New York City: sometime in the future. The story begins on a computer screen, showing the remnant of an ID card that is mostly illegible though covered in soot, its plastic laminate warped and melted. The card had turned up in one of those routine inventory checks, for no particular reason, other than it is what the system does. When an unknown object is found, the system goes into a frenzy trying to identify it. However, it’s not the ID card that sent the system into a frenzy but the metal chain hanging down from the corner of its plastic cover.

Ava is a global search engine, with apparently a mind of her/its own: “Anything she didn’t recognize she’d take apart on screen […] producing ever greater refinements of detail” (4). Ava won’t stop until Antar tells her everything he knows about the object.

Ava doesn’t like it if Antar is distracted, or if he tries routing her to her own internal encyclopedias. Ava prefers real-time data, and Antar has to ensure that he’s attentive and providing direction to the necessary information. Inadequate productivity could lead to a reduction in his pension, and Antar can’t have that, given that he’s set to retire in a year.