You're being watched. Former University of Alberta lecturer Randy Craig is now working part-time at Edmonton's Grant MacEwan College, and struggling to make ends meet. That is, until she takes an evening job monitoring a chat room called Babel for an employer she knows only as "Chatgod." Between shutting down an online bookie and patrolling for porn, Randy begins to suspect a connection between a Texas woman having an online affair through Babel, and surfacing reports of a man killed at his computer in the same state.

Soon, Randy realizes that a killer is brokering hits through Babel and may be operating in Edmonton. The police are sceptical, as is Chatgod, and it seems Randy's only ally is a mysterious fellow monitor who calls himself Alchemist. Randy doesn't know whom she can trust, but the killer is on to her, and now she must figure out where the psychopath is, all the while staying one IP address ahead of becoming the next victim.