On the distant planet Oasis the secrets lay behind the Porcelain Man's dead eggshell eyes. The panicked riddles he spews between catatonic cycles drive agent Carver closer to the missing. The brilliant Ceren Dore lies frozen in her virtual snow globe world, watching perfect false birds glide across a perfect false sky. She shatters in his dreams as the disease inside her grows. A secret society of eight guardians, the super elite, live in the shadows, ever tinkering, their dark mechanisms making the world their own. Echoing moans call from the dystopian nightmare of East Banzen as the war torn buildings grow twisted, a physical representation of their inhabitants. Through the chaos, one step ahead of a deadly assassin, Carver must piece together the clues as they intertwine with the hope to cure Ceren.The conspiracy he uncovers changes him, changes everything, and sets him on a collision course with an ancient evil, waiting, ever patient, ever present.Black and white edition.