Deke, a traveling thief, gets off the bus he is traveling on and walks into Frank’s Truck Stop, where he finds a room of people watching and betting on a virtual form of a dogfight. He steals some technological equipment from the truck stop and attempts to sell it to a seventeen year old girl, Nance Bettendorf, who is an engineering major at William and Mary and is living in a place called the stacks nearby the Truck Stop. She uses a projection that comes from technology built into her arm to scare him. He drops the equipment and she takes him in for dinner to make up for the destruction of his property. The two begin talking and Deke finds out that Nance is a tech wiz. Deke tells her about his brain lock, a programmed block in his brain, that causes him pain when he sees two red lights like the ones at the top of the Washington monument, meant to keep him from returning to Washington DC as punishment for his crimes as a career thief. Nance reveals that she has a chastity brain lock put in place by her parents to keep her focused on her studies. Later on, Deke holds on to a teddy bear at the other end of the room and dances with it while Nance stands at the other end swaying, and they pretend to be dancing together. Later, Nance finishes a final project for school she has been working on and takes off her shirt, arousing Deke and making him feel uncomfortable. 

Deke returns to the game room at the greyhound station and searches for a man named Tiny, wanting to race him. An older war veteran warns Deke that Tiny is a real deal pilot and cannot be beat. Deke enters the game and is competing against several people when Tiny begins watching him play. After watching Deke win the round, Tiny challenges him.

Deke goes back to Nance’s apartment and asks for the drug, called a cap, she has gotten from an old friend from school to help her study. He says it will help him perform better in his game against Tiny, but Nance insists that she needs it for an interview she has tomorrow, which she must do well on. If she scores the job she’s interviewing for, her father has promised to remove her chastity lock. Deke tells her that she can afford to buy another one because she comes from money, but she says she does not have time before the interview. He ends up forcing her to give him the cap by sexually assaulting her, causing her brain lock to put her in so much pain she cannot fight back. Deke then goes to his game against Tiny, which he ends up winning. The crowd watching holds him in contempt, upset that he has defeated Tiny, who is legendary. Despite his excitement at finally winning and gaining a cash prize, he is still unsatisfied as he realizes after his actions toward Nance he has no one to celebrate with, and is utterly alone.