Not far in the future the seas have risen and the central latitudes are emptying but it´s still a good time to be rich in San Francisco where weapons drones patrol the skies to keep out the multitudinous poor. Irina isn´t rich, not quite, but she does have an artificial memory that gives her perfect recall, and lets her act as a medium between her various employers and their AIs, which are complex to the point of opacity. It´s a good gig, paying enough for the annual visits to the Mayo Clinic that keep her from ageing. Kern has no such access; he´s one of the many refugees in the sprawling drone-built favelas on the city´s periphery, where he lives like a monk, training relentlessly in martial arts, scraping by as a thief and an enforcer. Thales is from a different world entirely - the mathematically-inclined scion of a Brazilian political clan, he´s fled to L.A. after the attack that left him crippled and his father dead. A ragged stranger accosts Thales and demands to know how much he can remember. Kern flees for his life after robbing the wrong mark. Irina finds a secret in the reflection of a laptop´s screen in her employer´s eyeglasses.None are safe as they´re pushed together by subtle forces that stay just out of sight...