The narrator’s name is Alan in the present and Briar in the past, which occurred five years earlier. The narrator recounts the moment their mother left them with her friend Leif, as she had to replace her sister in a factory to prevent her sister from losing the job, and thus couldn’t care for the children. When their mother’s house is condemned, Leif takes them to an empty house, leaves them with a week’s worth of tinned food, takes their passports and money, and is never seen again.
The narrator, Briar, and her younger sister, Rose, occupy the house and eat the tinned food, occasionally venturing to the field behind the house, where there are horses. Colon, a local child, accosts them, amazed they lack ‘educators’, devices that provide information and monitor users. He suspects they are ‘unverifiables’, people who are non-documented, disabled, or deemed dangerous, although the state, as depicted, no longer exists. The country is run by powerful corporations with no visible democracy. It’s a surveillance state where those compliant have documentation allowing freedom and property ownership. Others, deemed unfit, are re-educated for factory work or eliminated. Briar and Rose, home-schooled by their mother, are highly literate and never use their real names, frequently changing identities when questioned. Readers will gradually understand that Briar is non-binary.
Rose befriends a horse in the field, picking buttercups, thinking they are poisonous for horses. Colon informs them the horses are to be destroyed for meat and other purposes. Briar meets Oona, an older woman adept at evading cameras and recordings. She likes Briar for their originality and lack of an educator, advising about a local library due for destruction but still intact. Schools are shut, and children are educated on devices now. Briar is overwhelmed by the library’s knowledge and information.
Meanwhile, Rose ‘rescues’ a horse from the field and brings it into the house, naming it ‘Gliff’. When Briar brings Oona to the house, she is amazed at the horse and realizes Briar and Rose are squatting. She thinks she can help them escape through her connections, but Briar is apprehended and taken in a van when they return to their mother’s house on the horse.
The past storyline alternates with present-day Briar, now Alan. Briar was not in the system when apprehended and processed, revealing Briar had the genitalia of a boy. Briar’s hair was cut short, and they were renamed Alan. Alan was re-educated, rising to become a supervisor at a large food processing plant. Alan is adept at manipulating the system to gain information, suggesting they are gathering skills to undermine the corporation’s computer systems.
Alan disciplines non-conforming employees, informing them of demerits and rules. When Ayesha Falcon, 17, is brought into Alan’s office, Ayesha mentions Alan looks like their sister. Intrigued, Alan realizes they’ve never found their sister in the data systems and there’s no photo of her. Alan wonders if Rose is part of the underground. Ayesha reveals she lived in a cave with Alan’s sister, who cared for her. Alan notices Ayesha has severe burns and lost digits from working in a lithium factory, giving her painkillers and warning of addiction.
Alan’s encounter with Ayesha revives memories of their childhood and sister. With highly developed computer skills, Alan reassigns Ayesha to a better job at the plant, caring for organic food, still available to the elite. The country is polluted and a wasteland, with gated communities. Alan knows Ayesha’s new post is where “Campion,” the underground resistance, recruits from. He wipes Ayesha’s records from the system, crashes it, erasing his own records too. Although they will be restored, Alan ensures Ayesha’s information is changed, and there’s no record of Alan. Alan leaves, embarking on a life of resistance.