Imagine a future in which consciousness can be exchanged between bodies and the wealthy old can pay the young to die for them. Raymond Mettler, a man whose unrelenting terror of dying prevents him from living, is given just such a shot at immortality. Marcus Takana, a desperately poor young man accepts a future contract for Ray's mind to take over his body upon Ray's death in exchange for fabulous wealth, enduring youth, and unprecedented knowledge. Both men guard the secret of their grim pact in a world at the brink of environmental catastrophe because of a genetics experiment gone horribly wrong.