The novel is split into a series of short narratives, which are not in sequential order, but are structured as overlapping short stories.
“The Affinity Charm”
The novel begins with the story of Bix, a secondary character from Egan's earlier novel A Visit from The Good Squad. He lives in New York City. At a career crossroads, he has become the founder of a social media behemoth called Mandala, but is experiencing an existential crisis as he feels he has lost his vision for innovation. He continually sees a blank white space in his mind when trying to think of a new or original idea. He comes across a flyer for a discussion group studying the work of anthropologist—and prominent critic of his work—Miranda Kline. Under the cover of anonymity, Bix attends the group hosted by art historian Ted Hollander at Columbia University. After a few meetings, he learns about psychologists who have begun experimenting with downloading animals' consciousness onto computers. This sparks his next great invention. He returns home, calls his mother-in-law, and feels excited about the new possibilities he envisions.
“Case Study: No One Got Hurt”
The following chapter focuses on Ted Hollander's youngest son, Alfred, who is obsessed with the idea of authenticity. From a young age, Alfred's dislike of what he sees as people's acting and fulfilling prescribed roles drives him to engage in strange and abrasive behavior, like placing a bag over his head at dinner or asking pointed and rude questions. He makes a single friend in high school in upstate New York, Jack Stevens, who he thinks instills natural behavior in other people by putting them at ease. As he gets older, he attends college at SUNY New Paltz and makes friends, but quickly becomes disillusioned after they graduate and take on various performative poses in their domestic and work lives. He makes a documentary film about the migratory patterns of geese that is unwatchably dull. He is later approached by Rebecca Omari, a sociologist, and member of Ted Hollander's discussion group, equally interested in questions surrounding authenticity and genuineness. She gives him her card and is revealed to be the narrator of this section.
The family receives the relatively shocking information that their mother has been sleeping with Alfred's friend Jack. Alfred's brother Miles calls him in tears about the news, and Alfred treasures it as a rare instance of his being genuine. Around the same time, after hearing a woman scream, he starts randomly screaming in public as a means of shocking people out of their daily complacency. This behavior usually results in him being removed from places, reprimanded, or injured. It also attracts the attention of a woman named Kristen, who he begins dating. A few months later, Alfred travels home to see his family in Michigan. He screams on the airport shuttle, to Kristen's displeasure, and is calmly and authoritatively told to stop by the bus driver. Arriving at Miles's home, Alfred is irritated by his cheerful demeanor and pointedly asks about Jack, causing an argument to erupt between Miles, their mother Susan, and Ames, his other brother. Miles's wife Trudy comments that they were taking bets on how long it would take him to do something provocative. Miles and Kristen leave and visit Jack's home, after looking up where he lives online. They find that he has fallen on hard times, as he is divorced and works a low-paying job. Alfred makes fun of his documentary to make Jack laugh and they spend the evening drinking at his home. Rebecca reveals that she is Kristen.
“A Journey: A Stranger Comes to Town”
The third chapter splits its perspective between Ted's oldest son Miles and Drew Blake, Sasha's husband and Bix's friend from college. In the first part, Miles recounts his fall from grace. Once a successful lawyer in Chicago, his increasing dependency on drugs to function causes him to spiral severely. After he can no longer get these drugs over the counter, he is forced to buy them illegally. At the same time, he begins an affair with one of his wife's friends, Janna, and begins to use drugs more and more frequently. Finally, one day, when his wife confronts him about the affair, he takes Janna on a car ride while high, drives recklessly, and has a terrible accident. She loses her leg and he ends up with a steel plate in his skull. His life falls apart, and he ends up working at a methadone clinic. Curious about how his life turned out so much worse than hers, he decides to visit his cousin Sasha and her family in California.
The perspective then switches to Drew, who dislikes Miles and picks him up from the airport. He is haunted by the death of his friend Rob, who drowned in the East River when they went swimming in it in the middle of the night. Years later, Using Own Your Consciousness, he replays this memory with Bix and keeps rewinding it, trying to find the moment that he could have changed things. The perspective switches back to Miles, who is uncomfortable and struggles to make small talk. He goes with Drew to look at Sasha's sculptures and dislikes them. We return to Drew's perspective, to whom Sasha suggests that he take Miles on a hot-air balloon tour. They both agree, and Drew decides to go up with him at the last moment. Miles finds Sasha's sculptures beautiful from this high vantage point and, feeling overwhelmed, attempts to kill himself by jumping out of the balloon. Drew stops him and is furious with him in the aftermath. After a stay in a psychiatric hospital, Miles's life begins to improve. He patches up his relationship with Drew, moves to California, and eventually becomes a politician.
