AustLit

'If you're not an addict in Shard, you're a corpse.

'Shard was once the greatest city in the land, the new and improved Las Vegas. Now it's a cruel coffin. Crystal meth falls like snow, shambling hordes of Cravers stagger through the streets and Bulls throw their steroid enhanced physiques around like wrecking balls. Slinking in the shadows are the Hybrids, genetically spliced halfpeople. In charge of it all are the Masked, drug cartels who have replaced local government.

'Bastion and his family are survivalists. They scavenge what they can and try to avoid the attention of the ruling drug lords. As far as he knew they had succeeded... until the day his daughter is born and the two of them are kidnapped.

'Turns out someone was watching after all.

'Dumped in a science facility Bastion struggles to adapt. All he ever wanted was to escape Shard. Now, he has. He should be happy. Except all of his dreams are of his wife. All he sees are white walls, clockwork routines and a servant without a tongue. Everything is kept from him, his existence quarantined. One day he breaks out of his room. He looks for an escape. What he finds is another inhabitant of the facility. A creature called Zero, who reminds him of the one truth of Shard.

'Everything comes at a cost.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.