Ellie is at a train station in a faulty alternate universe. The skunkworks—a labyrinth of pipes with data pulsing through them—that generates this universe has become dysfunctional, so the physics of the world is inconsistent. Ellie is there to fix it and make the physics self-consistent again. She makes her way to her train on high alert, knowing that "isolationist" assassins are after her.

On the train, a woman asks her for directions to the nearby Best Western in Mandarin. Ellie decides that the woman is not an assassin yet answers, cautiously, in English. However, after they step off the train, the woman glares at Ellie. She begins speaking fluent English in a husky Brooklyn accent, which Ellie identifies as her sister's. Ellie's sister, Chris, occasionally tests her by showing up in in a different human form. Chris, in this different human form, reprimands Ellie for quitting her job after their mother went into a coma and reiterates that Ellie has to stabilize the changing physical laws of this universe. Ellie takes another train to the outskirts of the universe, where its skunkworks is located.

She meets her cousin, Daniel, a "verifier" responsible for verifying the skunkworks' architecture, in the maze of pipes that is the skunkworks. Daniel smears a swath of petroleum jelly on the air, which turns into an egg tart. This indicates that the skunkworks is not functioning as intended. To identify the problem, Ellie conjures up a three-dimensional blueprint of the labyrinth, which allows her to see the labyrinth as a matrix. Realizing that nothing is wrong with the skunkworks' design, she shatters the sphere. Daniel offers her the egg tart, citing his boyfriend's idea that eating clears the mind. He also checks the "out" channel of the skunkworks, producing a perfect plate of fried rice and glazed tilapia.

Daniel leads Ellie to the humid interior of the labyrinth, where one cluster of pipes contracts at a slightly different rate than the others. They realize that those pipes have been tinkered with to try to heal Ellie's mother but that these pipes have also created collateral damage in the universe. Ellie doesn't know if she wants to set them back when a group of "isolationists" catches up with them. As Daniel fends them off, Ellie knows what she has to do. The next scene sees Ellie back at the station, catching a train to see her mother for what she knows will be the last time.