Begin Reading
Table of Contents
About the Author
Copyright Page
Thank you for buying this
Tom Doherty Associates ebook.
To receive special offers, bonus content,
and info on new releases and other great reads,
sign up for our newsletters.
Or visit us online at
us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup
For email updates on the author, click here.
The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied so that you can enjoy reading it on your personal devices. This e-book is for your personal use only. You may not print or post this e-book, or make this e-book publicly available in any way. You may not copy, reproduce, or upload this e-book, other than to read it on one of your personal devices.
Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.
This book is dedicated to Dan Wells the actor, Dan Wells the race car driver, Dan Wells the snooker player, and Dan Wells the Australian rules footballer. Sometimes you try to find someone else, and all you can find is yourself.
PREFACE
In the early nineteenth century a powerful bacterial neurotoxin was identified in spoiled meat, earning it the name botulinum toxin, or “sausage poison.” The resulting condition, known as botulism, destroys the nervous system’s ability to communicate with muscles, rendering all soft tissues—including the heart and lungs—completely immobile. A mere ninety nanograms can kill a two hundred pound adult in a matter of minutes. It is the most acutely toxic substance known to man. And in 2014, nearly five million beauty-conscious customers voluntarily injected it into their faces.
People don’t like the way they look. More than two-thirds of women in the United States are trying to lose weight; more than half of American teenage girls have quantifiable eating disorders, with symptoms occurring as early as kindergarten. Beauty products and cosmetic surgeries account for more than $426 billion in annual global sales, rising at a rate of nearly 100 percent per year: men implant hair in some places and laser it off in others; some women have their breasts enlarged, others have their breasts reduced; fat is vacuumed out of abdomens; collagen is injected into lips and eyelids; wrinkles are masked and puttied and stretched and poisoned.
In a culture where we can be anything we want, only one thing is certain:
Nobody wants to be themselves.
PART ONE
NEWYEW
1
Thursday, March 22
9:01 A.M.
NewYew headquarters, Manhattan
267 DAYS TO THE END OF THE WORLD
“The yew,” said Carl Montgomery, “is a majestic tree.” He wheezed with the effort of speaking, and paused to take a slow, deep breath from his oxygen tank. “Yggdrasil was a yew,” he said, “the tree that holds up the world.”
