In a dystopian future ruled by technology—one where most humans have either elected to become trees or moved elsewhere in the universe—a man named Kayn has just been ejected from his orgynism, a mass of sedated human bodies connected for their own sexual pleasure. In this world, murder and death are sources of entertainment (seeing as the people come back to life), as is civil unrest.

As Kayn observes the outside world he's been gone from for so long, he slowly realizes that the city might not last much longer. The sun is already cold, the machines are failing, and desert sand is taking over. Unsure what to do with whatever time he has left, he and a silver woman named Peat decide to marry. Machines provide the love they need. They pass hours walking, watching one long scene at a cinema, and once go dancing near several people being captured by spiders. But after running into a corpse, the end becomes increasingly urgent. Anybody who wants to live must leave the city. Though Peat claims nobody wants to live anyway, Kayn wants to survive.

His will to live has always been so powerful that once, before the orgynism, it broke the machines that would have changed his mindset and assisted in his suicide. Peat breaks up with him because of this, calling him old-fashioned. Before they fully separate, though, they visit an orphanage of manufactured children. They look at the babies, naming one "Forever," and find a machine that turned things into other, more absurd things. After that, they find a furnace for warmth (which Peat can enter due to her silver makeup), and she announces that she would like to die now. Her last night is spent with Kayn, dancing in a ballroom. Peat turns into a statue for her chosen death.

Then, Kayn wanders on his own, revisiting everywhere he had been with Peat, doing all the things they had done. Back at the cinema, Kayn finds the new main character looks much like himself. He sits alone in the desert, slowly being buried by sand. Kayn watches, and the character speaks to him, telling him to go, so he does. He retraced his steps again, all the way back to the orgynism, which has also fallen apart since he left.

The last people left all meet in one spot, there to face their fates at the oriface machine that turns things into other things. He sits. He writes a poem. They are the last words to ever be written on earth. Then he is ready, confident that this is not his end.