The Fall

As global food-scarcity spiraled out of control, the European Seawall Project finally began constructing the massive edifice that would reclaim lands lost to rising sea levels-and upon them build the farms that would avert famine. The workers laboring to raise the seawall were provided with the very best: fusion-powered exoskeletons, excellent pay, and a perpetually hovering artificial island, where they could enjoy their off-hours near the seawall amid every pleasure and vice money could buy. Despite the urgency of their work and the joys of life on the island, not everyone was satisfied-and someone had begun sabotaging construction drones.

Francesca Pieralisi, the former prosecutor turned seawall-project director, was then sent in to identify the saboteur and his grievances. She was not given a free hand to investigate, however, nor authorized to solve whatever problems she discovered, not since Paul Devouard, ESF Chief and her boss, had lost faith in her judgement after the near-disaster of the Bolivian affair. Barred from official resources, Francesca could only rely upon herself-and Cain. Calling upon his expertise as an elite soldat de fortune, Cain enlisted the aid of his old criminal network, to cut through the misdirection and outright lies, and to uncover the truth.

Cain and Francesca soon discovered the many forces exploiting the island, from an avaricious drone corp, to corrupt private cops, to a criminal syndicate and its burgeoning underground. It was not until they began covertly neutralizing these threats, however, that they uncovered the massive conspiracy behind it all-and the atrocity central to its scheme. To save the seawall and any hope of averting famine, they must now excise the threat with a surgical strike. But will their desperate action be enough-or too much?