The Ragpicker— a man, bonded into a mysterious 'secondskin' that has prolonged his life after the digital apocalypse— wanders the lush, deserted Earth, haunted by failing avatars and fragmented texts. He' s searching for traces of his long-dead husband but his journey is interrupted by a girl, Ysmany, fleeing her remote village in order to save a baby orphaned by a military grade secondskin, ' The Server,' the fanatical ruler of their town.