The neo-fascist armies of the Liberator have swept across the Americas like a plague. Montreal is in flames, and the front is less than a kilometre away. Seventeen year-old Joanie Morgernstern can expect no mercy from the victors. As a Canadian soldier, an Augmented Human and a Jew, she is a blood enemy to the Liberator three times over, fit only for "purification." Michael Cross, 16, a technician in the Army of the Iroquois Six Nations, is on the same hitlist. He expects nothing from the next few hours except death. Instead, he finds Joanie.