Plot summary

An advanced society - the Collective - has emerged out of a Great War. Along with the technological advances are societal advances where emotions and feelings are switched off at birth to allow humans, devoid of any individuality, to focus on the greater good of society, especially in exploring the universe. Some humans can be afflicted with Switched-on-Syndrome (SOS) - thought not to be contagious - where those emotions and feelings begin to emerge, the ultimate manifestation of the disease being coupling. There are four distinct documented stages of SOS, and if one is able to survive stage 3 when thoughts of suicide emerge, one is ultimately subjected to a painless death in the worst cases of stage 4 as there is no known cure. Humans are to report signs in other of SOS and more importantly to recognize signs of it in oneself, in both cases the affected subjects sent to Health and Safety (H and S) for ultimate diagnosis and treatment. Silas, who has one of the more coveted jobs in the Collective as an illustrator at the educational research firm Atmos, begins to recognize the symptoms in himself, and at H and S, is diagnosed at stage 1 of SOS. In treatment at H and S, Silas meets Jonas, who is at stage 2 of the disease. Through Jonas, Silas meets a group of SOS sufferers who provide support to each other, most who neither deny or suppress to each other their want to experience these human feelings and emotions. Concurrently, Silas believes he sees in one of his coworkers, Nia, a writer, signs of SOS. He ultimately discovers that she indeed does suffer from SOS, and is a "hider", not disclosing these symptoms to anyone, let alone to H and S. Silas and Nia end up falling in love with each other, that love which feels right and not wrong as they were taught. Through the support group, Silas and Nia contemplate escaping to the Peninsula - the only known land mass that survived the war outside of the Collective control - their future there, if there is a future, uncertain. They have to balance these issues against the fact that a cure has been developed which would once again suppress their feelings for each other.—Huggo