After a global biological collapse reshaped human reproduction and power, society hardened into something ruthless and efficient. Women rule. Men are expendable. The unvaccinated — called POGs, People of Obsolete Genetics — are left behind in the Territories, stripped of status and future.

Kessa Strauss grows up there, harpooning fish and hauling nets on a fishing boat with her brother and her abusive father, learning early that survival requires silence. She doesn't dream of rebellion or glory. She only wants to matter — and even that feels dangerous. 

When Kessa is pulled into Denton University, an elite militarized institution that trains young women into state weapons, she's thrown into a world where her body becomes an asset and her resilience a liability. The arena rewards brutality. Compassion is weakness. Loyalty is conditional. And the cost of failure is something worse than death- it's erasure. 

As Kessa rises through competition, betrayal, and loss, she begins to understand that power can wear the mask of salvation, and survival can demand the sacrifice of the self. Every victory offers her more control — and pulls her closer to becoming what once terrified her. 

This is not a story about winning, seizing power, or overthrowing a regime. 

It's a story about surviving in a system designed to consume and control you — without losing yourself.