In 2035, Dr. Janet Hogan makes a stunning discovery: infected by five species of naturally-mutated viruses, every one of earth’s nine billion inhabitants has become immortal. Or have they? By the time Janet learns that this immortality is an illusion, it’s too late to change people’s beliefs. Some love her for creating this miracle and the coming paradise they long for. Others hate her for what they see ahead: immoral behavior without consequence, overpopulation, famine, and worse. Zealots demand that she save people’s souls, humanity, the earth… or the viruses. Or else. Janet realizes this awful truth: no matter what she does, no matter what anyone else wants, sooner or later, billions will die and she’ll be blamed. Will she live long enough to figure a way out of this trap? Meanwhile, the viruses are still mutating.

Dr. Janet Hogan believes in late 2035 that she’s found a partial cure for the Eternity Plague viruses, but before she can test her idea, an assassin shoots her in the head. While she’s in emergency surgery, her medical team discovers that her skin is turning into a shell. It closes over her face the next day, leaving her no way to breathe. Or eat. And yet, she survives. Janet isn’t the first to chrysalize. Or the last. Initially, only the seriously injured chrysalize, but then even healthy people all around the world do. By New Year’s Day, 2036, the pandemic seems unstoppable. Yet not everyone chrysalizes. A group of survivors huddle at Reverend Will Baxter’s church in Raleigh, North Carolina. Led by Baxter, reporter Lisa Lange, and former safety lobbyist Sarah Green-Dale, they struggle to survive as society collapses. Will they live long enough to find out what will emerge from the chrysalises? And what will happen then?

Web reporter Lisa Lange chrysalized in late 2036. Four months later, she’s hatched and the world is about to learn how different Gen2s like her are from the New People of the first chrysalization wave. Their telempathic powers are far stronger than the New People’s, mysterious, and seemingly uncontrollable. They can do great harm. Or—sometimes—great good. And the Gen2 might never know what they did. The Eternity Plague viruses have disappeared, too, their DNA incorporated into the human genome. Now it’s even harder for Janet Hogan and her team of geneticists to find a cure. Janet’s running out of time. The viral DNA is mutating faster and faster. The human forces arrayed against her are growing stronger. Her one chance to save humanity may mean breaking the rules she’s always believed in. Can she do it? Will she? And will even that be enough?