To combat the voracious rats that have adapted to space age living, powerful resonance technology was developed and implemented by a League of pipers, who lure the rats out of hiding and send them into open space. Master Piper Atmosphere is the most talented piper in the League, but when he meets a young scientist in the course of his latest assignment, he finds himself caught in an entirely different kind of lure. His new relationship leads him to secrets of the resonance technology the League has carefully hidden-secrets worth killing for, and which drive him to dark, drastic measures of his own.