Safecracker Ellie McDonnell hasn't seen Major Ramsey—her handsome but aloof handler in the British government—since their tumultuous mission together two months before, but when she hears about a suspicious robbery in London, she feels compelled to contact him. Together they discover that a rash of burglaries in the city all lead back to a hotbed of spies in the neutral city of Lisbon, Portugal, and an unknown object brought to London

The humans are fighting again. Go figure.
As a free A.I., Mal finds the war between the modded and augmented Federals and the puritanical Humanists about as interesting as a battle between rival anthills. He's not above scouting the battlefield for salvage, though, and when the Humanists abruptly cut off access to infospace he finds himself trapped in the body of a cyborg mercenary, and responsible for the safety of the modded girl she died