Author: Thomas J Adkins

== Plot Summary ==

The narrative follows Kimoni, the Head of Security for the powerful XIAN Corporation, who is grappling with severe physical and psychological trauma following a violent, coordinated attack on XIAN’s headquarters. The attack, which resulted in multiple deaths, left Kimoni with a fused arm and fragmented memories of the event.

As Kimoni returns to work, he is pulled into two conflicting investigations. Officially, his boss, XIAN director Alexi Ramanov, tasks him with a clandestine mission to find the “strategist” behind the attack, suspecting a sophisticated enemy used the chaos as a weapon. Unofficially, Kimoni is recruited by Mikayla Chung, Chief of the PIG (Protection and Investigation Group), to investigate a new, weaponised variant of the popular drug Vitalis, which is linked to the perpetrators of the XIAN assault.

His investigation leads him from the gleaming corporate towers of Upper Proxima into the city’s underbelly: the desperate Vitalis addicts of Blue-Slide Park and the lawless, subterranean Lantern District, a sanctuary protected by the “SOS” (Sanctuary of Solace) law. Here, he encounters the disenfranchised, including the “Froths”—convicts marked by lethal “Con-Cuffs”—and the “Skins,” marked by their addiction to Vitalis.

Aided by a Skin named Himari, Kimoni navigates this dangerous world, his search for the truth becoming intertwined with the cases of missing girls and the city’s escalating political tensions.

The story is intercut with the perspective of Creo-Pow, a father whose grief over his missing daughter, Jing-Pow, led him to attack a XIAN official. Now condemned to the Lantern District with a Con-Cuff, his journey illustrates the brutal reality of life for those the city has abandoned.