In a world where everyone's life is affected by their social score, a cynical adjuster must solve the mystery of a murderer whose score proclaims his innocence, despite evidence of his guilt.

SYNOPSIS:

Five minutes in the future, American citizens have come under a draconian black-and-white scoring system. A single number, which is displayed on a "wrist-watch-like" implant on their arm at all times, determines where they can live, whether they can go to school and the length of their prison sentence should they ever be accused of a crime. In fact, the lower your score the less likely you are to be accused in the first place. After all, the implant would be able to sense your guilt.

The social score, also called debt, calculates a person's caliber of character with all the transparency of a lead plate -- no one truly knows how the scores are calculated, but everyone knows what they mean. A low score is next to godliness -- anyone with a score under 15 becomes this world's version of a guru celebrity. Those who accrue a high debt are forced to question their human worth on a daily basis, essentially the equivalent of untouchables in American society. All of them are chasing a quasi-mythical achievement called ASCENSION, something that happens when your debt reaches zero.

In Chicago, a cynical debt adjuster, SETH WINSLOW, has given up his career as a CPD detective in order to open his own debt adjustment business called ECHELON. Although people in this line of work are considered little better than snake-oil salesmen, he barely ekes out a living promising people that he can lower their debt and delivering on that promise in small, meaningful ways...

...until the day his old partner NAILA asks for his help. A death row inmate QUINCY DUNCAN, whose score for some reason never rose above 50, made a hail Mary attempt to save himself on the execution table. He claimed that he left one of his murder victims, a teenage girl named MARLA, alive. Quincy offers Seth and Naila an unimaginable bargain -- help him reach ascension and he'll tell them where she is.

The choice to help Quincy will change Seth's life forever, bringing him into conflict with ABEL, a teenage victim with a debt of 100 who escaped Quincy as well as Abel's carer DR. LENA ELLARD, but also with a shadowy group of elite celebrities with low scores, lead by a charismatic talk show guru named JERMAINE CLIFF.

As Seth unravels the mystery of Quincy's "guiltless" score, the entire system will come under scrutiny, as Seth and company race against terrible system-regulated punishments to prevent those with high debt from being victimized, dehumanized and ultimately culled from the population entirely.