The planet Earth has finally succumbed to the incessant mining, drilling, and pollution that mankind has exposed it to. Technology allowed them to do many things never thought possible, but in the end their progress could not be sustained. The ozone layer is burned out, water no longer exists in liquid form, there is not enough oxygen for man to breathe, and radiation from the sun is sent to Earth’s surface in a barrage that cannot be withstood.

Man tried living in closed ecosystems, shelters meant to defend them from the toxic atmosphere and the radically fluctuating temperatures, water evaporated on the planet’s surface and was highly inaccessible without great risk to human life. Natural disaster after natural disaster drove them underground. The subterranean was even worse. People were asphyxiated by carbon monoxide and plants could not survive without sunlight and food became incredibly scarce. Uhere was only one other place to go: Up.

The remnants of civilization now reside in a conglomerate of ships that managed to escape the surface of the planet and came to rest in a safe orbit around Earth, watching the chaos ensue from their perch above the red hell, and unable to help without dooming themselves in the process. As they quietly witness the death rattle of their home, those who survived The Exodus solemnly devised plans to keep themselves alive.

Jakop Huckleberry is a small but integral part of those plans. He has been training for most of his life to crew a ship whose job it is to travel back into the atmosphere of Earth in order to gather precious and vital resources. After a highly unfortunate accident Jakop loses an arm, and is forced to undergo a life saving procedure that leaves him as part man, and part machine, with a robotic limb, nanobots coursing through his blood, and a neural implant that needs an operating system and applications in order to be able to use his own body properly. With the stigma attached to him that any "mod" carries with them, he is cast out of the society that he once held dear, and he must give up his dreams of being a hero to the people. Now he must come to terms with the fact that he is looked at with pity and fear by those he once called brother and sister. He must find a way to make his life something worth living.