As a kid, Cassetera Robuck has it hard enough, suffering from a nerve disorder that makes her legs useless. Then the apocalypse happens. To survive, Cassetera and her family make a new home on an abandoned oil rig on Lake Superior. There, she and her father discover a machine: one that can take things apart molecule by molecule and reassemble them.
Ten years later, her family all but lost, Cassetera heads into an apocalypse-torn Duluth, Minnesota, to find a man who calls himself the Fabulous Thadius Thumb, head writer and ringleader of the Thickskulled Thespian Troupe. He's also a resistance leader and knows how to use the machine.
Meanwhile, the Regolatore work from a few dimensions over, escalating catastrophes with machines all too similar to Cassetera's. When she becomes their target, Cassetera finds herself in a web of betrayal, murder, and the mystery of her own multidimensional existence.
Can she uncover the truth behind the apocalypse before life on this universe ends?