It’s like 2060. And things are pretty good.

Dystopia never arrived. Instead, AI is aligned. Food is plentiful. Hardship is a memory.

Even the violent problem of male boredom has been solved. At Activity, Purpose, & Education centers across the country, young APEs like COBY hang from ceilings in fully immersive Sensory Simulation Sacks. Indulging any VR fantasy or adventure they can imagine. Hunting lions on the moon and racing pirate ships with his bros.

But one day, Coby's sack malfunctions.

And he gets stuck in a world he never wanted to explore:

Trapped in actual reality, Coby will do anything to get back in the sack.

But the AI assistants can’t fix the glitch. So he seeks out the only human tuner working on campus, MIRA. But she has bad news: Coby's account is locked—he needs a DNA match from a family member to create a new one.

Which means finding his brother, ELI. And that’s a big problem. Because Eli lives on a technophobic compound in the woods holding onto an older way of living.

Mira agrees to take him. And along the way, Coby learns how useless he is in “the real world.” But he also starts to understand what it means to be human.

When they reach the compound, Eli teaches his brother the meaning of struggle. Still, he agrees to take Coby back to his virtual heaven…

…with a secret plan to burn the sacks and free the APEs from their prison of endless comfort and stimulation.

It’s like The Matrix. But backwards.