The story is told from a variety of perspectives; which each new "entry" you get a little more about what is going on, so reading it feels like you're slowly solving a mystery. It starts out with a letter home from Marie Roland, who addresses an unnamed lover. She is on a new planet, trying to figure out ways to survive. She is the cook, and she hasn't managed to figure out how to make good bread with the planet's water. Also, her cohortmates have been talking about mountains, which she cannot see. As the story unfolds, we get more information; the planet isn't actually a real planet. It's a virtual reality game being play-tested, and Marie and her cohort aren't actually cooks or doctors or scientists -- these memories and experiences have been coded into them. They are actually convicts at different prisons, all in a matrix-like system of comas and drugs and technology which makes them think that they are on another planet in reality. The reason that Marie can't see the mountains is due to some weird interaction between her psychology and the coding. When they get out of the planet, they realize that they've been tricked and sue the game studio and prisons. They end up losing (really, what chance do a few convicts have against corporations and the prison-industrial complex seems to be the message.)

Benjamina is one of the workers at the game studio, Othrys, but she begins to feel guilt about what she's done. She gets into contact with Marie, who hates her for implanting false memories in her. All Marie wants to do is get back into the game -- that is where she felt most at home, and she was writing letters back to a lover (who was really Benjamina.) The story ends and it seems that Marie has been let back in, and she will die in the game, per her request.