Jo is on the run. Thirty years after the declaration of the demographic state of emergency that plunged the world into chaos, girls over 15 must submit to the Duty of Procreation or be sent to the Birth Institutes – from which no one has ever returned. Hunted by the authorities, Jo dreams of reaching the still-free Scandinavian Union. But her plan goes awry: to cross the border, she must join forces with Edgar, a man who has lived in isolation and knows nothing of the regime’s reign of terror.