Post-Nuclear War (World War III). When Ash Van Port is chosen to go to the Surface, she thinks life will go back to normal afterwards - heck, maybe they can even go back up and start from the beginning again. But once sucked into the real world, there's no escaping. There are things on the Surface, things no one ever knew existed. What secrets are the Government keeping from society? And what does it have to do with the mix-matched gaze she can't get out of her head?