April 2119: in the RéserveNaturelle de l'Auvergne, a dog walker makes a gruesome discovery - a badly decomposed body, half buried under a landslide. In that moment of horror, she sets in motion a chain of events that will bring catastrophe in their wake. Three hundred miles away, a bi-level city towers above the wastelands of Provence. This is Creo, a permanent relocation center for the dispossessed of a planet where livable space is at a premium. In the dark, honeycomb districts of the lower city, CreoBasse, Danae Grant nurses the sort of secret that can get a person killed, while Boston Turrow lives a little life and plans for a better future--maybe even a job where nobody punches him. CreoBasse is not the land of happy-ever-afters, so, when they find themselves unexpectedly thrown together, neither one of them is prepared for the strength of their connection. But a critical mass is simmering in the streets of the lower city. It started with the closing of the city gates and the gradual, insidious buildup of CDC operatives. In a city of almost 100 million people, shut off from the sunlight and fed air through ancient filters, they've seen this sort of thing before--but this is different. The night that Boston and Danae fall in love, martial law is declared. The city is dying, and no one knows how to stop it. Except... Danae thinks she might have an idea. The secret she has been holding onto for so long may well be the key to ending the new plague, a pestilence that nothing else can stop. But stepping forward is tantamount to suicide. And then Boston begins to cough. Danae is going to have to make a choice: what will she give up to save the one glorious thing in an inglorious life?