Peter Lunsford, a lonely, book-loving, self-educated and self-destructive salesman, has an abrupt and radical change of fortune. His subsequent actions lead a genius named Darrell White, enabled and inspired by Peter’s choices, to create the world’s first artificial intelligence. Unfortunately, this happens at a time when humanity has devastated itself with global war, and is unprepared to accept the existence of these new and superior minds. These facts will combine to create a future that Peter would not have had the courage to expect, and the implications of which are impossible to foresee.