In the wake of a global catastrophe, Max Blau, a seventeen-year-oldorphan, moves to Ohio, a privileged Reserve that is based on giftedfamily groups. Everything seems idyllic in this new society, as itsinhabitants are highly intelligent. In addition, each person has aspecial gift, a function, a mission.
Max's problem is thathe is a fake who has come to Ohio taking over the identity of the real Max Blau, a boy he met outside the Reserve and whose murder hewitnessed. Our main character cannot keep hiding for long. They soonask him to use his gifts of divination to help defend the Reserve from a group from the north that is approaching Ohio with the intention of conquering it and wiping out its inhabitants.
