Hilketa is a frenetic and violent pastime where players attack each other with swords and hammers. All the players are "threeps," robot-like bodies controlled by people with Haden's Syndrome. No one gets hurt, but the brutality is real and the crowds love it until a star athlete drops dead on the playing field. FBI agents and Haden-related crime investigators, Chris Shane and Leslie Vann, are called in to uncover the truth - and in doing so travel to the darker side of the fast-growing sport of Hilketa, where fortunes are made or lost, and where players and owners do whatever it takes to win, on and off the field.