Nandita Becker, a female military cyborg, is dragged by her team from an area in Kiribati, where she has just unintentionally murdered several young students. Becker is disoriented, shocked, and feels guilty. Despite the government's best efforts, the news of her attack on civilians is leaked to the public. As damage control, Becker is instructed to give interviews and tell her side of the story. Her first interview -- with a bleeding-heart-liberal journalist, Amal Sabrie-- goes well. Becker becomes nationally regarded as a sympathetic figure with a good heart, wracked by guilt from her unfortunate mistake. During their second interview, Amal sneaks Becker a recording of the murder, salvaged from one of the student's bodies. She also mentions the case of Michael Harris, a mass shooter who shot up a daycare after his sister was lost to gun violence.
Between interviews, Becker is given a brain surgery that effectively nukes the empathy center of her brain, in order to make her a more efficient and guiltless killer. Paradoxically, her ability to overlook personal attachments during decision-making "immunizes" her against the trolley problem, making her "the most ethical person on the planet." Listening to the student recording, Becker realizes that the government intentionally tampered with her machinery on that day, in order to bring about the students' murders. She was picked to be the ideal "poster girl" for the government's first "accidental" civilian-killing: now that the public views her sympathetically, they are likely to view future "accidental" cyborg murderers with sympathy as well. Becker arranges one last meeting with Amal, in a nightclub, where she proclaims that she "understands" Michael Harris's motives. She hypothesizes that he sought to end the gun violence that claimed his sister by committing a shooting so grotesque that lawmakers would be forced to acknowledge the risks of guns, and finally instate gun control. Her new lack of empathy makes his choices seem less cruel than ingenious. She then proceeds to kill Amal and seventy-four other clubgoers by hand.