Set on the futuristic dystopian continent of Africa, the Furcal family has developed a mathematic equation that has mastered human life. With this equation, those who master it can heal other people’s grief, as long as they are citizens and as long as they don’t practice on their own family because this grief would “be their own”. Nneoma has mastered this equation. She works for a center that funds her and other Mathematicians to do the work of healing people’s grief. One day a man attempts to use this equation to fly. When he falls out of the sky and dies, chaos ensues. Protestors run rampant and argue that an equation to solve all human problems is unnatural. When Nneoma’s mother dies, she goes against the center’s rule and does grief work on her own father and it doesn’t go well. Since her father’s grief is her own grief, the healing doesn’t work and the two simply cry together. This causes her father become bitter and say mean things about Nneoma’s talent and they stop speaking to each other. With this failure, Nneoma asks her girlfriend, Kioni, who is also a Mathematician, to do grief work on her father. Kioni disagrees and the two fall out and break up. Kioni disappears and Nneoma becomes worried about her. One day though, Nneoma goes into work and a “beggar” is waiting for her. It is Kioni who has many scratches, bruises and missing hair. It turns out she has gone mad dealing with other people’s trauma and they have been haunting her.