Reuben James Runquist is finally facing facts; at eighty, he is stuck with a retirement condo in an environment that is decidedly MAI ("not" in Thai) Shangri-La The climate has "flipped," global sea levels have risen seven meters, plagues have killed hundreds of millions, and worldwide transportation and commercial infrastructures have collapsed. Reuben is reduced to a subsistence existence in the high-tech but questionably secure "Panic Room" of his barricaded condo in Pattaya. He needs to escape, but theThai central plain is awash in a new inland sea and Hong Kong tycoon Stanley Lee is ratcheting up the pressure for Reuben to join his worldwide marketing empire with Reuben's new "StimSim" biofeedback virtual reality game. Reuben's always been his own man, but what are his alternatives? How can he escape global warming AND the clutches of a man who won't take no for an answer?