The Mysticist is a cyberpunk coming of age tale-what might have happened if Philip K. Dick wrote "On The Road" and set it in the year 2054. America is now AmeriCorp. Everything is incorporated and commodified. Private border guards patrol the boundaries of most major cities, where the rich stockpile scarce resources while the poor are being shipped off to work camps in the Arctic or conscripted into colonial missions to Mars. Rumors abound that autonomous communities called "freeholds" are popping up beyond the frayed edges of civilization. One brutally hot summer, Niirs Tla and his Companions set out on a journey by bike across drought-ravaged Texas. Most of the Companions are in search of nothing more than good times, but Niirs is on the run. Pursued by nightmarish creatures, alien visitors, and a shape-shifting cop, Niirs soon realizes that he cannot simply run away--he needs somewhere to run to.