Astronaut attacks. Child kingpins. Human propaganda. Les'ette has fought all of these for years during her time on the Orphan Train, but what made her sentence especially brutal was her muted mind: Les'ette can't receive anyone's brainwaves, and more dangerously, no one can receive hers. She is marked as an untrustworthy "defect" in her society.All Les'ette wants is for the little pest Hattie to abandon the idea of becoming her sister, the palm-greaser No'll to stop confessing his feelings for her, and, most of all, to reach emancipation age and be free of her nightmare before someone purchases her at auction.When the mad scientist, Dr. Upton, takes an interest in Les'ette, the threat of being his next lab rat becomes a disturbing possibility, and as she straddles the fragile line of Dr. Upton's sanity, surviving the day is all she begins to want. With Dr. Upton employed by the global government, Les'ette becomes unwillingly entangled in the chaos stirring inside The Federation.