"Gripping . . . edge-of-your-seat thrills . . . a thought-provoking triumph." -BookLife, Editor's Pick

"Thoroughly entertaining and highly re-readable . . . both imaginative and wholly original."-San Francisco Book Review

What does it mean to be a rebel, a hero, or the destroyer of habitat and civilization? As a devastated world recovers from war and plight, an unlikely heroine emerges and attempts to rescue distressed rebels from the government's corruption controlling the rationed food supply and from a rogue general trying to steal the only known honeybees.

And Earth itself fights back.

Following the Great Uprising of the Millennium, the remaining human population in the Third Continent's forty-four districts-starved and weakened-are dependent on the Authority. The new power structure that emerged after the war rules by fear and tyranny, confiscating property, and feeding the masses poisoned food.

Yet out of the rubble, rebellious clans who dream of a better future emerge, able to grow their own food because of their secret weapon-the last remaining nest of honeybees. Now a war wages between the rebels and the Authority. X and Y, children of the rebellion, have the key to the rebellion's success: a download that can bring down the Authority once and for all.

Power hungry and corrupt, the Authority's General Speer is intent on finding the download, along with the rebels' bees and food stocks. And he will stop at nothing until he rules all the districts.

The fate of humanity hangs in the balance as X and Y join forces with an unlikely heroine and their allies in a race against time. But in a futurist world where survival is paramount and everyone has an agenda, who can they trust?