The book is a hard science fiction dystopian novel set in 2154,[1] a time when machines and robots perform most jobs and children go to government schools.

Lisse and her friends are unemployed sixteen year olds after graduating from a respected private government run school, and are dumped in the city along with nearly a hundred others at different locations, called Designated Areas or DAs.

As Unemployed, Lisse and her friends receive a monthly stipend of credits that they can only use at Government controlled food stores.

Lisse's group decides to stick together and, by claiming to be a "corporation" that makes things for the employed to buy, are allowed to move into a warehouse.

Coffee bars, tea houses and discos are open and very active at night, along with much more foot traffic, in garish and wild colors that make what Lisse's group is wearing look like drab worker clothes.

Lisse and her friends spend several evenings trying to fit into their new world and meet other unemployed groups after they realize that this is their life now.

Karen, Trent, Katie, Paul and Alden all have skills that aren't easily translated into the very simplistic lifestyle of the unemployed.

Scylla uses her artistic ability to paint murals on the walls of fantastic landscapes and outlandish scenes of fantasy, to help lessen the dreariness of their new existence.

In the unsafe night, they encounter a suspicious man named Charlie, who offers Lisse's friend and housemate Alden a partnership.

Charlie wants to use Alden's skills in chemistry to create mind altering substances and offers the group money, travel and protection.

They develop a schedule of regular exercise (consisting of jogging, weight-training and karate), search for information in the local library, and discuss their experiences and motivations with each other.

In the real world, the group records everything that happens in The Game, mapping the areas they find and keeping track of the flora and fauna they encounter.

At first, they think that this means they have progressed to a new, higher level of The Game – but start to realize that they are never going to "wake up" and that they are in their new home forever.

The robots had taken over almost every job that had originally been performed by humans, creating the unemployment quicksand problem the government couldn't stop.

The book ends with Lisse making paper to write a story to the unborn baby she is revealed to be carrying, which she thinks will be a girl – the first child born on Prize.