Recurring nightmares about terrifying sparking electric attacks from wall outlets and overhead power lines send Corbin Sheenan desperately seeking answers before he goes crazy or is locked up by the Army as a dangerous Dreamer. Without knowing why, he anticipates that several large meteors that are altering course to meet Earth are tied to this but the Comet ISON might also be a factor.

He suspects that a man named Dakim is trying to use the collective insights of the several Dreamers to trap the causal agent of the current attacks - being called a ZAP or Zooidial Autonomous parasite. There are bits of scattered evidence that some number of ZAPs have arrived over the years inside fist-sized space rocks that split open to reveal a specific computer-chip like pattern on their inner hinged halves.

An active ZAP apparently now resides in and travels through part of the electric grid in California to reach humans to feed on their neural tissues. Whether more can and will become active with time is a great worry among those few willing to believe that such things actually exist. Dakim makes Sheenan the bait in his test trap but ultimately Sheenan makes his death by the ZAP have unexpected consequences.