In the forty-seventh year after the nuclear fire, the Rust Wasteland is both the final tombstone of civilization and the cruelest arena for survival. Radioactive dust storms devour hope, clean water is worth more than gold, and the Steel Alliance, a metal behemoth risen from the wasteland, keeps humanity's survivors caged in fear and despair through its iron-fisted rule and monopoly over the source of life.
Rain is a wasteland hunter who travels alone, trusting only the magnetic railgun in his hands and the survival instincts etched into his bones. The blurred barcode on his arm is a mark left by some deranged prewar experiment, and a past he desperately wants to forget. On an expedition deep into the New Atlanta shelter, he finds not only a priceless prewar data core, but also draws the Steel Alliance's most elite scouts, the Hounds, onto his trail. That mark turns out to be the “genetic marker” the Alliance is willing to do anything to capture.
During his escape, Rain is forced into a fragile alliance with Ellie Wu, a woman of mysterious origins with an abnormal resistance to radiation. Ellie carries a coordinate chip pointing to the legendary Eden water purification system, the only hope of ending the Steel Alliance's monopoly on clean water and igniting the fires of rebellion across the wasteland. But the mark of the laboratory is etched behind Ellie's ear as well. Her blood carries secrets no one knows, and a price that could prove fatal...
