In a near-future, half-flooded world governed by technobureaucracy and ultraconformity, where human contact is abhorrent and passion unheard of, William Fowke already has a reputation as a trouble-maker. And now he insists that the Wall - the engineering marvel that keeps what remains of America's East Coast from being inundated by the Atlantic Ocean - is leaking. Convicted of sedition and 'excluded', Fowke begins a horrific, thrilling odyssey through a nether world of gulags. With the exception of agent Julia Keller, who arrested him, everyone is hostile, including his former bosses and fellow prisoners, leaving Fowke excluded even by the excluded. And desperate to get back to his threatened Wall to sound the alarm.