“Rhyme Scheme”
The fourth chapter is narrated by Lincoln, son of Drew and Sasha. He lives in San Francisco and works as a "counter" for Mandala and describes his romantic interest in his coworker M as well as his fascination with quantifying information. He depicts his struggle to use the information he has gathered about M to actually pursue a romantic connection with her. The situation is further complicated by the fact that M has a boyfriend. Around the same time, the company announces that there is a mole in their ranks, helping "eluders" confuse and evade their data-collection methods. Lincoln has a heated exchange with M over lunch, which he feels reveals both her latent interest in him and her devotion to her boyfriend. He learns that she is now engaged to her boyfriend and is thrown into a state of despondency. His sister Allison repeatedly provides emotional support for him. The mole is then revealed to be his friend O'Brien, who apologizes to his friends but states that he feels no remorse for his actions. O'Brien and others are fired in a major shakeup. Lincoln is promoted and leads a team. He organizes a barbecue which Allison assists in planning and hosting. M attends and they share a poignant moment in which they discuss math and look up at the stars. They later marry, he informs the reader.
"The Mystery of Our Mother"
The novel's fifth chapter is narrated from the perspective of Miranda's two daughters, Lana and Melora. They live with their mother, Miranda, in Los Angeles. Miranda left their father, record producer Lou Kline, after he began having an affair with a young punk rocker named Jocelyn. Loui drives them to ballet practice and later to the beach. He begins to show more interest in spending time with them and they develop a closer relationship. They spend time at his house, and their half-siblings notice that he is more attentive to the two of them than he ever was before. As they get older, they become more involved in his business, assisting him with his work in the music industry. At the same time, they notice the slow unraveling of their brother Rolph, who eventually kills himself. They also observe their father's troubling relationship with Jocelyn and the way it contributes to his problems with Rolph. Their mother goes back to graduate school to pursue a Ph.D. in anthropology. She becomes increasingly absorbed in her work. She travels to Brazil and decides to retrace the footsteps of her former mentor, searching for a tribe that he wrote about. The girls move in with their father and witness the deterioration of his life. Jocelyn leaves Lou. The girls' sister Charlene makes a scene, accusing Lou of killing Rolph while locking herself in the bathroom. They take all of this in stride, finding strength in one another. They get their father in family therapy and on a healthier diet. Their mother returns a different person and they feel distant from her. She begins work on a book which eventually wins her great academic success and critical recognition. They work more closely with their father, eventually taking over when he is left incapacitated by a series of strokes. His business suffers greatly from the rise of online music sharing. Looking for a solution, they turn to their mother and sell her ideas to social media companies. At the end of the chapter, their voices separate and Melora reveals that she still runs her father's music empire, while Lana joined her mother in hiding. She wonders when they lost their closeness and imagines reuniting with her mother and Lana on a boardwalk in Venice Beach.
“What the Forest Remembers”
In the sixth chapter, Lou's daughter Charlene uses Mandala's application to explore her father's memories. She revisits a trip he took in the 1960s to a cabin in the California woods. He walks along with a few of his friends and they eventually reach the cabin. They are escaping what they feel is the stifling impact of their family lives, having told their wives that they were spending the weekend on a hunting trip. The leader of the party, Quinn, is interested in Lou's friend Ben, as Charlene notes several times. Charlene also describes the technology that allows her to access these thoughts and feelings, stating that these descriptions are straight from the source. When Lou was dying, his memories were downloaded into a large machine before eventually being transferred to a Mandala Consciousness Cube. They smoke marijuana with the owner of the house, Tor, and eat a vegetarian meal. They then trek out into the forest and a brother and sister duo play a traditional song on clarinet and guitar. Quinn and Ben vanish into the woods. Lou observes the duo and feels determined to make them famous, as part of his desire to be a major part of the future. He returns home and experiences a scene of domestic happiness as his wife and children eagerly await him. But his mind is clearly elsewhere.
