From the introduction: There is a place here on Earth where, just across an invisible boundary, the laws of physics are fractured. The government named it the Quarantine Zone, or “QZ,” and built its own barriers around it. Within its circumference lie wastelands and wilderness, cities and towns, countless dead, and some unknown number of stranded “zoners” still clinging to life. Years after the Event that marked its appearance, most have put it out of their minds. Those within and along the border, however—and especially those refugees warped and displaced by it—are still learning to cope. The QZ is a treasure trove of seemingly alien artifacts, not to mention everything of sentimental or practical value left behind after the Event. If you want in, you need to be part of an authorized research expedition sponsored by the Lab, under armed escort by the QZ Guard, perhaps guided by a scavenger who knows their way around. Or you need to go your own way, and hope you don’t get caught. And if you ever come back looking unlike you did before you left—perhaps not quite as human as you did before—then picking through the QZ, and selling what you can find through the Underground, may be your only option left.