In a post-apocalyptic world where natural sources of water have dried up and people live a meager existence, a large company has assumed control of a small valley community, maintaining its power by controlling the only usable drinking water. When one of the company engineers, Perry Talbot is found wandering the desert alone, in violation of company law, he is arrested, and held for the murder of his lover, Lila Irving, a high-ranking company scientist who disappeared a month earlier. As the investigation progresses, however, Sybella Moss, the company's lead interrogator, soon begins to realize that the mystery goes far deeper than Lila's death, and the answers might shake the company and her own beliefs to the core.