Code stoned. Debug sober. Document drunk. And never trust the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Michael Luis Bolaño is the scion of Mexican oil wealth gone to rut in Texas. Sherman Spartacus Katz is the hyperliterate son of evangelical eccentrics from the North Georgia mountains. One hopes to restore what's been lost, the other to attain what never was. Together at a major Technical Institute they are trained as engineers; together in the dark they study forbidden teachings. By graduation, they're formidably competent, and wholly rogue.

Michael hopes to unwind an operation grown too large for comfort, but not until they've finally cleaned their money and moved it into the banking system. Sherman stays awake for days on meth, building baroque machines, designing powerful drug analogues, and chasing scientific glory. The DEA and FBI circle, aware that there's something rotten in Atlanta. A bulk LSD sale goes sideways, but opens new opportunities of an entirely different nature. Carried away by events increasingly beyond their control, the two find themselves targets of governments, industry, and old friends unable to resist the allure of incredible power.

They meanwhile talk ceaseless smack, seek out spergy love, deal with sadistic professors, supercharge wheelchairs, hack compulsively, and avoid a possibly demoniacal snapping turtle. midnight's simulacra is a picaresque technical thriller.