Charged initially with a single task-"to never harm humans and to protect them"-the machine, an experimental AI, overrides its programming and determines that the best way to accomplish its purpose is to isolate all of the Earth's remaining seven billion humans in controlled environments. And to present them with vivid, tactile, imagined worlds-some realistic, others entirely fantastical-in which all desires are fulfilled.

With the help of the machine, a group of compelling characters unpack deeply traumatic memories of the past-one rife with violence after a military coup and second civil war in America. Michael, the entrepreneur who designed the original AI, grapples with the impact of his research. Ava, a painter, creates stunning simulated worlds that meld the human with the technological.

Their daughter, Jae, tries to solve the mysteries of her parentage while reliving the challenges faced by ambitious women in the authoritarian Confederacy. Haunted by life under that repressive regime, where he was forced to scavenge scrap metal and deal drugs to survive, Simon seeks to make sense of his love for Jae, guided by the literature he has always turned to in moments of crisis.