"In the world of Human Resources, every body has a price."

The year is 2400, humanity has settled throughout most of the Solar System. Cybernetic, biotic, and digital revolutions have allowed humanity to conquer the terrestrial and heavenly spheres, but also those of cyberspace. But it is also a world of corporate domination, human exploitation, and to the CEO of Asp Aerspace, Unktehi Asp, the stagnation of human achievement in the making.

For years, Asp has battled only what he can conclude is an intentional movement to throttle man's ambition. Using his connections and bottomless wealth, he has sought to invest in the most promising projects and research geared towards his goal of extra-solar exploration. Yet time after time these efforts, despite such initial progress, face governmental red-tape delays, corporate sabotage, or outright destruction by rouge criminal elements.

Now, the problems have begun sprouting on his own doorstep like a cluster of weeds in a meticulously manicured garden. A series of heists at his main research and development center at the former NASA complex in Cape Canaveral has forced him to scour the system to investigate how and why he appears to be the target.

The one factor he can count on is that he is not alone. He'll encounter support in his quest from an unlikely band of corporate hackers, fellow corporate elites, Martian space pirates, and even one of the most influential digital tyrants of a rotting Internet.

Will Asp find his elusive puppet masters with a devious agenda targeting the dignity of humanity or will he find that human nature, as it often is, is the self-imposed cage getting in the way of mankind's future?