Manhunt

A plague called t. rex has reshaped post-apocalyptic New England. The virus transforms anyone with sufficient testosterone into a feral, cannibalistic predator marked by dermal fissures, aggression, and delirium. The afflicted lose all cognition, becoming violent hunters that rape and kill indiscriminately; their offspring eat their way out of their mothers within months.

Two trans women, Fran and Beth, survive by hunting feral men along the coast, harvesting testicles and adrenal glands. They consume raw testicles as a crude source of estrogen, supplemented with licorice root. Without this makeshift hormone therapy, their testosterone would rise high enough to trigger the virus. Their harvested organs also supply Dr. Indiresh Varma (Indi), a cis woman and former fertility specialist in Seabrook, New Hampshire, who refines them into tradeable estrogen.

The novel opens with Fran and Beth killing a feral man, then discovering their bicycles have been found by a patrol from the Womyn's Legion, a militarized trans-exclusionary radical feminist (TERF) organization based in Maryland that executes trans women on sight. Their leader, Teach, is rumored to have worked at Guantánamo as a psychological consultant. Beth fires at Teach but misses, and in the ensuing chase, a Legion soldier named Ramona Pierce grazes Beth's face with a crossbow bolt. They escape when feral men interrupt the pursuit. As they travel toward Seabrook, they witness a Legion convoy heading north, confirming the organization's expansion. Their relationship is strained: They sleep together occasionally, but Fran dissociates during sex.

A parallel storyline introduces Robbie, a trans man who survived the plague at a low point in his testosterone cycle. He lives alone, haunted by the memory of a friend named Midge who contracted the virus when her medication failed; Robbie locked her in a cellar and shot her the next morning. He discovers Fran and Beth stealing from his campsite but lets them go. When feral men attack the house where the two women are sheltering, Beth fights from the rooftop until a man tackles her off the edge. She is assaulted and raped on the ground before Robbie kills the attackers. Fran performs emergency surgery on Beth's leg, and the three carry Beth to Indi in Seabrook.

Indi reveals that Legion soldiers have arrived in town and presents an offer from Sophie Widdel, a 20-year-old billionaire whose parents built an underground bunker complex outside Exeter. Fran proposes fleeing west, but Indi's chronic physical limitations make the journey impossible. They depart for the bunker as Teach broadcasts the founding of the "New Womyn's Commonwealth," the Legion's new political regime, and declares war on trans women. What frightens Beth most is not the few townspeople who cheer but the many who stay silent.

The narrative splits to follow Ramona in Boston. A deeply closeted chaser, someone sexually attracted to trans people, Ramona secretly sleeps with Feather, a nonbinary trans sex worker, while performing escalating brutality for the Legion. After her promotion to captain, she leads a raid that ends in the execution of a trans woman.

At the Screw, as the bunker is called, each character's situation deteriorates. Sophie keeps a muzzled feral man named Mackenzie, her former lover, chained in a pit and wants Indi to help her conceive his child. Fran manages trade negotiations with the TERF-controlled town, now renamed Raymond, and receives a laminated XX identity card, a moment of agonizing joy. Beth is removed from farm duty after kissing a coworker named Meg, who reports discomfort, and is reassigned to "comfort," dressing in men's clothing and having sex with cis women clients; she tells her friends she works in the kitchens. Indi discovers that Sophie previously impregnated nearly 20 camp women with Mackenzie's semen; 11 died as male fetuses underwent viral metamorphosis in utero. Zia, a Black trans woman who runs the bunker's library, contacts Robbie with evidence that the Screw is trading trans women and refugees to the TERFs as forced laborers, with Beth's name on a transfer list. When Robbie confronts Fran, she dismisses the warning; Sophie has offered her vaginoplasty, and Fran has begun a sexual relationship with Sophie in exchange.

The bunker's order collapses. Beth deduces she is being led to her death, strangles one of the bunker's twin administrators, and is tasered and loaded onto a bus bound for the TERFs. The dead woman's twin, Corinne, takes Beth into the woods to execute her. Robbie, surviving an assassination attempt orchestrated by Sophie's enforcer Doe, drives back and frees Beth. Inside the Screw, Indi's assistant Mariana frees Mackenzie, who kills Sophie. Zia's fighters seize the armory and set the bunker ablaze. That same night, a senior TERF discovers Fran's penis at a party in Raymond and reaches for a gun. Ramona, shattered after witnessing Feather's public execution that day, stabs the woman and tells Fran to run. Fran flees to the burning Screw and reunites with Robbie, whose anger at her willful ignorance is barely contained.

The group relocates to Fort Dyke, a coastal battery on New Castle Island run by Zia, now bolstered by refugees from the Screw. Beth and Indi begin a genuine romantic relationship. Robbie and Fran reconcile; he confides in her about Midge, and she holds his hand while he weeps. Zia proposes fighting the TERFs, and a vote passes 36 to 11. Fran begins meeting Ramona covertly, extracting intelligence and passing her a Raspberry Pi, a small computer, without explaining its purpose. Beth, alongside fellow residents Rachel and Persephone, studies stolen naval schematics to devise a sabotage plan. Zia's fighters launch a guerrilla campaign of ambushes and bombings. The TERFs retaliate with executions, including that of Ramona's subordinate Karin, who had been secretly passing documents to the resistance.

Teach unveils the USS Galbraith, a refurbished 500-foot destroyer, envisioning naval dominance of the East Coast. The TERFs simultaneously drive thousands of feral men toward the fort as a living siege weapon. The Maenad Corps consists of trans women who serve the Legion in exchange for hormones and legal recognition. When Ramona boards the Galbraith carrying the Raspberry Pi, Maenad Sergeant Kilroy retrieves the device from her bag, plugs it into the ship's systems, and dives overboard.

The final battle begins at dawn. Driverless trucks detonate against the fort's wall, tearing a breach as feral men pour through. The Galbraith opens fire from offshore before the Raspberry Pi triggers an internal explosion that rips open its hull. Teach and the surviving crew assault the fort on foot. Ramona tries to shoot Teach but fails; they wound each other and fall into the surf. Robbie hits Teach with a nail gun inside the fort. On the roof, Teach shoots Fran multiple times. Beth finds Fran dying. Fran tells Beth she is beautiful, calls her "my sister," and asks for a kiss. Fran dies. Beth descends and finds Teach barely conscious. She puts an arrow through Teach's mouth. When Teach croaks Beth's deadname, the birth name Beth no longer uses, Beth kicks her face until she is dead.

In the epilogue, Beth and Indi grieve together. Robbie sits among the dead, holding Fran's hand. Ramona, found half-drowned and shot, has impossibly survived; she asks to stay, but Beth refuses, grateful for Ramona's help but unwilling to have her there. Indi removes the bullets from Fran's body and says goodbye. Beth and Robbie dig Fran's grave in a clearing. Robbie tells Beth he is leaving with Mariana to search for his Indigenous Taos Pueblo family in New Mexico. They embrace and part. Beth lies beside Fran's body in the open grave at sunset, whispering her love, remembering the moment when Fran stood before a mirror and asked, "What if I were a girl?"