A mega-byte blow-out in 21st century Boston! He awoke in a body bag, his brain fried, a back hole where his memory should be. If not for the cool carbon-fiber blade concealed in the bones of his arm, he would've been dead for sure. But Michael Bishop - a.k.a. Babel, messiah of the Matrix - is back in the game. Renraku Computer Systems has defied the accords of the Corporate Court. Now they must decipher the secrets of the otaku, and Babel is the technoshaman reborn for the job. But Netwalking in the shadows of the electron jungle means initiation into deadly megacorporate intrigue, and discovering more about Babel's own team than he fears he should know. As allies become adversaries, Babel breaks through the dreaded black ice security to find a doorway to the future, and signs of a corp war looming on the horizon - one that could destroy the technoworld and beyond forever.