Approximately two hundred and fifty years into the future a nation simply known as The Union is the envy of the entire world. This particular utopia stands above every other state in terms of medicine, technology, and the sciences. And although it may seem perfect, it has a single and very flawed blemish that has haunted its populace for fifteen decades. A secretive vigilante religion known as "The Process Cult" has repeatedly killed individuals, both overtly criminal and seemingly benign, with a perfect rate of success. The method of murder, a nearly spontaneous full-body conflagration, still baffles forensic scientists and investigators.

Detectives Sali Ross and Gordon Pratt are assigned the go-nowhere job of hunting down the Process Cult membership. Although they are able to set traps for the cult's enforcer, the killer has slipped through their fingers over and over. When the killer targets the aide of high-ranking politician Ibram Glenn, the two officers are handed the unique opportunity to take the investigation in an entirely new direction. With the assistance of a computer scientist, a professor of law and philosophy, and a naturalist hunter with an outdated (and illegal) lifestyle, the team sets out to test the means and method of the murderous cult.

But is the cult really the source of the killings at all? How are they able to step so far outside the established bounds of known engineering and science? How can they finance such an elaborate operation? How can they maintain it in a surveillance and information-heavy society?