Amidst warnings about decreasing air quality and a sudden mandate for people to wear gas masks, a woman contemplates whether or not to leave her partner.

California has seceded from America, and Molly and her daughter Phoebe run a bookstore that straddles the troubled border of the two countries. When outright war breaks out, Molly and Phoebe must protect their customers - American and Californian alike - but the customers are not all willing to get along.

An effective fat-burninng pill with high odds of mortality is invented, and it makes obesity a rarity, and a crime.