Rat Runners

Four young criminals are given a simple task by the city’s most powerful gangster. Nimmo, Scope, Manikin and FX have to steal a box off the daughter of a dead scientist. To find it, they have to follow her, bug her phone, hack her computer, search her home, all without her knowing.

But WatchWorld run this city now. On every street, the authorities have cameras, X-ray scanners, microphones. Safe-Guards wander the streets, watching, listening. They can enter your home and you can’t stop them. They have the right to stand and watch you as you go about your life. They can see through walls, hear your heartbeat, analyze the smell of your sweat.

Nimmo, Scope, Manikin and FX work in the blind-spots, where the city’s surveillance cannot see them. They travel along the rat-runs, avoiding the watchers. But the ‘simple’ job quickly goes sour. Caught in a maze of deception, treachery and murder, the rat-runners have to stay ahead of the game, to stay alive . . .

Cover of the Open Road electronic edition.