Publisher's Synopsis
A dark vision of the near future. Teenage Kai lives on his wits in the slums of Portobello, under the tyrannical rule of Nebula, the clean and modern city on the peninsula. The Nebulan scientists are experimenting with genetically modified humans, but twins Phoebe and Phoenix escape from the lab and disappear into Portobello. Head of Security, the devious Mendel, hires Kai to find them. Phoenix fights back and is killed, but Kai and Phoebe gradually form a relationship, strengthened when they recognise that they are both genetic guinea-pigs. Kai, like Phoebe, has been modified to survive in water, but he was put in a different environment at birth. Together they manage to outwit Mendel and ride a storm wave to freedom.