"Bright Day"
The seventh chapter in the novel tells the story of a day in the life of Roxy Kline, Lou's middle daughter, in the months leading up to her death. Roxy is a recovering heroin addict in San Francisco. She attends a weekly game of Dungeons and Dragons at her treatment center, but does not play. The game is run by Chris Salazar and Molly Cooke, who recently suffered the loss of their friend Colin, who was also an addict. Roxy is excited about her recent purchase of a Mandala cube and plans to upload her memories to it, in order to revisit a trip she took to London with her father. She does not mention this to Chris as he is a staunch opponent of Mandala's work. She leaves the game and goes to pick up drugs. She runs into Molly, who she finds irritating. Using terminology from the game, she describes her "subterfuge sense," which allows her, like many addicts, to see how restaurants and shops often serve double functions. She encounters Molly. Chris appears to be worried about her. She returns home and begins the process of uploading her consciousness. When it is done, she recalls the London trip from her father's perspective and is disgusted by his selfishness. She remembers how they shared a rare moment of connection during a conversation with one of his business friends that stretched long into the night. She is then crushed when she asks to move in with him, and he flatly rejects her. She then remembers her strained relationship with her sister, Kiki, and her sacrifice of every part of her life to her heroin addiction. She feels momentarily happy about uploading her memories and imagines a future in which she starts over and joins the Dungeon and Dragons game.
"'i,' the Protagonist"
The eighth chapter follows Chris Salazar, son of Lou's protege Bennie, as he works for the mysterious company SweetSpot Networks in San Francisco. He breaks apart narratives into repetitive story blocks using algebra, imagining variations on different scenarios. He imagines the scenes in the chapter as stock moments from different genres of story. He is dealing with his recent breakup with Pamela, his ex-girlfriend, who left him after nearly dying from a heroin overdose. Chris goes outside and joins some smokers, one of whom is his friend Comstock. He joins Comstock for a motorcycle ride and is panicked when he realizes they are headed to the airport. They pick up Comstock's girlfriend and Chris is stuck riding with her suitcase in a cab. When the cab driver fails to keep up with Comstock's motorcycle, they get into an argument that ends with Chris being kicked out of the cab. He then takes the suitcase to his grandmother's house, which is close to where he was dropped. They share a meal with his cousin Gabby, who dislikes him. His grandmother owns an expensive painting by the artist Piet Mondrian, which is an issue of contention between her and his father. He leaves and returns to work, where security guards force him to wait outside with the suitcase, as he refuses to open it and reveal its contents. He goes into the alleyway across the street, lays against the wall, and looks up at the night sky.
"The Perimeter: After"
The novel's ninth chapter is told from the perspective of Molly Cooke, Chris' neighbor in Crandale, New York. She describes the teenage anguish she experiences in her relationship with her friend Stella. She wants to be included in Stella's life, but feels her pushing her away. She lists the various places she goes to cry when Stella mistreats her. She gets sandwiches with Stella and her friend Iona. After being abandoned by them, she cries in the women's locker room at the country club. She sees Chris' mother, Stephanie, and his friend Colin's mom, Kathy. They have an opaque conversation that leaves Molly uncertain about whether or not they are friends. She then goes to the snack bar where she encounters a girl named Lulu. She realizes Lulu is the girl who attended their school briefly and left when her mother went to prison briefly. They have hamburgers together and Molly attempts to leave and rejoin Stella. When she returns to the table, she finds Chris and Colin sitting with Lulu. They leave as a group to go to a spot that Colin wants to show them. They encounter Stella, who has a crush on Chris, and Molly makes a last-minute decision to break away from her. They all ride their bikes to a pier by a river and Colin and Chris smoke marijuana. They all lay on the ground and look up at the sky. Colin flirts with Lulu, and Molly asks Lulu if they can be friends. They fall asleep and quickly realize it's late. They return to the club and say a sad goodbye to Lulu. Chris invites Molly to play Dungeons and Dragons with them and his uncle Jules. Molly sits alone and feels content as she looks up at the moon.
