Trueborns created Pheno in a tank. He’s a GEN, a Genetically Engineered Non-human, enslaved by trueborns—until a secret, experimental treatment dissolves the control circuitry in his body. Now Pheno is in two worlds, the enslaved past he’s put behind him and his new life as a low-caste but free lowborn.

Since Pheno’s liberation, his life hasn’t changed much. He’s still a tech, but now instead of following trueborn orders, he hacks trueborn code, working for the Kinship. He’s refused the more adventurous work the Kinship offers, preferring to hide in his basement lab.

Until he witnesses a young girl’s brutal murder at the hands of a Brigade enforcer. Pheno finally takes a stand, agreeing to a Kinship mission in a distant sector.

His assignment: crack the illegal circuitry embedded in seven dangerous, six-legged seycats. If he can solve the puzzle that will free the seycats, the same process could liberate more GENs.

But when Pheno meets Sarra, a scarred but unbroken GEN girl, everything changes. In the seycat sanctuary where they spend time together, a connection builds between them. For the first time in his life, Pheno feels he can trust someone. But then disaster strikes, and Sarra desperately needs him to make an awful and treacherous choice. Can he do the unthinkable to save her?