Paris, 2013. Faustine, the daughter of the head guard at the Musée d'Orsay, divides her days between her friends from high school and the museum where she likes to wander around in the evenings after closing time. When police officers come knocking on her bedroom door to announce her father's death, her world crumbles.
Called to the morgue to identify her father's corpse, Faustine doesn't recognise his hands. She is convinced that he's been kidnapped by a secret organisation, and she decides to investigate. She follows a suspicious character down a station of the Paris Metro, loses consciousness, and wakes up... 150 years earlier.
Has she stumbled into a stage set? Could she somehow have travelled back in time? The reality is much worse. Dr Zapruder, the mad scientist who kidnapped her, has imprisoned her in a virtual reality scenario, as a test subject to help him develop a real time machine.
When she adventures into the depths of City 19, a city that is very similar to the Paris of the Second French Empire, Faustine discovers that she is not alone in wanting to escape Zapruder's prison. A secret organisation called the Watchmen are working to thwart Zapruder's plans, but they must act quickly, for he is watching and waiting for them to make the slightest mistake...
Stéphane Michaka was born in 1974. He is a a scriptwriter and an author. Cité 19 is his first young adult novels.