In the year 2018, Sergeant Sue Smith of the Edinburgh constabulary is called in on a special case A daring bank robbery has taken place at Hayek Associates, a dot-com startup company that's just been floated on the London stock exchange The suspects are a band of marauding orcs, with a dragon in tow for fire support, and the bank is located within the virtual reality land of Avalon Four For Smith, the investigation seems pointless But she soon realizes that the virtual world may have a devastating effect in the real one-and that someone is about to launch an attack upon both