It is September 2016. The UK is in the grip of austerity following a second banking collapse. Oil supplies have all but dried up. The priority of a provisional government is energy - energy to power transport, industry, agriculture, homes, schools and hospitals. A skeleton rail service already operates with the aid of coal-fired steam locomotives requisitioned from preservation societies. There is no international credit. Trade - where it occurs - is by barter. Energy is the new wealth. David Sewell is a retired - but still youthful - engineer passionate about technology as much for its aesthetic impact as for its contribution to material well-being. He lives within walking distance of Brunel's engineering masterpiece, the iconic Clifton suspension bridge, a yardstick for his professional and aesthetic aspirations. Sewell is scarred by a serious accident sustained on a Territorial Army exercise shortly after his return from honeymoon, and by the inexplicably abrupt end to an idyllic marriage five years after that. He has responded by focusing on his university career and, in collaboration with a researcher in Spain, Charo Jiménez, has dedicated himself to the development of oil-independent power generation. Their technology comes to the attention of the Ministry for Economic Regeneration, MERGE, for its barter potential - grain from Canada for exclusive access to the technology. Unsurprisingly, the situation is seen as an extortion opportunity by a Moscow anxious to repatriate former oligarchs currently residing in London. Sewell and Charo need all their resources - and the aid of steam locomotive Tornado - to keep themselves and the technology demonstrator out of the hands of the agents of Moscow's plans. The defining confrontation is played out on the suspension bridge at night. It leads to an emotionally-charged walk by moonlight with Sewell's ambivalent love interest Alex, a Slovakian woman less than half his age, and to his finally being able to reconcile past, present and future.
