Kavika Kamalani is a Pali Boy, a post-plague heir to an ancient Hawai'ian warrior tradition that believes in overcoming death by embracing one's fears and living large. His life on the Nomi No Toshi, the floating city, is turned upside down when one of his friends dies, harvested for his blood, and he sets out to find the killer. Kidnapped himself and subjected to a terrifying transformation, Kavika must embrace the ultimate fear - death itself - if he, his loved ones, and the Pali Boys themselves are to survive.

Survivors of the Cull, a Plague that wiped out people with the blood type O-neg, struggle in the floating "Sargasso City" jigsawed together with ships, submarines, barges and oil tankers off the coast of what was once known as California. Separated by demarcations of turf, ethnicity and fear, it's not so much living as existing. High above it all swing the "Pali Boys" descendants of Hawaiian warriors, they desire to lift themselves and the spirits of the residents below by performing an increasingly impossible series of extreme stunts, designed to test their manhood, and demonstrate the vibrancy humanity once had. But as a conspiracy of murder unfolds and "blood attacks" increase, Kavika a single under-sized Pali Boy must strive to overcome his lowly status and the condemnation of his peers in order to save them all from an enemy living within.