In 2068 St. Louis, Missouri, Dr. Douglas (Doug) Michaels finds his lifelong friend, Josh Unger, dead in his home. When law enforcement concludes his death was a suicide, Doug and his wife, Ali, are dumbstruck; they wonder what could explain such a needlessly violent and lonely death in a future where such actions are unimaginable. Trying to unearth a killer, be it either flesh and blood or the cumulative stress of life, Doug creates a mental landscape of Josh's past, a retroscape, starting in the mid-2030s. Among its landmarks are: - An illness, sensationalized in the media as the "zombie pandemic", that drives a wedge between husband and wife, parents and children. - Cryptic communications between Josh and an "after-life specialist", who peddles immortality services. - A mysterious phrase uttered at the assassination of a government official that ties it to Josh's death 14 years later. - Josh's machine-intelligence wife, Julia, who may hold the secret to his death...if she can only remember. In the end, determining guilt in a retroscape littered with suspects tells Doug more about humanity, technology, and himself than he ever would have imagined

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