Don Lucas Ferez, captain of the Border Guard, is tasked with keeping the ancient evils out of the peaceful South. When the old gods reappear, and slaughter his fellow guardsmen, he is first to sound the alarm.

In the real world, Luke Green is at his wit's end. The programmers of the world-spanning Game he helped create are back again. Including Rob, his sociopathic ex-boss. Most troubling, Rob has found a way to subvert those players rich enough to have Game interfaces implanted in their skulls.

Things get very real very fast for Luke, as he confronts the collision between in-Game politics and real-world criminal activity. Entanglements continue as he meets Toni, a hacker in her own right. With her help they take a good look at his relationships, past and present, and start to figure out who they want to be.