It's 2209. The world's population stands at five billion. Eleven men escape from an area known as a `Work Zone' - once a prison. There are many such clandestine places across the world: each with its own purpose. The imprisoned men, however, had committed no crime. They had been genetically engineered for one purpose only: to carry out manual work for (and on behalf of) their superiors. Over the years, through and through subterfuge, the eleven men had managed to collect various scraps of information about the outside world, until one day... They make their escape under the fences - wandering through the countryside, just south of Birmingham, through woods and fields and along the towpaths of the canals. Pursuing the men and hot on their trail is a party of Work Zone guards, high-ranking officials from Whitehall and two academics from Oxford University: a husband and wife team renowned for their pioneering work in Psychoanalysis. Their remit is simple: the fugitives must be stopped at all costs, for the public must never know what happens within the confines of the Work Zone walls... Can the men escape and survive? The world's population depends on the answers to these questions.