Panacea is a futuristic utopia halfway between somewhere and nowhere. It is a city of artificial intelligence and equally artificial humans. Obsessed with gene-editing, the human population has mostly resigned to a life of vanity and drug use.

But not all. Some prefer more archaic forms of fulfillment. Like Religion or building model trains.

When a 'primitive' woman named Zara enters the gene-editing laboratory, she is an enigma. She is ugly by genetically modified standards, with frown lines, a flat chest, and one freckle too many. But that is not what fascinates the automaton, AL365. He has never seen sadness before. It is something most humans can no longer feel. So, after Zara learns she is going to die and runs off sobbing, something odd happens to AL.

He spontaneously malfunctions. Ones become zeros, zeros become ones, and suddenly-AL is in love.

Now, AL must learn what it means to be alive. Can Zara teach him how to be human, or will he mutate into something else entirely? More importantly, can he let Zara go when it is her time to die?