Byron challenges everyone at Lake Geneva to write a horror story during a stormy night by the fire.

Mary dreams of a scientist reanimating a man who never lived and wakes knowing exactly what to write.

Ry Shelley arrives at the Tec-X-Po in Memphis and is greeted by the Christian event coordinator Claire.

Ry interviews Ron Lord and tours his full range of XX-BOT sexbots on the expo floor.

Ry attends Victor Stein's Royal Society lecture on artificial intelligence and fully designed evolution.

Victor Stein discovers that Ry is transgender during a shower in Arizona and they have sex.

Victor Stein takes Ry into the secret underground tunnel system beneath Manchester to reveal his experiments.

Captain Walton delivers an unconscious man to Bedlam asylum, claiming the man is Victor Frankenstein.

Victor Stein asks Ry to acquire I.J. Good's cryogenically preserved head from the Alcor facility.

Mary visits Victor Frankenstein at Bedlam, where he begs her to unmake him.

A drunk man discovers Ry is transgender in a diner bathroom and attempts to sexually assault him.

Percy Shelley dies when his boat capsizes at sea, leaving Mary widowed and pregnant in Italy.

Victor Stein activates the flood barrier in the tunnels, trapping Ry, Ron, Claire, and Polly inside.

Victor Stein attempts to upload I.J. Good's consciousness into a machine, triggering a city-wide blackout across Manchester.

Victor Stein disappears after the blackout, and Ry and Polly return to find the tunnels completely emptied.

The novel opens in 1816 as Mary Shelley conceives Frankenstein at Lake Geneva after Byron issues his ghost story challenge, while her present-day counterpart Ry Shelley enters the world of AI and robotics at a Memphis technology expo. Ry begins an affair with scientist Victor Stein after Victor discovers Ry is transgender, and Victor gradually draws Ry into his underground experiments, including a dangerous plan to upload the consciousness of his deceased mentor I.J. Good. The historical timeline deepens as the fictional Victor Frankenstein appears as a living person in Bedlam asylum, and Percy Shelley dies at sea, leaving Mary devastated and alone. In the present, Ry faces sexual violence as a trans man and is pulled further into Victor's obsessive mission beneath the streets of Manchester. Victor's attempt to reanimate Good triggers a city-wide blackout before Victor himself vanishes entirely, leaving Ry and Polly to pick up the pieces.

The core story of creation, loss, and digital resurrection across two centuries.

Mary and Percy discuss Galvani's electrical experiments on dead frogs, inspiring Mary to write about the Undead.

Ry meets journalist Polly D at the Tec-X-Po, where she is investigating a privacy-violating camera vibrator.

The Lake Geneva group debates William Lawrence's lecture arguing against the existence of the human soul.

Byron asks Mary to read aloud a passage from her manuscript in which Victor sees the creature on the ice.

Polly D calls Ry to warn him that Victor Stein's traceable history leads back only to a company in Geneva.

Victor reveals a room full of disembodied human hands moving on their own deep inside the Manchester tunnels.

Asylum keeper Wakefield reads Victor Frankenstein's journal and struggles to believe its accounts of reanimating corpses.

Victor Stein tells Ry the story of I.J. Good, a Jewish codebreaker who worked alongside Alan Turing.

Ry and Ron Lord tour the Alcor cryogenics facility in Arizona with CEO Max More as their guide.

Ron Lord quotes scripture to persuade a reluctant Claire to become the CEO of his sexbot company.

Both of Mary Shelley's Italian-born children, Clara and William, die in quick succession, leaving Mary shattered.

Victor Frankenstein mysteriously vanishes from a locked room at Bedlam with no explanation and no trace.

Ry, Polly, Ron, and Claire shelter together in a preserved 1950s military pub hidden inside the tunnels.

Mary meets Ada Lovelace at Babbage's party and learns the Analytical Engine could one day hold all human knowledge.

Mary fantasizes about reanimating Percy through the Analytical Engine but wonders if the revived man is actually Victor.

While Mary Shelley draws inspiration from discussions of Galvani's electrical experiments at Lake Geneva, Ry Shelley meets Polly D in Memphis — a journalist investigating a privacy-violating vibrator who will become his closest ally. Warnings about Victor Stein's mysterious origins go unheeded even as his tunnel experiments grow more disturbing, and a visit to the Alcor cryogenics facility draws Ron Lord and the new Claire into Ry's orbit. Mary's grief reaches its lowest point when both her children, Clara and William, die in Italy, while in the historical strand Victor Frankenstein vanishes from a locked room at Bedlam without explanation. The group shelters in a preserved wartime pub beneath Manchester as Victor's experiment reaches its climax, and in the historical timeline Mary meets Ada Lovelace and discovers that the Analytical Engine could theoretically hold all of human knowledge. Both timelines end in longing and speculation, as Mary imagines using Ada's machine to bring Percy back to life, only to wonder if the revived man might be Victor instead.

The supporting moments and revelations that give both timelines their depth.

Byron dismisses women as passive by nature and weaponizes Mary Wollstonecraft's suicide to undermine Mary's arguments.

Percy describes the homunculus to Mary as a soulless, unholy made thing not born of woman.

Mary decides to name her novel's protagonist Victor Frankenstein to embody her desire to triumph over death.

Polly D interrupts Victor Stein's public lecture, demanding he address the male chauvinism she sees in AI development.

Ron Lord's sexbot accidentally switches into Bedroom Mode during Victor Stein's lecture, causing a public scene.

Ry tells Polly D at a bar that being transgender is not a look but who he is, all of him.

After their first sexual encounter, Victor tells Ry he is not gay and calls Ry delicious new data.

Mary defends Eve and Pandora to Byron, arguing women who sought knowledge have always advanced all of humanity.

Victor confesses love for Ry but insists he is not gay, imagining Ry as feminine and Victor's own creation.

Victor tells Ry they are both freaks, and Ry refuses to have his transgender identity reduced to that label.

Victor Frankenstein tells Mary that she created him and his monster and that the two are one and the same.

Percy Shelley incorporates Mary's political ideas about supporting the many over the few into his protest poem.

Victor expresses love for Ry alone in the tunnels before appearing to say a final goodbye.

Mary recognizes Victor Frankenstein at Ada Lovelace's party, still youthful despite decades passing since their meeting at Bedlam.

Polly D kisses Ry on the lips after the group escapes the tunnels in the aftermath of the blackout.

The novel's defining philosophical battles begin immediately as Byron dismisses women as passive by nature, framing both Mary's historical struggle and Ry's experience of discrimination two centuries later. Percy's description of the homunculus as a soulless, unholy made thing and Mary's choice to name her protagonist Victor Frankenstein lay the ideological foundations for the entire narrative. In the present, a series of confrontations force characters to declare who they are: Polly D challenges Victor's sexism publicly during his lecture, Ron's sexbot causes chaos, and Ry insists to Polly that his transgender identity is not a performance but the whole of who he is. Victor's fetishization of Ry deepens as he calls Ry delicious new data and imagines him as feminine and created, before a tense goodbye in the tunnels signals Victor's imminent disappearance. The pool closes with Mary's shocking recognition that Victor Frankenstein has reappeared at Ada's party still youthful after decades, while in the present Polly kisses Ry as a new, uncertain future opens before him.

The decisions, confrontations, and discoveries that define who every character truly is.