It takes a singular person to buck the central tenet of one’s culture, but Zonda Stock is that person. Coming of age among the Isan–a survivalist society obsessed with machines and body modification–means finding the weakness of one’s “stock” body and upgrading it. Zonda admits no weakness: Not as a gun runner during the war, and certainly not as the captain of the Isan crew now. She lives on her wits, with a sixth sense to escape the traps her enemies set for her.