The protagonist, swept up in events beyond her control, finds herself in places that are off the net, from a datahaven in Grenada, to a Singapore under terrorist attack, to the poorest and most disaster-struck parts of Africa.

The action takes place in 2023–2025 in Galveston, Texas; Atlanta, Georgia; Grenada, an island on the northeast coast of South America; Singapore; and Africa.

Protagonist Laura Webster, mother of three-month-old Loretta, works as a public relations employee for Rizome, a global corporation of economic democrats.

While in Grenada, Laura and David learn about its tragic history and the advanced technology flourishing on the island thanks to “mad-doctors” like the American Brian Prentis.

Grenada is ruled by one party, the New Millennium Movement, with Prime Minister Eric Louison who uses voodoo tradition as a means of keeping order in the country.

The celebration ends in chaos as the prime minister spits fire and explodes, a victim, as it turns out, of Grenada’s pseudo-voodoo tricks.

After a conversation with the Inspector of Prisons, she finds out that she poses a threat to the organization because they think she knows they have an atomic bomb, which they keep on board of Thermopylae, the submarine she has been kept on.

When a South African country supported by European authority of the Vienna convention attacks Mali, she is taken in a convoy to the atomic site to be shot on camera as a hostage.

Their leader is Jonathan Gresham, an American journalist and radical, who helps Inadin people (also called Tuaregs, the nomadic tribes of the Sahara) fight against any forms of outside interference in their traditional way of life.

In the fictional world of Islands there exists a book titled The Lawrence Doctrine and Postindustrial Insurgency by Colonel Jonathan Gresham.

Although the Arabs were successful in fighting the Turks, they became dependent on the British Empire to provide them with industrial products such as explosives and canned food.

It takes the view that it is impossible for small and economically weaker nations to stay completely independent; global influence will always be present with its positive and negative aspects.

Organizations that feel threatened by the growing influence of havens are Rizome Industries Group, an economic democracy global corporation which suffers losses because of the data piracy and wants to negotiate with the pirates, and the Free Army of Counter-Terrorism (F.A.C.T.)

The global organizations start realizing that they no longer need governments to successfully run their affairs; “Let us cut out the middleman,” says a worker for another corporation.