Therefore, he is an essential component of the team. Oker is a crusty 90-year-old researcher/pharmic who escaped the Society before his Final Banquet - a time of death for those who are 80 years old. Those who are still are in a semi-comatose state, and they lie unmoving with their eyes open, staring.Īfter the crew lands, they take Ky to the infirmary, and Cassia and Xander meet Oker. Xander and Cassia are immune to the plague and its mutation, but Ky does not have immunity, and he becomes still, a term for people who have contracted the disease, after they land. The Pilot, who leads the Rising, flies Ky, Cassia and Xander to the mountains to help find a cure for the mutation. When a patient dies, however, Xander realizes that the virus has mutated and that the vaccine they have is no longer effective.

Xander and Lei labor together day and night to inoculate patients with the cure, all of whom are expected to recover fully from the plague. Xander is a physic in a medical setting, where he meets Lei. Ky and Indie now fly the life-saving vaccine to the hardest-hit Provinces. Unlike the Society wherein only select individuals are accepted, the Rising accepts everyone, and there is no bloodshed.Īs the Rising comes into power, Cassia continues to work as a sorter.

A plague has hit the major provinces, and it is the mechanism the Rising uses to overtake the Society - by curing the afflicted and thereby gaining trust. Xander is in Camas serving the Society as an Official.Ĭassia and Ky are desperate to find each other, but their assignments keep them apart. Ky and Indie are airbus pilots, based in Camas, far away from Cassia. Cassia works undercover in Central as a sorter and trades with Archivists in her spare time in order to exchange messages between herself and Ky. Everything is in place for the Rising’s takeover of the Society, the reigning government. Chapters rotate between Ky’s, Cassia’s and Xander’s point of view.

Father and son gosse