Life is good for twenty-two-year-old George Hastings. He has a beautiful girlfriend. He’s just landed a terrific job even though the unemployment rate is near eighty percent. He’s alive and thriving (no small thing for a young black man) in Charlottesville, Virginia, one of the most peaceful cities in the United States of America, a free and prosperous nation ruled by Olivia, its beloved, if somewhat bloodthirsty, hereditary president. Meanwhile, for petite auburn-haired Madison Rose, high school is a blast (even if her teachers are all robots) and graduation will be even greater. The whole world beckons to her and her best friend Heather—anything is possible! But then people around George start getting killed. He suspects a connection with his job, but discovers that he can’t quit—it’s death to try. Next, Madison is abruptly thrown out of school and finds herself hunted by a pack of assassins. As George and Madison plunge deeper into the nightmare that their world has become, their lives aren’t the only things at stake. When the only way to survive is to kill, will they be able to hang onto their humanity?