Every age has its great evil. In the year 2533 it happens to be the slaughter of unwanted children prior to their 17th birthday. They're called Terminates, these unwanted kids, and if their parents feel like the child is too unruly, is interfering with their self-actualization, or is too expensive to raise for whatever reason, or any number of reasons that interfere with the parents' happiness, they can take that child to the nearest Termination clinic and literally sign the kid's life away. Michelle Rufus is one of the doctors who perform the Termination, but she hates her job. She's in it to save as many kids as she can. Unfortunately that's not nearly as many as she would like.
Another option, if the family is wealthy enough and so chooses this alternative method, they can pay for licensed couples to become the kid's parents. They're called "elterparents" and they are expected to raise the kid as if he or she were their own.
Some elterhouses go a step further. They specialize in taking in troubled kids and straightening them out. Such is the mission of Taverna House, and Greg Taverna is the best there is at taking teenage boys who are close to becoming criminals for life and returning them not just to respectability, but to a kind of sainted respectability that makes them the envy of the world.
And his greatest challenge has just walked through the front door of Taverna House; one Alen Ster. Fifteen year old Alen, the only son of two ultra-wealthy industrialists, is so mixed up that he has gone so far as to burn down a previous elterhouse and has even attempted to play-rape a fellow eltersister. Alen is abusive, treats women as objects, refuses to study, does not believe in courtesy or tact and cares little about whether he is obeying or breaking the law or even common decency. All that really interests him is himself.
Greg sees him as a challenge, difficult to be sure, but no more than that, but what Greg worries about more is that he's pretty sure Alen's parents are looking for one final reason to send their son to the Termination Clinic. They sent Alen to Taverna ostensibly so that they could say, "we tried everything," but Greg suspects that in the back of their minds they are saying "Just one little slip-up. That's all we ask for, and Alen is gone." So Greg is in a race against time; to change Alen into a decent human being worthy of praise and ready to join the human race-or see the boy die on some Termination table at the hands of a clinical professional who could care less whether the child lives or dies.
But what Greg does not know, not for sure, is that he is right. He is in a race against time, a race that he is probably likely to lose.
Because Alen's parents really are looking for a reason to kill their kid.
