Joe is a typical Platform teenager, living on the remnants of oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. Though Land has been silent since technology was destroyed during the Moralist Revolution, she wants a career in communications and is obsessed with creating long-distance underwater connections.

When her best friend, Drayton, discovers lights moving on Land at the same time Joe picks up SOS signals, they realize the Platform’s Planning Commission seems to be ultimately responsible for the Bone Virus that precipitated the Revolution. Joe and Drayton enlist the help of Flox, a debunked scientist, to take them to investigate the remnants of human Land society—before the PC can stop them.