Set the same future (the "Boutique Economy") as Marusek's We Were Out of Our Minds with Joy, the story is about Zoranna – an affluent, attractive journalist who visits her elderly sister Nancy, who is the only other surviving member of her family.
Unlicensed procreation has been outlawed to prevent overpopulation; biotechnology has advanced to the point where immortality is possible, but only granted to people who have the means and are considered useful to society.
Nancy is one of the people who are considered obsolete, as she was forced out of her teaching career after the Procreation Ban; she now works as a hospice caretaker from her apartment, where she tends to holographic projections of dying patients.
A subplot of the story involves Zoranna's "belt valet", an artificially intelligent accessory that can mentally communicate with its wearer and perform a wide variety of tasks.
A representative of the company that gave her the belt valet (which she names "Bug") to field test urges that she return it, due to an unspecified defect; she refuses in spite of her annoyance with it, as she needs it for progressively more tasks.