Book 2 of the Wakeful Wanderer's series.
Book 1 is The Wakeful Wanderer's Guide to New New England & Beyond. That's a good place to start. It's available here.
The America of our near-future is divided across socio-economic and technological-philosophical lines. The Traditionalists eschew any and all post-human technologies in favor of tangible materials. They uphold strict hierarchical structures based on religion, family, and leadership. They long for the return of the global markets wiped out by a world-shaking disaster called The Great Tide. The Interconnected stand in stark opposition to their ways, living without property, family, or religion, and modifying their bodies with the help of new and invasive technologies. They speak to each other wordlessly, employing a technological telepathy they call 'thexting' to communicate mind to mind, and embrace the gifting economy of Merit to maintain their post-scarcity lifestyles.
Marto, the traveling Interconnected historian, has exiled himself to protect the ones he loves from his dark secret. In his absence, Helen, a runaway Traditionalist aristocrat, struggles to find her place among the Interconnected, unwilling to return to her cruel family. Reyleena, the former head of security in the Interconnected town of Reverside, has returned to a life of quiet solitude, broken occasionally by the impositions of The Other, an omnipresent AI, who will not leave her alone. Meanwhile, Barnabas, the Traditionalist leader of New Atlantic, fights to return to his township in the wake of an attack. Nora, his sister, remains in Reverside and must come to terms with her new life in captivity.
"I want to create a better world where no one hurts each other, to foster a place where love doesn't have to make hate, where no one hurts or kills anybody. A world where I don't have to hurt anybody anymore."
The First Dawn has concluded; Children of Blight are running rampant, and the last remaining Bastions of humanity are searching and killing for them for their last chance to find one to restore the earth. The World Capital stands above everyone, with a shadow government smothering the people. The power balance has been tipped for a century now- then came a girl named Armageddon, changing the world forever.
Lydia Armageddon, born on the nuclear fronts of the decimated America, was sold to be a child soldier of The World Capital and is found out as a Child of Blight, her trait being named 'Convergence.' The world is at risk of war once more, with the starting gun being fired for the race to control her.
Subject to all matters of mutilation, violation, and experimentation, she escapes Blight Laboratories and finds that the world outside is no better than the months she spent in captivity. Hatred for humanity forms, and a monster is coming to be, slowly, just as a fanatical religion predicted all those years ago. Father like daughter.
Until she decides to rob an old man sleeping by a fire with an empty gun, not knowing her life was about to be changed forever. The world prepares for the second dawn as Armageddon's child is born-their saviour.
The world looks red, and Armageddon is there in the middle of it all, atop a mountain of corpses upon Mother Earth's flesh.
March 17th, 2157: A family of three Children of Blight was found hiding on the edge of the Chinese Blight. The events that unfolded that day, as reported by the 48th Platoon of Russian Cyber-Militia, are as follows: