In the year 2154, Lisse is a teenager completing her studies at a Government School, a boarding school that provides students with an education and room and board. The world is overpopulated, and robots perform most of the jobs once occupied by humans. Upon graduation, the students are either assigned a job or designated as unemployed. Lisse, along with most of her peers, discovers she did not secure a job. The letter with her placement tells her, “Enjoy Your Leisure Years! Use Them Creatively” (6). The robot-principal informs her and the other unemployed students that there is nothing to fear because the government will provide for their basic needs. A few of her classmates, including her best friend Benta, use their family connections to find positions.

The students take a bus to their next destination. Benta and Lisse say goodbye, uncertain of whether they will be able to see each other again, since the government tightly restricts travel. The bus driver drops off Lisse and seven of her former classmates in a run-down industrial neighborhood, but before they depart the bus, a gang rushes past, breaking a store window and attacking a woman inside.