Hank Hummel, a creative writing instructor at Midland University and a former high school Economics teacher, is doing research on MU"s experimental Human Capital Market, known colloquially as HumCap and hopes to receive an M.S. in Economics. Hector Rodriguez, having been promoted from beat cop at Midland College to a sergeant at the new Midland University, is living a quiet life. When news breaks that Midland University plans to fire up its HumCap servers and run a public beta test on Thanksgiving Day, coinciding with the ever-earlier Black Friday deals, liberal and conservative politicians have a field day about investing in human capital and its effects on the economy. However, one man hopes to use the HumCap beta test to send a message more chilling than anything the nation has ever seen. Playing cat-and-mouse with the protagonists, he plays a lethal game of chess that will leads to an endgame tying together backstabbing politics, unbridled capitalism, insidious greed, and unlikely heroism. With every minute counting, the novel"s action-packed climax ends with a bit of mystery.