Max Winthrop II, the world's first viable human clone, has lived a quiet lie of a life for eighteen years. But now that human cloning has been legalized in California, the bio-tech company that created Max will do anything to corner the emerging commercial market. Max wants only one thing: to live a normal life. But the more he tries to hide from the spotlight, the stronger he finds the Magnification Effect. And nobody--not the scientists who made him, not the corporate thugs chasing him, not even Max himself--fully understands what Max is capable of once the Effect takes hold.