Anyone would be lucky to live in the Balance, where the Algorithm determines the optimal use of all resources, ensuring nothing is wasted and no one goes hungry. The Cadres work tirelessly to maintain their orderly society, but in their wisdom, the Leadership understands that not everyone was meant to devote a lifetime to work. Those unsuited to Cadre culture can choose Vivant, and live a life of creative freedom and unfettered desire. The only price: while the Cadres live as long as the latest technologies permit, the Vivants bid the world farewell at 40. Ravenna is facing her eighteenth birthday and her Choosing ceremony with increasing anxiety. She knows choosing Cadre is the only logical decision, and her own future looks exceedingly bright. Her boyfriend, Tace, feels differently. He wants to live for music, and the future is too distant and abstract to ever pose an obstacle. Ravenna must decide whether she can live with his choice or live without him. Willem has always believed in the Balance and understood the need for the limitations on Vivants; the Algorithm determines these things and the Algorithm is what keeps their world functioning. Yet when the time comes for his best friend Ozzie to attend his own Farewell ceremony, it affects Willem in ways he could not have anticipated. His life threatens to go off the rails as he reconsiders everything he thought he knew about the Balance.