The City is the world, a world filled with NOISE--a virtual ocean, a digital jungle, and war has been declared against North America's business elite by a group of former political dissidents turned assassins. In response, authorities are pushing their latest security solution: an implantable I.D. system courtesy of VERI-SYNC. Set in and around a dystopian fictionalized City in the year 2035, unemployment, class warfare, and hyper-commerce provide the social backdrop in which a job-hungry data-miner, David Phoenix, attempts to survive.