In a world ravaged by malware, two powerful tycoons with opposing solutions emerge as saviors. But tragedy strikes when a young man's lust threatens the newfound, tenuous balance between machines and the natural world.

When a posthuman 'hardshell' robot finds an injured biological human who has committed war crimes against hardshells, the hardshell's programming will not allow it to let the human come to harm, so it must use all the resources it has to find a way to bring this war criminal to justice.