Grant D'Arcy was a dreamer. He had to do something to get his mind off a menial 9 to 5 job straining plankton on Hydra 7, an otherwise uninhabited planet. And one day he tasted forbidden entertainment in the Dark Zone. It was all too incredible. At first he was the hero he had fantasized about. while reading pulp science fiction all his life. Then he found out there was just one catch-in the Dark Zone, there are no happy endings. Nothing even close.