Growing up in the burned-out slums of Detroit, Magnolia is filled with the need to fight, the will to survive. She runs from her dysfunctional white-trash family, all the way to New York City, where she connects with a sexy, good-looking guy who takes her back to his high-rise apartment. Everything's going great, until after they make love, when he comes at her with a knife. Her natural instincts take over, leaving her would-be killer with a knife buried deep in his back. That's when she sees the video camera that has recorded everything. She runs, right into the arms of Rahul, a brilliant megalomaniac who threatens to turn her in...unless she takes a job in his empire of illegal activities, ranging from creating bioandroids for sex-snuff films to trafficking in illegal drugs and political assassination. Life in the Detroit slums was crap, but she knew how to get along. But in Rahul's world of double-dealing, life is cheap, and Magnolia, though tough, resourceful, and canny, is suddenly in way over her head - until she meets Cid, a biophysicist with theories beyond Rahul's wildest dreams. As Rahul's net closes around them, Cid devises an outrageous and startlingly original escape for herself and Magnolia. With a synthesis of Rahul's own brilliant biogenetic creation and a diabolically clever chaos-theory virus, they're out to remake the world...and save their lives.