Former soldier Liam Mulcahy's comfortable life in a futuristic, glistening Chicago is disrupted when the ugly shadows of his past rear their heads. The Great War has been over for years, and a brave new world forged. Technology has delivered the future promised at the turn of the century: automata provide, monorail trains flash between mega-cities, medicine is nothing short of magical. Liam grew up poor, but now working for one of the richest families in Chicago, he reaps the benefits of his friendship with the family's son and heir. That's why he's at Club Artemis. It's a palace of art-deco delights and debauchery, filled to bursting with the rich and beautiful - and tonight they're all drinking one thing. Absynthe. The green liquor rumoured to cause hallucinations, madness, even death. While the gilded youth sip the viridescent liquid, their brave new world is crumbling beneath its perfect surface. Their absynthe is no mere folly. Some it kills, others it transforms. But in Liam something different has taken place. A veil has lifted and he can see the world without its illusion - and it isn't the perfect world the government want the people to believe.