In this Gormenghastian world the Factory is the law – but that does not mean justice. The Gargantuan factory of Gleam has seen a millennia of decreasing population. Now the central district is fully inhabited and operational; the outskirts have been left for the wilderness to reclaim. This decaying, lawless zone is the Discard; the home of Wild Alan. He’s convinced that the Gleam authorities were behind the disaster that killed his parents and his ambition is to prove it. But he’ll uncover more secrets than he bargained for.

Desperate to cure his son Billy of the disease Idle Hands, Wild Alan must find a way back into the Pyramid from which he was exiled. But, trapped in the barren wasteland that is the Discard - the area surrounding the Pyramid - there isn't much he can do alone. Bloody Nora, the mapmaker, has her own reasons for wanting to get into the Pyramid; she believes that the secrets of Gleam's history can be found in the Pyramid's vaults. And she has worked with Wild Alan before. There are more secrets there than either imagined: those vaults hold the key to destroying the Pyramid's tyranny, but saving Billy and uniting the Discard against the Pyramidders is going to be far from straightforward.