The new novel from the bestselling author of Out of the Black!
The year is 2119: Ash lives in a dead, hollow world. She is one of the few survivors of an apocalyptic plague called "The Palsy" that decimated the world almost a hundred years ago. The few remaining humans live out their empty days in withered bodies, unable to taste or smell and barely able to feel. They live in a permanent hospice, watched over by mechanical caretakers called Clerics. Like everyone else, Ash has amnesia. She remembers nothing before her last catastrophic seizure four years ago.
In 2119, the only thing to do besides slouch toward the wheelchair and then the grave, is to enter "The Hallowed World", an immersive virtual reality game run by the Clerics. In the Hallowed world, four-person teams of soldiers compete to complete missions and rise to the top of the leaderboards. Ash is a Phenom in "The Hallow", the best player on the best team in the league. She is a living legend in a dying world.
The year is 2020: Jo has her whole life ahead of her, but only darkness behind her--complete amnesia from a car crash that left her in a coma three years ago. Now Jo works in a preschool, has a perfect boyfriend, a caring therapist, and a crushing inferiority complex. But as Jo tries to uncover her past, she realizes that her past is hunting her. Both on the streets of Chicago and in her dreams, strangely familiar threats are stalking ever closer, alternately tantalizing and terrifying her.
Then, the mission: The Clerics come to Ash with a new mission and a shocking secret that will set Jo and Ash on a collision course across time. Together, they will either save the world, or end it.
But nothing is as it seems. Nothing. No one, no why, no when.