In 2179 Taylor Female 8635 is content with her profession as a cosmetics designer. She gave birth to the requisite two babies in her teens and now enjoys privileges beyond the norm. When stopping at a power station Taylor inadvertently overhears a conversation between the leaders of the North and the South. They have a plan to destroy the leader of the West in order to gain control over food production. When Maximilian Male catches her in the shadows, he uses her plight as his opportunity to leave the North.

Together they travel across the country, passing abandoned and derelict cities, countryside inhabited by uneducated tribes, villages with a minimum of social organization and barren wasteland in their quest to warn the leader of the West.

Without her prescribed medication laced meals, Taylor learns what it is like to feel emotions, to experience joy and feel heartbreak.