When a top prosthetics researcher is found dead, Neil receives an anonymous e-mail telling him that the man was murdered by the "Synthetics" whose existence the Odyssey 5 group has discovered, which it says are the physical manifestations of Dr. Chandra's "Sentients". It claims that they are now after the researcher's six-year-old niece Stevie, all because of a "cybiotic interface" he was working on which would allow computer technology to control organic systems. Visitng Stevie's teacher, they find out that she is deaf and received a cochlear implant, which her uncle had been tinkering with.
Eventually, the team locates Stevie and finds out that her implant allows her brain to control a swarm of insects that have been fitted with cybiotic interface chips. But mysterious figures who may be Synthetics have relentlessly tracked Stevie to Kurt's place.

Neil's friends at school are taking a new drug called "Rapture", which appears to boost their intelligence and may even promote telepathy and telekinesis. Neil finds out that his friend Deckard got the formula for the drug from a web site, but in his attempt to get a sample for analysis he is forced to take the drug.
Meanwhile, Taggart's new boss Cynthia Hodge suggests that he had something to do with sabotaging the last space mission, but appears to be happy that the mission failure has hastened the day when manned space flights will be replaced by totally robotic ones. A retired astronaut, Leyton Scott, tells Taggart that a group called "the Cadre" have been trying for the last 20 years to get rid of manned space flight. But then Leyton reveals that he is dying from "Moon Sickness", a strange disease that strikes only Apollo astronauts, which may have something to do with their having brought more than just rocks back with them from the Moon.