Glenn and Vivian (Vivy) meet on a dating site. They're both graduate students at U.C. Berkeley, and they immediately get along well. They begin dating, and Vivy leaves intermittently for what she tells Glenn are family emergencies. While Vivy is away on one of these trips, Glenn wakes in the night to a projection of Vivy, her body pale and translucent. For their six-month anniversary, Vivy suggests they get matching tattoos on their wrists. When Vivy returns from her first trip post-tattoos, Glenn feels a strange pulsing and heat on his tattoo, right before Vivy texts him that she's home. Vivy is gone for yet another trip when Glenn's tattoo glitters, lifts off his skin, and expands around him. He stumbles, and when he catches himself he's standing in the wreck of a star-ship. Vivy stands next to him in space armor. She explains to him that their tattoos are anchored to one another — when Vivy travels to other dimensions, she needs a beacon to get her home. Glenn's tattoo serves this function and allows her to 'snap-trace' back to him when she's been in other planes of existence. Vivy explains further that she was recruited in high school by the 'Interventionists.' The Interventionists are a group of individuals that preserve and protect life in the inhabited universes — also referred to as 'nigh-space.' The connection between Glenn and Vivy accidentally transported Glenn to this universe in nigh-space when Vivy tried to use their connection to get home. After Vivy finishes her explanation, Glenn meets Eddie — Vivy's spaceship, which is an animate being that talks to them and guides Vivy through different universes. Suddenly, Eddie is blast apart by a group of Strict Constructionists (S-Cons) — people who believe that the nigh-space should be left alone. Vivy is captured by S-Con ship, and the remains of Eddie and Glenn use Glenn's snap-trace tattoo connection to Vivy to travel to where she's being held, in a holding cell on the S-Con ship. Because Vivy doesn't have many close connections on Earth — you need a strong emotional bond with someone living in a given place in order to snap-trace to that place — Glenn uses his love for his mother to get back to their home universe. He accidentally snap-traces through a strange jungle and the stomach of a large animal before landing in his mother's garden in Santa Cruz. Vivy uses her snap-trace connection to Glenn to return to him. Glenn smiles, and introduces Vivy to his mom for the first time.