In this fanciful new sci-fi novel, you meet Catherine Newton, a mousy-but-neat English teacher assigned to a small desert mining town in Colorado, one of those conclaves that sprung up after the war of 2020 had decimated all the major cities in the US. Catherine is doing well here … maybe. She has a handsome boyfriend. A protective dog. A concerned principal. A silver-level student in her homeroom class. Fellow teachers not to be trusted. So why was she having these strange nightmares — a cyborg demanding she help him shut down the mine? H.A. Burns creates a future world that seems almost normal … until it isn't.