In the underground city of Apocalypse, one man's fight for his mind is key to his survival in this dystopian thriller. Set eighty years after the nuclear destruction of the Earth's surface the Narrator details his life as a Primary-one of three castes in this new society-while simultaneously living a double life as an Unthinker: a person who challenges the ideas of the Operator, the artificial superintelligence in charge of running Apocalypse.

The Narrator, who has chosen to remain anonymous for fear of being discovered, is at constant odds with his mind, wanting nothing more than to be free. Finn, his roommate and lifelong friend, has lost all motivation to rebel, instead giving himself over to the Operator's will as a means of survival. The Narrator, left to his own devices, uses his tape recorder to log his thoughts in the hopes that someone will discover them someday in the future when mankind has been restored. In the meantime, he continues to keep faith, even as his hope for escape fades with every passing day.

The Narrator works at the Bureau of Operations, the place where all information, education, and entertainment is controlled by the Operator. He works as a photojournalist for the Apocalypse Now Newspaper, under the employment of his charming yet enigmatic boss, Frank Freeman, the editor-in-chief, who is also a member of a higher caste called the Engineers. The Narrator is unsure what to make of his boss, as he doesn't entirely appear to be who he seems.

The Narrator relays how he's developed a strange attraction toward a mysterious woman in the same department, whom he simply refers to as "the woman with red hair." What's more, she appears to share in this attraction as well and suspects she too could be an Unthinker. Fearing it might all be a trap set by the Psi-Ops, he doesn't initially pursue any relationship with her-until one day, while taking the subway home from work, he has a bizarre encounter with this same woman. It's only after she gets off at her stop that he realizes they've somehow swapped briefcases. Upon opening the woman's briefcase, he discovers he's now come in possession of an artifact that destroys everything he once believed about Apocalypse-and the power to change the world. In his journey to bring the briefcase to its intended drop-off, he alters the course of his life and the lives of those around him forever-and this is only the beginning.

Readers will compare this book with the likes of 1984 by George Orwell, WE by Yevgeny Zamyatin, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, and Neuromancer by William Gibson.