Natch has just won his first battle with the Defense and Wellness Council for control of MultiReal technology. But now the Council has unleashed the ruthless cunning of Lieutenant Executive Magan Kai Lee. Lee decides that if Natch's company can't be destroyed from without, it must be destroyed from within.

As black code continues to eat away at Natch's sanity, he faces a mutiny from his own apprentices, a legal onslaught from the government, and the return of enemies old and new. In desperation, the entrepreneur turns to some unlikely allies: a radical politician with an agenda of his own, and a childhood enemy to whom he has done a terrible wrong.

Natch's struggle will take him from the halls of power in Melbourne to the ruined cities of the diss. Hanging in the balance is the fate of MultiReal, a technology that could end the tyranny of the Council forever--or give the Council the ultimate weapon of oppression.