Thirty-seven-year-old Hispanic Consuelo (Connie) Ramos makes contact with the future through Luciente. She travels to Luciente's time, in which a number of goals of the political and social agenda of the late sixties and early seventies radical movements have been fulfilled. Environmental pollution, homophobia, racism, phallogocentrism, class-subordination, consumerism, imperialism, and totalitarianism no longer exist in the rural community of Mattapoisett. The death penalty, however, continues to exist ("We don't think it's right to kill (...). Only convenient."), as does war. Connie lives during an important time in history which will determine the outcome of Luciente's future. When Connie seems to be giving into the situation surrounding her she ends up visiting a different future. Her visits to an alternate future in which a wealthy elite living on space platforms subdues the majority of the population with drugs and harvests these earth-bound humans' organs startles her into taking action in her time. The technocrats controlling this horrific future attempt to influence the past--Connie's present--to ensure the existence of their future.