The virus left a gap-toothed, slobbering bite-mark on everything: the land, the survivors, the cities full of ghost-sickness and abandoned for three centuries. A young priest living in an enclave of still-functioning machinery is forced to leave when the girl he loves is afflicted with an unknown and deadly illness.A shard of humanity thrives in the remains of an old research facility high in the Colorado mountains. Like the brutish tribes outside the sheltered valley, the high priest marks the young villagers during a coming-of-age ceremony. But unlike those tribes, the scars beneath each villager's arm hides forgotten technology from the past. The true nature of the drugged ceremonies and founding ancestors is fantastical myth to most "citizens," who spend their days hunting outside the valley or farming corn and hemp.One of the hunters, a tough and resourceful teenage girl nicknamed Badger, falls unconscious with uncontrollable seizures. Wilson, a bookish apprentice priest, searches the library and the old databases for a cause to the mysterious illness. Together he and Badger crawl through abandoned tunnels deep within the mountain. When the secrets of the past begin to unravel the young lovers must fight through hostile tribes and wild predators to the radiation-filled remains of Colorado Springs.