A rare, searing portrayal of the future of climate change in South Asia. A streetrat turned revolutionary and the disillusioned hacker son of a politician try to take down a ruthlessly technocratic government that sacrifices its poorest citizens to build its utopia. The South Asian Province is split in two. Uplanders lead luxurious lives inside a climate-controlled biodome, dependent on technology and gene therapy to keep them healthy and youthful forever. Outside, the poor and forgotten scrape by with discarded black-market robotics, a society of poverty-stricken cyborgs struggling to survive in slums threatened by rising sea levels, unbreathable air, and deadly superbugs. Ashiva works for the Red Hand, an underground network of revolutionaries fighting the government, which is run by a merciless computer algorithm that dictates every citizen’s fate. She’s a smuggler with the best robotic arm and cybernetic enhancements the slums can offer, and her cargo includes the most vulnerable of the city’s abandoned children. When Ashiva crosses paths with the brilliant hacker Riz-Ali, a privileged Uplander who finds himself embroiled in the Red Hand’s dangerous activities, they uncover a horrifying conspiracy that the government will do anything to bury. From armed guardians kidnapping children to massive robots flattening the slums, to a pandemic that threatens to sweep through the city like wildfire, Ashiva and Riz-Ali will have to put aside their differences in order to fight the system and save the communities they love from destruction.

The South Asian Province's secret prison has been destroyed and its leaders are on trial. But the Red Hand is more endangered than ever. The Planetary Alliance Commission has branded them public enemy number one and is determined to root their remaining forces out of their Himalayan base, even as the pandemic rages on in the province. Ashiva, armed with a new bionic upgrade, leads a team back into the fray to track down a mysterious beacon that may well be a trap. Synch helps lock down and evacuate their mountain stronghold. Taru discovers a precious resource that everyone—especially the PAC—is desperate to control. And the PAC is all too willing to sacrifice an entire province to achieve their optimal results. Ashiva, Synch, and Taru must save their homeland before its entire population is sacrificed for the greater planetary good.