[1] It deals with themes of espionage, artificial intelligence, and warfare using robots and drones.

The book opens with a video feed from predator drones in Karbala, Iraq, where it is observed that an unmarked drone with American colors fires a missile on the dense crowd during a religious ceremony, killing many people.

On the way back to the US, we observe a military operation in Pakistan to reverse engineer US predator drones.

Odin realizes that it is a farce put up to implicate Pakistan for the attack at Karbala, and decides to stick to his original plan.

They land in Kansas City, and then make their way to the base of operations, which is located in SubTropolis, an old limestone mine.

Ritter is unable to convince Odin to step down on his mission to prevent the widespread adoption of unmanned kill-drones.

They execute their mission quickly, which is to capture one of the automated drones in Northern Utah.

Odin infiltrates Henry Clarke's workspace, and intimidates him and his superior, Marta, into giving him information about the location of the pheromone making site, which is in Pakistan.

Odin creates a diversion by throwing a canister of attack pheromones on the opposite side of the ship, and they make it out safely.