Marid Audran a young man from low origins (coming from the Maghreb, and being the son of an Algerian prostitute and a Frenchman,) who is a small-scale operator and hustler in the Budayeen, the entertainment and criminal quarter of an unnamed Middle-Eastern city, probably somewhere in the Levant.

Audran considers himself a freelance operator and is fiercely proud of his independence. both from others and from cybernetic modification.

Where most others have their brain "wired", for work or play, Audran's almost superstitious dread of this modification has prevented him from doing the same, and so he cannot use "daddies" (from "add-ons", software chips providing skills like languages or accounting) or "moddies" (modules that contain whole new personalities, for example, those of movie stars or fictional characters). He covers this shortcoming by personal charm, a certain arrogance, and excessive use of stimulants, opiates and other drugs, to which he is effectively addicted.

Audran's claims of independence from everyone, often given in wry internal narration, are not fully factual either. He is very fond of many people in the Budayeen, from various prostitutes, barkeepers and other lowlifes of the ghetto to most especially Yasmin, his on-and-off girlfriend. The relationship with Yasmin, a trans woman now working as a (rather successful) prostitute, is especially volatile, with periods of mutual understanding and love being interrupted by vicious fights between the two.