More than a dozen big men with flamethrowers burn down a block in less than ten minutes. Nikola, a fifteen-year-old girl who lives on the street, runs away into a nearby alleyway where a man corners her into a narrow side room and holds her at knifepoint. She escapes and runs back out into the streets where she finds her friend Jonny who invites her to stay with him. Instead, she asks if he can set her up with a rich man to stay with. 

The upper class in their society view the poor as an inferior, disease-ridden race who they must control using fire. Jonny finds a rich man who is interested in Nikola because she enjoys reading. She meets the man, Dr. Jones, in an eatery behind a fight club and they talk about literature. Dr. Jones says he will help her out if she agrees to take IQ tests. When they get in Dr. Jones’ car, someone begins to fire at them and they are protected by the bulletproof glass. Men carrying pry bars approach the car and they drive away. 

The doctor tells Nikola he thinks the fires are caused by bad living conditions and she informs him they are intentionally set by people in his class, a fact he refuses to accept. He tells her about how he is researching the genetic divides between the “1%” class he belongs to and the lower class the woman belongs to. She finds this research offensive and asks him what he really wants from her. 

When they get to the doctor’s apartment, Nikola finds stacks and stacks of books and a hologram of herself. The man hands her a drink, shows her to a bedroom and when she wakes up her clothes are gone and she realizes she was raped. The man meets her for breakfast and tells her she should be grateful for him taking her in. She tricks him into pulling out a book from a tall bookshelf and drops him to the ground where he knocks his head. Once she has him on the floor, she slits his throat and buries him in stacks of books which she sets aflame. 

She leaves the apartment building and watches from afar as it bursts into flames. She meets up again with Jonny who tells her he’d known the plan all along and has new plans for her now that she is no longer a virgin. She stabs Jonny and tells him she’s sorry but that he betrayed her trust. At fifteen years old, she takes over Jonny’s apartment and his prostitution business.