Mal Turner is used to being in control. She is a top Agent for Axiom, the most powerful Collective in both worlds: the Meatspace, or the "real world," and the virtual Aetherium, a digital mindscape serving as humanity’s hyper-vivid escape, playground, and battlefield. Her latest deep-cover mission - to infiltrate a faction of Nanomei operatives - threatens everything she has worked to create in both worlds. To make matters worse, she must return to the city of her childhood and face the painful and complicated memories from her time before transitioning into her female self. As Mal confronts her past, and faces the truth of her present, it becomes clear to her that this assignment is much more than it seems. In the Aetherium, Mal can bend digital reality to her will, but this mission plunges her headlong into a conflict where more and more variables slip through her fingers - the stability of both worlds waits in the balance.