HE HAS NO CHOICE. SOMETIMES, DOING WHAT'S RIGHT MEANS RUNNING AWAY. Earth was once in chaos, divided between hundreds of warring nations. Now, united in peace and maintained through a worldwide computer system known as the GRID, the Global Fellowship provides all citizens free access to food, housing, education, and medical care. In return, citizens allow the GRID to use their brains as temporary servers. Those who don't contribute are the disconnected, shirkers who live destitute and on the edge of starvation in a world where GRIDcoin is beyond their reach. After his parents' sudden death, Arthur Mallorey, a severely-disabled teenager living in the largest shirker camp in Central Continent, knows he has to find a way for him and his sister to survive. Battling pain and exhaustion, he looks for salvation in the very heart of the Community he was raised to fear.