How will the world as you know it come to an end? Call him Lou, please. His real name is Luigi Gubriace, but he is better known as Lou Gubrious, a depressive independent investigator with a penchant for taking the most dismal view possible of the state of the world. Lou calls it being realistic. In the near future the environment continues to deteriorate. As the world population approaches eight billion, the icecaps are still melting, the rainforests are burning, the oceans are dying, and we are losing more and more species. Lou thinks there is no hope for humanity, the biosphere is doomed, and there is no one with a truly effective idea that could save the world. "The world is mad and we're all going to die," he says. Lou is called back into action when high level diplomats choose him to investigate a mysterious series of isolated epidemics. Meanwhile, Lou has no idea of the powerful international forces at play, conspiring to save the living planet in the worst possible way.