What if a virtual reality was all you had ever known? On the planet Antar, Llyn Torfinn awakes to reality as if for the first time, with no memory of the real world. The human settlers found her abandoned, hooked into a virtual reality machine, and wasting away. Physically and mentally, she must learn how to live in a system at war with alien threats at every turn.

The humans of the Concord worlds are rebuilding their civilization ravaged by the alien Devastators, who disappeared as abruptly as they attacked. As they struggle through the recovery process, the threat of another war of humans against humans arises, carrying with it rumors of an enemy even more potent than the last.

Humanity's last hope lies in a young woman who doesn't even know who she is. Llyn's greatest challenge may be to discover her own identity--or all of humankind may pay the price.