When Ted Hall finds strange, personalised messages from a restaurant's fortune cookies scattered around his apartment, his suspicions are aroused, particularly as his somnambulant travels appear to coincide with murders by the notorious Hang Wire Killer. Meanwhile, the circus has come to town, but the Celtic dancers are taking their pagan act a little too seriously and the manager of the Olde Worlde Funfair has started talking to his vintage machines, although the new acrobat's frequent absences are causing tension among the performers. Out in the city there are other new arrivals,...

As the Spider Wars intensify and mankind remains trapped in a losing battle against a mechanical race capable of tearing apart entire planets, a group of hardliners overthrow their commander in a desperate bid to get the war back on track. But when the commander's replacement is murdered, Special Agent Von Kodiak discovers the prime suspect is one of the Fleet's own, a psi-marine and decorated hero - a hero killed in action, months ago, at the same time his twin sister vanished from the Fleet Academy, where she was training to join her brother on the front. As Kodiak investigates, he...