<b>The year is 2454. </b>The sun is setting on a <b>hard-won golden age</b>. For three centuries, humanity has enjoyed <b>peace and prosperity</b> fuelled by technological abundance, oracular data analytics, careful censorship... and <b>just a little blood.</b> In a world <b>dominated</b> by seven factions, or ''Hives'', the price of peace has been a few <b>secret murders</b>, mathematically planned to ensure <b>political and economic balance</b>. But now the secret is out, the balance is slipping and <b>war</b> beckons. Convict Mycroft Canner knew this <b>war was coming</b> ¿ he committed his terrible crimes to forestall it. Now, he has just one card left, a <b>wild card</b> no degree of statistical genius could have predicted: a thirteen-year-old child with the power to work miracles. Turning thought into matter, matter in life, <b>this child has the power to save the world, or to doom it</b>.