Aspen Curie is a 99er: ninety-nine percent human, one percent animal DNA. Coming from the parasitic wasp strain, she's immune to radiation, which is why the UN's IAEA has used her as a first responder to the world's many microreactor catastrophes - whether in the Redlands in the US, or in the Euro and Aspac Zones thousands of miles away. Her entire life she's been exploited - created for the sole purpose of fulfilling one of modern society's greatest needs - but soon she will be free. Because the people who created her never imagined that their invention could ever turn on them...
Gavivi Williams is a hummingbird: part investigative reporter, part paparazzi. Using a floating camera controlled via finger-taps and whose output is wirelessly transmitted to his right eye, he can get footage of anyone, anywhere. In the Euro Zones, he stumbled upon a leopard 99er assassination, and now he's convinced the few remaining leopards are being targeted across the world - being eliminated one by one because they are unstable and pose a risk to the restarted 99er program. The only problem is now Gavivi has seen too much and has become a risk himself...
Henry Aperfeld is a world-famous photographer known for his genuine style. That is, being the only current artist who shuns all things digital and/or embedded, preferring the use of an antique 1955 Leica M3 camera and physical film. Until now, his fascination with beauty centered on the flawless young models clamoring for his attention. But all of this is about to change when he is the only one left in Bluecore 1C capable of capturing the events unfolding...
Kwesi Kiburu is a priest in the dwindling Catholic Church. Born in Uganda over seventy years ago, his current struggles with his faith are nothing like the types of horror he endured in Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army, yet they are just as strong. A former child soldier, he understands the complexities of being both a victim and an offender. This is why he allowed Leo to stay with him at St. Patrick's rectory, but he never could have predicted the consequences of this decision...
Leo Goodall is one of the few remaining 99ers created from the leopard strain. For years all the leopards were kept in a facility to keep them apart from society, due to their violent tendencies. But then a law was passed and now they have been dispersed - placed in safe havens across the world and given chaperones and councilors to aid with their assimilation. But despite these precautionary steps, little do they know of the danger which they face...
Vanessa Beauchamp is a stunning and prominent fashion designer, and the newly bestowed mother of a four-month-old baby: her greatest creation, growing safely in an artificial uterus at the local arterus center by the lake. But buried deep within her heart and her boutique léger, there is a secret. A secret she cannot keep to herself any longer...
