[It’s 2043, and America–and most of the First World–has reached a level of post-scarcity subsistence, fueled by the development of fusion power and “nanoforges](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecular_nanotechnology)” that can manufacture almost anything imaginable. But everything has a cost. The resources to fuel this economic miracle are wrenched from the Global South, and for years now, America and its allies have been locked in an endless, grinding counterinsurgency across Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asians. For most Americans, the “Ngumi War” is an abstraction, fought primarily by drones, and broadcast nightly as entertainment. For Julian Class, it’s an unending nightmare. But what can an ordinary man do about it? Nothing, so he thinks, until a series of discoveries forces him to reevaluate everything he thought he knew about the world, and tests just how much he’d be willing to pay for peace.