Daniel is a happy employee of the Institute, a center designed to help queer citizens live normal, happy, heterosexual lives with simulated reality experiments. It's not that the Institute hates gay people— they just know life is tough for queer people, and it would be an injustice not to help them. Daniel knows this. This is why he wanted the job. But Daniel has been struggling to help his subject, Dante, who is witty and stubborn and always figures out that he's in a simulation. Who always refuses to convert. Daniel's boss Program Director Murphy notices that he hasn't made progress and tells him that he'll be punished if he doesn't get results. Daniel eats lunch with his coworker Xavier afterward, who's also struggling with his subject. Daniel's maybe-girlfriend Dora sits with them briefly to brag about her progress, and after an awkward "I-love-you" exchange, Dora leaves, and Xavier convinces Daniel to meet outside of official work hours to hatch a plan for their subjects. Daniel makes a new simulated experience for Dante after lunch, which fails miserably. Dante's memory is promptly erased. Xavier and Daniel meet on the rooftop of their dorm that night and end up kissing. That week, Daniel tries new experiments with Dante in the days afterward, which revolve around an AI Dante Jr. who Dante and his AI girlfriend co-parent. Daniel and Xavier don't kiss again, but they continue to meet, and Xavier notes that his memory has gotten significantly worse since coming to the Institute. Daniel dismisses the forgetting as natural. However, the next day, his Dante Jr. experiment fails terribly, and amidst Dante's howls and cries, Daniel realizes there's something he can't see, though he doesn't know what. Daniel comes across Dora in the hallway, who's crying and holding a projector of her and an unknown woman together. Despite her earlier success, she's failing, too, and Daniel realizes the Institute is designed to make them all fail and hate themselves. The Program Director notices Daniel's resistance and calls him Dante before erasing his memory, claiming that all of the workers— him, Isadora, and Xavier— all need to be pruned from time to time. The story cuts to Dante and his AI partner Dahlia's next simulation, where they make and eat five hundred cakes together. Daniel eats lunch with Xavier again, but he's very obviously rebooted. Xavier tells Daniel he loves him in Spanish and kisses him. Daniel thanks him and kisses him back, and it's revealed that the workers have all been converting artificial copies of themselves. Daniel's true name is Dante, Xavier's is Javi's, and they all have had enough of hurting themselves. Dante rallies the employees to fight, and to remember, and the workers all riot against their Institute.