Adelaide and Val are 'contractors' doing rough jobs along The Outskirts. Adelaide's skill with a blade is unmatched and Val's arcane knowledge is unimaginable for her age, and her apathy. The relationship works out for the both of them, save Adelaide's occasional willingness to do jobs for free. However, a chance kidnapping forces them back into the massive metropolis of Aegis, a city of which Adelaide seems to have a deep history. There, they must team up with chatty ex-musicians and unethical robot surgeons to get out of the city in one piece. But not everything is as it seems, and Adelaide's past already begins to haunt her. To leave the city, she'll have to settle things with someone first. And she will have them pay. Though elsewhere in Aegis, kids are being trained up to do something big.