When seventeen-year-old Ko Scanlan stumbles upon a body behind a suburban pizzeria, the last thing she expects is for that body to be her own.

One moment, Ko is focused on college dreams and scraping together enough cash to gain independence and help her struggling mother. The next, she’s staring at a dead girl who looks exactly like her—with a slit throat and a mysterious game system in her hands. And since Ko helped herself to that device, she’s now being hunted by a man with a glowing gun.

Before Ko can process it all, the body disappears, leaving her with a heap of impossible questions. Why doesn’t her well-armed mother remember raising twins? And what’s up with the stranger determined to track her down? Desperate for answers, Ko powers up the game system, hoping it might help her convince her mom they need to flee. Instead, she finds something far more complicated: a gateway to secrets that connect her doppelganger’s death to her own mysterious past. As the line blurs between game and reality, Ko realizes that uncovering the truth might be the only way to survive.

Fans of the high-stakes mystery of Matthew J. Kirby’s Star Splitter and the misfit-tech vibes of Naomi Kritzer’s Catfishing on Catnet will be captivated by Ko’s journey through danger, secrets, and self-discovery.

Content Warnings: Strong language, violence, death, body horror, drug and alcohol mentions (mostly off-screen), vicious dogs, falls, progressive political themes (in the backdrop), characters being restrained and harmed, and a few robots lacking modesty.