The year is 2099, and manmade climate change has reduced the planet to a polluted, flooded rock with most of its animal species wiped out and humanity clinging to survival. After going bankrupt from trying to mitigate the escalating damage, the US government auctioned off sections of the country to megacorporations, giving these companies small fiefdoms to lord over and entire populaces to exploit.

One of those exploited is Freddie Molloy, a former test subject in a genetics experiment that left him ostracized from his peers and self-loathing. The only thing he hates more than himself, though, is the system. But what can he do to change any of it? He's just one youth, and a powerless one at that.

But when the genetics department he works for finds itself in possession of a carnivorous mermaid, one that sees Freddie as kin due to his congential anomaly, he will be forced to find out. Because if he chooses to do nothing, and let the system win, the mermaid's species will be the next to go extinct.