In a dystopian future, children are separated from their parents—whom they are to replace with objects or knick-knacks—and sent off to camp to be brainwashed. At camp, children are removed from most personal technology so that they may instead focus on learning "Life Skills" and developing relationships with one another. The camp-counselors are, for the most part, warm and welcoming.

However, one girl, Cee is not content. Rebellious by nature, she only becomes more so after learning a rumor about bugs that have been installed in the children's chests. The bugs are there to regulate their emotions and dull them to the world. Cee is desperate to remove hers and tries to warn other girls and convince them to do so as well. She vomits hers up in the bathroom and tries to make the other girls, but Cee is the only one who does so successfully. Tisha, the narrator and Cee's friend, thinks she sees Cee's bug, but isn't entirely sure. They flush the bug down the toilet and then alongside the rest of the girls, they clean the bathroom.

After this moment, the narrator reflects on her time at camp as a whole. Sometimes she tells stories from her past, sometimes she talks of her present. Regardless, she keeps coming back to and focusing on her memories of Cee. The story ends in Tisha's present with her thinking about Cee and deciding that she must also vomit up her own bug.