana turns to the black market, she is arrested and jailed. Her daring escape begins an Odyssean journey through the night: a collapsing roof, a virtual sex party, ruthless androids, and a killer on the loose. Even if Kiana finds her way home, how will she summon the strength to leave her old life behind?

Alternating chapters reveal Kiana's ancestral history, which her outlaw mother kept secret from her. A woodland standoff between her great-great-grandfathers in World War 2, her great-grandmother' s escape from Cold War East Berlin, her grandparents' meet cute in an ambulance, and her mother' s own flight from the law.