The Swing Voter of Staten Island

The Swing Voter of Staten Island takes place over the course of one week in 1980. Nersesian's protagonist Uli, suffering from amnesia, finds himself on a mission, but he isn't quite sure what that mission is or who sent him on it. Uli ventures across the perilous wilds of New York City - through abandoned neighborhoods and burned-out battlefields - but soon awakens to the awful fact that this isn't New York City at all. He has unwittingly become a key player in a strange alternate history of both his city and country.
Uli discovers that he is trapped in New York, Nevada - a.k.a., "Rescue City" - isolated in the center of an impenetrable desert where the U.S. military has transformed one of its "military simulation sites" into a temporary refuge center, designed to resemble New York. Battling to make sense of his surroundings, Uli slowly remembers who he is, and comes to recognize his own culpability in this political disaster. Now he must find a way out, while also attempting to dismantle the tragic social experiment he may have helped create.