Founded after The Second Phase of the Great Destruction forced the global migration away from the world’s existing cities, Stonehaven has evolved into a socially stratified mega-city where a person’s status is defined solely by their wealth and genetic health.

Now, four centuries after the city’s grounding, fault lines are fracturing the normally harmonious relationships between the leaders of Stonehaven’s governing Council. Tasked with keeping the City’s heavily regulated citizens under control, they now find their ability to maintain their grip on the levers of power threatened not just from within but, for the first time in the City’s history, from external forces as well.

About to start down the path of social Snakes and Ladders that defines the status of every Stonehaven citizen is Zachary Turner, a recent university graduate awaiting his Potential Score from the City’s secretive Analysis and Progression Bureaux.

Forced by the Compatibility Bureau to part ways with his girlfriend, Zach fills the interval between graduation and the start of his career by joining two of his friends on a cruise, where he meets the enigmatic Maximino Balan.

This encounter turns the cruise into a voyage of discovery, revealing a disturbing alternative narrative to the City’s heavily edited history.

The invidiousness of the City’s all-powerful Consigliere Council is fully exposed when Zach is introduced to people and places who’s very existence is kept secret from the City’s population by the obsessively controlling City powers.

Zach’s world is suddenly turned upside down when a quirk of fate results in his very existence becoming an existential threat to those occupying the top Tier of Stonehaven society, leaving him facing a Cohort of Consiglieres who will stop at nothing to safeguard their Principals’ lofty positions on the top Tier of Stonehaven’s Highest Circle.