The first strand of the novel follows Hollis Henry, a former member of the early 1990s cult band The Curfew turned freelance journalist. She is hired by advertising mogul Hubertus Bigend to write a story for his nascent magazine Node (described as a European Wired) about the use of locative technology in the art world. The second concerns Tito, member of a Chinese Cuban family of freelance spies based in New York City, assigned by his uncles to hand over a series of iPods to a mysterious old man. The third follows Brown, a brusque and obstinate lead covert operative for a shadowy organization of unclear connection to the U.S. government, assigned to track Tito's family.
The three strands of the novel converge on a shipping container of unspecified cargo that is being transported via a circuitous route to an unknown destination. In Vancouver, the old man's team, with Hollis in tow, irradiate the shipping container...