It's early 2020. MI7 is expecting an eccentric new recruit in the person of Chasha Jones, self-described (only partly tongue-in-cheek) as "the most intelligent woman in London." Perceptive, cerebral, fun to work alongside, everyone looks forward to her arrival. But on the day she's due to start work, there's no sign of her. Nor the day after. Then shockingly, it turns out she's joined an obscure cult run by an eccentric Briton called Hector Raynebow. Raynebow used to be a dedicated eco-warrior, but he's ditched environmentalism on the grounds that humanity, in its present form, isn't really capable of saving the world: the rot has gone too far. But don't worry, he has a solution: Humankind 2.0, a new type of human being, developed by means of cutting-edge gene technology. The trouble is, when more than a few governments encounter the words, "a new type of human being", what they actually hear is "super-soldiers". And their only question then is, assuming Raynebow really is capable of developing such things, who's going to get their hands on them first? John Mordred is assigned to investigate. But of course, he's not the only one. And to make things even cosier, the investigators are explicitly briefed not to get on with each other.