“Lulu the Spy”
The tenth chapter is told from the second person perspective and follows Lulu as she works as a spy in the Citizen Agent program. She is the wife of an NSA employee who designs security systems. The story unfolds as a series of instructions for her job as a "beauty," which is to infiltrate the life of a powerful man and carefully record his meetings and conversations. She pursues her target and has sex with him after swimming in the ocean. She uses her training to disassociate from the revulsion she feels in the moment. After a nap, she changes into a white dress and joins her target outside. When he leaves, she looks at the moon. They later get on a speedboat and take a long journey to another island. They reach shore and meet a new host, as well as his "alpha beauty" who seems to oversee his personal and business affairs. She records some of the meeting between the two men and then they overhear a scream. Her target flees and she is abandoned. She is brought into her new host's home where she bathes and has a violent sexual encounter with him. Later, she sneaks into his master bedroom and uses a "data surge" to upload all of his digital information. She also discovers the host has a baby with the alpha beauty. She is caught in the act, and the alpha beauty reaches for a gun and shoots her in the shoulder. She uses her "primal roar" to frighten the other woman and flees the scene. She finds the speedboat, presses the emergency signal below her knee and cuts the engine at a pickup spot. She disassociates and hovers above her body. A helicopter eventually arrives and she is rescued.
"The Perimeter: Before"
The eleventh chapter is written from the perspective of Molly's sister Hannah, who views their mother, Noreen, as overly intense and frightening. She describes the marital discord between her mother and father, as her mother becomes increasingly obsessed with Jules, their neighbor Stephanie's brother, who recently moved in with her. Their father is sympathetic to Jules's struggles with mental illness, but her mother finds his presence unsettling. Their relationship slowly deteriorates. They have a confrontation on Stephanie's lawn which ends with Noreen sleeping outside to prove a point. Shortly after, Stephanie throws a party and invites Hannah's family. They decide to attend, over Noreen's objections. Noreen arrives and asks where Jules is. Stephanie informs her that he is upstairs, as his ex-girlfriend is in attendance. Noreen charges upstairs, with Hannah trying to stop her, and looks for Jules, eventually locating him. Surprisingly, she comforts him, telling him, with typical bluntness, that he can conquer his heartbreak. Hannah ends the story shortly thereafter, with everyone enjoying the party. She says that part of a happy ending is knowing when to look away.
“See Below”
The lengthy twelfth chapter of the novel isn't told from a single perspective, but is instead made up of a series of intersecting email threads. This section reintroduces a number of the characters from A Visit from the Good Squad, making explicit reference to events from that book. It tells the story of Lulu's attempt to get in contact with her biological father, actor Jazz Attenborough. It begins with her husband noting his concern over Lulu's psychological recovery from her mission. It follows her as she engineers an interview with Jazz with the help of Jules and the aging rockstar Bosco Baines. Concurrently, it also shows her attempting to get a "weevil," an electronic device inserted in government agents' brains, removed, only to discover that she does not have one. At the same time, it tracks the development of a documentary about Lulu's mother Dolly's work on the PR campaign of a third-world dictator. Jazz ends up taking a speedboat ride with Jules, Bosco, and Lulu, in which she reveals that he is her father. The chapter ends with an email from Lulu to Joseph describing the peaceful landscape of X, the dictator's country which they have returned to in order to make the documentary.
“Eureka Gold”
The thirteenth chapter is about Gregory Bouton, Bix's son. Gregory is a writer who pursued an advanced degree in poetry. He lives with a marijuana courier named Dennis. In the aftermath of his father's slow decline from ALS, he finds himself unable to leave the house. This changes when Dennis informs him that he delivered pot to Athena, Gregory's old professor, mentor, and one-time romantic interest. He decides to make the trip. He recalls his father's fast decline and their difficult relationship, as he rejected his father's work and mission. He then reveals that his father left a sizable chunk of his estate to Mondrian, the company that has been working to counter all of Mandala's work. Gregory is upset by the fact that he never got to know this side of his father. He arrives at Athena's home and they smoke marijuana together. She tells him to finish his novel. He walks home in the snow and feels his ability to capture a multitude of human lives through his writing.
“Middle Son (Area of Detail)”
The fourteenth and final chapter focuses on a moment in the life of Ames Hollander, the middle brother between Miles and Alfred. The chapter describes a surprise game-winning home run he hits at a little league game. He views this as the moment he discovered a hidden certainty within himself. From there, the chapter moves quickly through the events of his life, depicting his time in the Special Ops division of the military and later as a defense contractor. It then describes his moment of clarity before a targeted assassination that led him to walk away from that life. He moves upstate and lives with his mother. Later, he discovers he has a "weevil" implanted in his brain and has it removed, opening a clandestine business that helps other people detect and remove their weevils. He eventually dies in a retirement home, but the chapter leaps back to the moment of the home run. It shows the family after the game, everyone celebrating his big win and his father saying they can get whatever he wants on their way home.
