Beggars and Choosers (novel) - Plot Summary - Summary

Summary

The novel opens with the narration of Diana Covington, detailing the beginning of her service with the GSEA. She is commissioned by her superior, Colin Kowalski, to "tail" members of the SuperSleepless community, specifically Miranda Sharifi. Supers have been traveling around the country, incognito, and the GSEA wants to know why. Diana monitors Miranda Sharifi at a hearing of the Science Court, where Huevos Verdes has submitted a new product, the "Cell Cleaner (TM)," a nanobiotic pseudo-virus which can enter the cells of the body, perform repairs, and neutralize any foreign matter. Cancer, diseases, colds and so forth could be a thing of the past... Assuming the Cell Cleaner is passed by the Science Court. In the end, a further-research permit is denied, helped along by Miranda Sharifi's insulting opening statement, in which she accuses jury (some of whom would have been on her side) of shortsightedness, stupidity and elitism. It appears that Miranda wanted to lose the case, but Diana cannot imagine why. After the court is adjourned, Diana follows Miri on a gravrail to New York state.

Drew Arlen returns to La Isla, not only to meet with Miranda Sharifi, but to receive statistical feedback on his concerts as gathered by the Supers; the Supers are using him as a form of societal control, attempting to engender specific behavioral tendencies via his concerts. ("I have stopped calling myself an artist.") At the end of his visit he is commissioned to create a concert, "The Warrior," that promotes risk-taking behavior as desirable. It also becomes clear that his love for Miri has dulled over the years; in order to overcome an embarrassing inconvenience, he resorts to thoughts of the woman he truly loves: Leisha Camden, the woman who became a foster mother to him.

Billy Washington lives in East Oleanta, a Liver community in New York. Though he is quite old, he has become foster father to an eleven-year-old Liver child, Lizzie Francy, whose intelligence outweighs her Liver conditioning, to the consternation of her mother Annie. East Oleanta is suffering something of a crisis: rabid raccoons have been seen nearby, a dangerous proposition when the only source of medical assistance, the medunit, might break down at any time. Eventually, East Oleanta mayor Jack Sawicki organizes a hunt for the raccoons; Billy's hunting partner Doug Kane suffers a heart attack, while Billy himself is menaced by one of the raccoons. He is saved by a beam of light, projected by a girl with a head too large for her body and black hair in a red ribbon. She provides medical assistance to Kane and takes care of the raccoons.

Unfortunately, Lizzie comes down with a sickness shortly thereafter; Billy is informed that nothing can be done, since the gravrail is broken, the medunit is broken, and none of his elected officials are available. This time he is saved by a donkey-gone-native calling herself Victoria Turner. When Lizzie recovers the next morning, she is immediately full of questions for "Vicki" (Diana) to answer. "Dr. Turner" also explains the constant breakdowns: a nanomachine dissembler, tuned to attack an alloy named duragem that is used in just about all modern machinery, is loose across the nation. The donkeys didn't release it—in fact, no one knows who released it (the Supers have discovered that it had multiple epicenters)—and (assuming they are able) decide it is best not to stop it.

In Seattle, Drew Arlen is taken to a now-seized illegal genetic-engineering lab by members of the GSEA. They show him some of the products of the research, in the hopes that he will act as a messenger to Huevos Verdes and explain the GSEA's stance: that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, and the Cell Cleaner's magic, too advanced for the donkeys to comprehend, is too dangerous to allow. He also reveals that holoterminals throughout the Adirondack Mountains have been seeded with subliminal messages regarding "Eden," a technological haven that, supposedly, donkeys don't know about. After his concert (during which he almost dies due to the aircar being struck by the duragem dissembler), he flies to Huevos Verdes to force a showdown with Miri; Leisha manages to blackmail her way on board. On the way, the plane contracts the duragem dissembler and goes down over upcountry Georgia. Though Leisha and Drew survive the crash, they are ambushed by a grass-roots militia, and Leisha killed by its leader, Jimmy Francis Marion Hubbley. Drew is taken captive and finds himself in an illegal genemod lab, now the Francis Marion Freedom Outpost. Hubbley is a leader in a "revolution" that aims to throw off all foreign oppressors—in this case, anyone genemod—and, among other things, released the duragem dissembler to do it.

Diana is attempting to learn all she can about Eden, which she is sure is a SuperSleepless creation. To that end, she bribes Lizzie access to donkey education software; within a month, Lizzie is hacking into donkey-corporation databases. She also follows Billy on one of his forest sojourns, hoping he will lead her to Eden. When the distribution warehouse fails to open for two weeks in a row, the Livers break in... Only to discover that the age of prosperity is truly over, as the warehouse is empty. Billy hides "Vicki" away from the mob for fear that she, obviously a donkey, will be harmed in reprisal. Mayor Sawicki, under the influence of "The Warrior," proposes a bold plan to travel eight miles through snowy mountains to the nearest town (Cogansville) and bring back food; Billy joins the expedition. Though the expedition is successful, the group is jumped by a group of stomps, several members slain (including Mayor Sawicki), and most of the food stolen. Diana, sickened not only by this tragedy but by Lizzie's analysis that the duragem dissembler was released from Eden, calls in the GSEA. Agents arrive within the hour, seize the illegal genemod lab, and blow it up to prevent anything else from escaping; but Diana discovers that this lab was not, and could not have been, Eden.

Drew is in captivity with the Francis Marion underground militia for 67 days. During that time he starts to realize just how little of the master plan Miranda has confided in him. He also discovers a coup attempt brewing against Jimmy Hubbley, and uses it to lure his bodyguard (who is in on the plan) to her death. Simultaneously the coup actually goes off, and in the chaos Drew negotiates to be left behind while the remnants of the cell flees with the help of the United States Army. Drew gets to a terminal and places a call for help... To the GSEA.

In East Oleanta, Lizzie is once again ill, with something the medunit cannot diagnose or cure. Billy, moved by "Vicki's" love for Lizzie, decides to take them both, as well as Annie, to Eden to see if the large-headed girl with the red ribbon can do anything. Miranda allows them in, even though Diana's admittance alerts the GSEA, and injects all four with the Cell Cleaner. When the GSEA agents arrive, accompanied by Drew Arlen, the two have a bitter fight over whether Miranda has the right to choose for 175 million Americans, only to be put in their place by Billy Washington. "Don't you see, it don't matter who should control, them? It only matters who can?"

However, Miranda's closing words, spoken to Diana (who is also under arrest) suggest a deeper conspiracy: "More in the syringe." After extensive medical surveillance, Diana reunites with the Francys just in time to catch a time-delay broadcast by Miranda Sharifi, explaining what she meant. The "Change syringe" contains a set of nano-engineered machinery that totally remodels the human body on a cellular level. Anyone injected will be infused with nanotubules leading inward from the skin, which are capable of dissembling organic matter on a molecular level. They are also infused with bacteriorhodopsin, allowing photosynthesis. It is now possible for a human being to lie on the ground, in the sunlight, for thirty minutes, and absorb all the energy and nutrients they need for a 24-hour period. Odds and ends include nitrogen-fixing microorganisms, mechanisms to keep the digestive tract in working order in the absence of "mouth food," and of course the Cell Cleaner itself. "You are now autotrophic," Miranda ends the broadcast. "You now are free."

Billy, now spry and jaunty, has joined the Francys and Vicki Turner (who has legally changed her name) as a member of a mass migration to West Virginia, where Miranda Sharifi is imprisoned at the Oak Mountain Maximum-Security Federal Prison. Annie is having trouble with empty-nest syndrome; children, even those as young as thirteen-year-old Lizzie, don't need their parents anymore, having been rendered practically invulnerable to disease, starvation and casual injury. Likewise, the Livers no longer need the donkeys, many of whom are moving to snatch up the Change syringes for themselves. The nation is returning to a network of small, localized governments, with some groups (such as East Oleanta) making the transition far more smoothly, while the federal government simply stays uninvolved. Vicki, for her part, is worried that the underground resistance movement which released the duragem dissembler will use the transitioning period to its advantage by arming the Livers and encouraging violence against donkeys, who are the few people still insisting that America exists. Fortunately, Vicki's dismay is unfounded: when the underground rebellion, now calling itself "Will and Idea," begin to bomb the Liver migration for their adherence to the abomination Miranda, the prison's Y-shield protects everyone from destruction on the order of the President. Vicki is then allowed (on Miranda's request) to enter the prison and speak to Miranda personally. She explains that the Supers have decided to take a hands-off approach, to prevent the people from becoming too dependent on them; Miranda will serve out her sentence, while Vicki returns to her family amongst the Livers.

Drew Arlen tries to visit Miranda in jail, only to be told that, though he has judicial clearance to see the prisoner, the prisoner will not see him.