Engalise is a city under siege. Without a government or the usual series of formal laws, relative peace is kept under the premise of the Ten Free Rights of the Individual.

Freedom Protection Agent Jaq Pilakin specialises in investigating violations against the First Right: life. As a freelancer, she's forced to pick up the less lucrative cases cast aside by the big agencies, and stumbles into a scene where an artillery strike by the besieging forces has left a plumber dead under the rubble.

As Pilakin digs deeper into the case, she finds a trail of murders - and a would-be murderer finds her. When she finally identifies the perpetrator, it turns out she holds Engalise's entire fate in her own bloodstained hands.