In Complex 441, the most feared punishment of all is to be made an Archivist, and be sentenced to read the journals of those who came before-before the Loss, before the holes appeared in people's memories and the cities vanished. But an Archivist doesn't simply read the journals-he re-lives the events written down inside. His own memories are slowly replaced by those of the Recorder, and the Archivist becomes a different person-if he doesn't go insane first. When Michael Driftveil, a petty thief, is sentenced to become an Archivist, he is sure there is some mistake. He's given a harsh 64-year term, reading the journals of an eleven-year-old boy named Johnny, who survived in an underground bunker during the Loss. But the more he reads, the more he learns that the world he thought he knew is not as it seems. The government who sentenced him, who sentenced all the Archivists, is using him. It's after information. Powerful information. Information that could change everything. Now Michael must escape, must find a way to stop the government's dangerous plan. And he must do it before his own memories are gone.