Tom Roberts thought his life couldn't get any stranger until he found himself caught between a government agency he barely trusts, a rival he definitely doesn't, and a mission that could get him killed before breakfast. What should have been a straightforward assignment spirals into a bizarre gauntlet of traps, mind games, and people with way too much creative energy for making his life miserable. Along the way, he encounters a stealth specialist who fights dirty (and brilliantly), a bureaucracy that plays by no rules but its own, and a mounting stack of questions no one seems willing to answer. As the stakes climb from awkward to lethal, Tom has to decide if he's in over his head or exactly where he's meant to be. Either way, he's about to find out why the universe picked him... and whether he's ready to live or die with the answer.