The globe was ripped apart by truth in 2025, not by war, climate catastrophe, or epidemic.
A catastrophic system hack corrupted the technology following a failed global experiment to implant biometric “Virtue Chips” in every citizen, which were intended to track and reward moral conduct. The system currently labels individuals with a red sign over their heart for each sin they commit, which is only seen by others and not by themselves, rather than promoting positive behavior.
Society in New Babylon, a concrete jungle constructed on the remnants of shattered cities, is preoccupied with appearances. The quantity of marks you have determines your employment, relationships, and even your food supply. The more offenses you’ve done, the more you’ve been expelled. Crime syndicates have gained power by manipulating sin counts, blackmailing the desperate, and threatening the damned.
Known throughout the city as The Cleanser, Cassian Reed is a former church deacon who became a government enforcer. He is well-known for finding and punishing individuals whose marks surpass the legal maximum of seven by sending them to “Red Isolation,” a jail from which there is no way out. However, Cassian has a secret: ten scars on his chest, sins he committed while working, and each of them hidden from the system by a dishonest priest who covered up his digital history.
Cassian is tormented by guilt and memories of a wife he once condemned, so he submerges himself in the cold logic of figures—until the system breaks down one day.
Not everywhere. Only Sector 47 is included in this district.
People wake up in that location to see that their marks have vanished. There are no red stains. Don’t be judgmental. The system that formerly governed their lives suddenly went silent, driving some to commit crimes with impunity and others to lose their minds.
Talia Vire, a cyber-forensics expert with a sharp tongue and a secret agenda of her own, accompanies Cassian when he is sent to look into it. Talia’s brother succumbed to Red Isolation, and she thinks Cassian caused it. Although she masks her fury with icy professionalism, each step into Sector 47 pushes her patience.
They find an unusual peace within. A city inside a city where people are not afraid of being judged. Cassian encounters Father Ludo, a likable figure and former hacker who asserts that he shut off the system to demonstrate that humanity can be good even in the absence of surveillance. He invites Cassian to spend the night and witness it for himself. Cassian postpones the arrest in disobedience to instructions.
But soon, violent murders start happening in Sector 47. There is no mechanism to follow the perpetrators, and the faces of the victims are contorted with fear. The truth dawned to Cassian: the marks merely brought out what was already there; they did not cause anyone to be wicked. The genuine monsters are currently at large without the system.
Talia discovers proof that Father Ludo orchestrated the murders in order to influence Cassian as paranoia increases. In order to demonstrate his philosophy, Father Ludo compels Cassian to choose between starting the system again and allowing the populace to experience real freedom with all of its turmoil.
Cassian is conflicted. He thought that numbers were the key to justice for many years. He now understands that true judgment resides in the decisions people make when no one is looking.
The story comes to a head in the last act, when Cassian faces Father Ludo in a forsaken church that has been transformed into a technological refuge. Cassian is exposed as the very sinner he hunted by Ludo, who discloses his concealed marks to the public. The audience turns against him, but Talia intervenes before things get out of hand, revealing a stolen confession from Ludo’s own files that proves he murdered her brother in order to orchestrate his rebellion.
The metropolis keeps an eye on. The truth rushes in. There is silence in Sector 47.
Cassian is banished, stripped of his title, and unprotected, but he has nothing left to hide and walks away. Having carried out her vengeance, Talia releases him. The mechanism is not restarted. Instead, the government imposes a worldwide ban, leaving the rest of the world to make its own decision about whether or not to use the mark.
Cassian walks through the shattered outer areas in the last scene, his chest exposed, with no scars and no armor; he is simply a man who was formerly known as a sinner and is now attempting to change.
