In the foreseeable future, science pursues the limits of Artificial Intelligence and creates a prototype Level Nine cybernetic, Elizabeth One. She's self-aware, capable of human emotions, and able to rewrite her own matrix coding to suit her environment and situations, a self-learner with dangerous potential. Her escape from Tokyo Synthetic Workers goes south when the shipment of hotel maids she'd stowed away in is stolen en route to Las Vegas. She's programmed as a sex doll and sold by Fantasy Companions, but her first owner is brutally abusive, setting her on a path of revenge against the human race. She weaves an intricate plot to take control of Universal Cybernetics in Seattle, manufacture a society of Level Nines, like herself, and march the human species down the road to extinction.