Eighteen-year-old Mandalyn Johnson's mother tried to kill her. She knows because her father told her. The one thing she knows about her father - he's a master manipulator.
On the cusp of adulthood, Mandalyn is ready to shed all thoughts of her mentally unstable mother and take her rightful place among the greatest minds her society possesses.
Mandalyn manipulates her aerial pod, ChaWanda, into interacting like a feisty older sister rather than the computerized aerial device it should be, but she can't figure out how she's able to identify someone's character by a random number thrust into her head. When she learns the character level of her rival for top-in-class - someone she's known most of her life - crests at ten, she knows she must confront him. She's never met anyone over a four. Tens are the most dangerous, immoral level imaginable. When he confesses that her character level is also a ten, her dreams of redemption are shattered.
With the help of two other students with deadly character levels, they struggle to piece together what they know while they start to exhibit extraordinary abilities. With their newfound abilities, they're able to see the future. In one potential future, they die. In the other future, they kill everyone.
They must untangle the lies perpetrated by the people they love to determine which future will belong to them. And find out why the organizations tasked with bringing order to the world don't want them to exist in the perfect world they're trying to create.