Chasm City

Synopsis

The story is told mainly through the eyes of Tanner Mirabel, a security specialist hunting a postmortal aristocrat named Argent Reivich. Reivich killed the wife of Mirabel's former employer, and Mirabel has tracked him to Chasm City. When he arrives, he finds that Yellowstone, once humanity's pinnacle of advancement, has collapsed into ruin. An alien nanotech plague called the Melding Plague has infected the entire system. Chasm City itself, once a towering forest of mile-high buildings that could change shape, has degraded into a sprawling slum. The Glitter Band, a brilliant collection of ten thousand orbital habitats, now exists as a "Rust Belt" of only a few hundred survivors, most living with primitive, pre-nanotech technology. Amidst this devastation, Mirabel hunts Reivich, but his quarry proves more cunning than expected. During his pursuit, Mirabel suffers flashbacks triggered by the plague, reliving moments from the life of Sky Haussmann. Haussmann is the controversial founder of Mirabel's home world, Sky's Edge, a figure both worshipped and hated for the brutal acts he committed to establish the colony. From the city's deep gas plume to the high canopy of its ruined skyscrapers, Mirabel pieces together the truth behind the Melding Plague.