Seth Abrams is a copy editor working on a manuscript about high-end computation and computing theory which is soon to be published. Its author, Luigi Digitali hopes that this book will help him finally get tenure. Luigi has also been consulting for Reticular Activating Systems, a pharmaceutical company which has been developing, under the leadership of Hilda Zeitgeist, a drug which can eliminate the need for sleep.

Meanwhile, John Thunder, a Hopi Chieftain, has traveled by bus to New York City impelled by a prophetic dream. There, he meets his long lost college love, Hilda Zeitgeist, and is taken to see Seth Abrams, who according to his dream has a message for the Hopi people.