Propaganda cartoon artist Greg Kaplan is an Everyman of the mid-21st Century. He struggles to maintain his legally prescribed anti-schizophrenic medication levels, deal with an unfaithful wife, care for a baby with birth defects, and get financing for recombinant genetic therapy. But his life becomes complicated when he is assigned to develop a propaganda comic for the Methuselah Institute, which has allegedly developed a gene therapy conferring immortality. At first, it seems like a plum of an assignment, even though it involves traveling to a fundy part of the state. Kaplan's beautiful but eccentric co-worker and talented bubble scriptwriter, Karla Picard, has been assigned to travel with him, and after years of keeping him at a platonic distance, she now wants to take their relationship beyond friendly co-worker status. But the Methuselah Institute turns out not to be what it first seemed. In fact, the scientists may not even be completely human.