The second angel
July 2069: the centennial of the Apollo 11 Moon walk. What would Buzz Aldrin see if he were here? On Earth, plagues have destroyed major food supplies, climatic changes have brought constant winter to the once-industrialized West, and a new and virulent virus - P[superscript 2]- has infected the Earth's population, bringing devastating changes in the economic, political, and social structures. P[superscript 2] is curable - but only with an infusion of clean, uninfected blood. Indeed, virus-free blood has become the currency of choice: it is banked, speculated in, traded, hoarded. But only by those wealthy enough (or healthy enough) to have an uninfected supply. And the Moon? It is now home to sex hotels and penal colonies. Home, too, to the "federal reserve" of blood banks - the most impregnable high-security installation ever built. Its security systems are the brainchild of one man - and he has every reason to destroy them. Acting on the most human of motives, revenge, he will take on the impossible. Unbeknown to him, he will have help from a very strange source.