Synopsis
In the near future, the Tangle connects the world. A secret government agency watches over the Tangle from within technology safe rooms, locations impermeable to the nanobots that make up the Tangle. Swarms of microdrones fill the air, the water, our very blood. In this world, it is impossible to keep a secret anywhere but in your S.O.L. (Secure OnTangle Line), a quantum encrypted hard drive implanted in your brain.
A secret government agency called the A.S.P. (Army of Simply Purity) watches over the Tangle from within technology safe rooms, locations impermeable to the nanobots that make up the Tangle. When the A.S.P. field agent Margot Foster is murdered in one of these rooms, an abandoned speakeasy, it’s the first murder in California in three years.
The main suspect is Carter Carmine, a private detective, who used to work with the agents of A.S.P. on a program called the Cleopatra Squad. Cleopatra created the Tangle. Married A.S.P. agents Edward Banderas and Laurel Arrow have brought Carter to one of the safe rooms after surgically removing his S.O.L. from his brain. Carter was following Margot just before her murder. He has a motive, and he is one of the few in the world with the technical expertise to hide from the Tangle. The agents use the Tangle information to badger Carter: they know his movements down to the millimeter, down to the millisecond. He is clearly hiding something.
Eventually, everybody is a suspect and every secret gets exposed: a conspiracy between Margot and Edward to curtail Cleopatra’s power over the Tangle, Edward, the man of duty, caught having an affair, the hidden connection between Laurel and Carter, the real identity of Cleopatra and, finally, the real explanation for Margot’s murder. Eventually, the agents must rush into the world scrounging through obsolete technology to solve the murder and stop the collapse of the Tangle, the world as they know it.