After exploring outer space for twenty years and finding nothing, former NavCom Ranger Linus Dunn accepts one last job: exploring the ruins of an ancient alien city. He resolves that unless he discovers something worth living for, he will take his own life. On Earth, Hazel Van Park, an architect disillusioned with designing for virtual reality, writes a manifesto calling for a more human world. It attracts the attention of a corporation that could fulfill her dreams, as long as she ignores the corruption at the corporation's heart. Both soon find themselves on the trail of a missing scientist, whose discovery could change what it means to be human, forever.