Things haven't been going particularly well for humanity. A new civilization has risen from the ashes of the late 21st-century end of times. It has thrived in the few remaining inhabitable highland areas of the planet, thanks mainly to the all-powerful State governance engineering a series of stunning advances in Artificial Intelligence.

Something, however, is going horribly wrong on Planet 0420. People are disappearing at an alarming rate, and the State is beset by a series of crippling scandals all the while most of its people slave away in something close to abject poverty. So much for the supposed socialist utopia.

Andrew Weems is a scrawny young journalism student in The Highlands of Alba, once known as Scotland. He has a quirky, some would say annoying, sense of humor and swears quite a lot. His best friend is John McGregor, an elite Alban college student, and his other friend is John's girlfriend, Claire Renshaw, a talented cybercrimes student.

Claire hacks into something known as the Elyssium program while trying to help John discover what has happened to his missing father and look for information on what happened to her long since dead sister. The discovery sets in motion a chain of events that will lead them all on an epic journey encompassing kidnap, murder, assassination attempts, fishing, strange mushrooms, and the resultant sea monster, and other things.

Ultimately, the shocking truth about the disappearances is exposed, leading Claire to a confrontation with horrors and evil beyond imagination. Except that it has been imagined, so … with horrors and evil beyond comprehension, instead.

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