Adam Wilson has been through hell. He survived Cold-Snap, a virtual reality game run by Petrus, his Life Management System, only to find that he'd been playing longer than he thought. Maybe a lot longer. As he emerges into what he can only hope is the Real World, everything has changed. The landscape is hotter and drier; the buildings are either decaying or they've become white ceramic cubes. Machines swarm, but where are all the people? He only knows one thing for sure: he needs to find Catharine, the mysterious woman he fell in love with in Cold-Snap. Could she be real? Would she care about him outside of the game? And most of all, how can they survive in a world where Petrus seems to call all the shots, and not even reality can be trusted?
