The grid is failing, the ransom demand is a billion dollars, and the only person who can save them has disappeared....

Joe Mayfield is finally on his way to a weekend with Weezy Napolitani, hacker extraordinaire and his too-long-distance lover. Thanks to the deal he engineered, HelioCorp’s public offering is going to be the tech finance deal of the year—cheap and easy solar power for all. Then, lights go out in Maine. And in Georgia. A ransom note demands one billion dollars. So much for their getaway.

As Weezy, Joe, and the government struggle to find a solution, Weezy gets a cryptic note from a friend, the multi-talented hacker Kalju Puusepp. He’s been kidnapped by the Sobaki, a triumvirate of Russian oligarchs determined to control the US grid. In an effort to head off his inevitable execution when the work is done, he’s sent her a fail deadly—a file that’s a ticking time bomb of data that will destroy Sobaki if it gets out on the ’net.

Then, Weezy is kidnapped by the Sobaki. Her disappearance makes her the NSA’s prime suspect in the grid hack. Joe’s search for her leads him to becoming a prisoner, too—a pawn to force Weezy to keep the information grenade from exploding. As Weezy’s hacker friends and the NSA race to find them, how long can she withstand the cruel agony of torture and her fear of losing Joe? If they can’t outwit the Sobaki, the lights will go out permanently for all of them.