In England, as machines and automation conquer more of the working world, the country makes an exodus to the only place where it's still possible to get work. London grows, exploding upward with the help of cheap robot labour and ingenious software systems. The skyscrapers of the new city devour all but the most precious of the old.
With most of the population living on subsidies and a world becoming ever more automated, London in 2035 is the center of the western world and a place where the glittering high-tech future lives side by side with the discontent of a generation of kids who feel there's nothing left to look forward to.
Howard's son Earl has taken something that doesn't belong to him, and a cyborg former soldier says she's going to kill him if he doesn't give it back.
To protect his son Howard needs to travel into Earl's world, a world of gangs and violence in the abandoned backstreets of London. This is a world he doesn't understand, doesn't trust, and wants nothing to do with.
Angel, a gamer who interacts with the real world only through his avatar, offers to help, though he has his own reasons. Working together they need to track down Howard's son while avoiding the cyborg, street gangs, the king of a new kind of kingdom, and Earl's own friends.
At the center of it all is Hil, a child of the Forty-Seven Kingdoms. Someone messed with her head and turned her into a weapon. Now, with her mind splintered and the city after her, she needs to piece herself back together and remember