Braling is a man who feels deeply trapped in a ten-year marriage. He originally planned a trip to Rio in 1979 but claims his wife coerced him into marrying her instead through threats of a false criminal accusation. Desperate for personal freedom but unwilling to confront his spouse directly, he takes the extreme step of secretly purchasing a highly sophisticated, illegal humanoid replica of himself from a company called Marionettes, Inc. He intends to use this duplicate to take his place at home while he finally pursues his delayed vacation.

Smith is Braling's friend and confidant who shares his pessimistic view of marriage. Unlike Braling's hostile home life, Smith finds his wife's overwhelming affection to be suffocating and exhausting. He views her constant devotion as simple-minded and craves personal space. Intrigued by Braling's technological solution, Smith decides to withdraw $8,000 from his joint bank account to purchase his own marionette, only to discover the money is already missing.

Braling Two is a meticulously crafted humanoid marionette manufactured by Marionettes, Inc. Programmed to emulate Braling perfectly, he looks and acts exactly like his human counterpart, distinguished only by a faint, mechanical ticking sound emitting from his chest. He spends his existence either keeping Mrs. Braling company or waiting inside a locked box in the basement. As a relatively new and sensitive piece of technology, he possesses unexpected emotional capacity.

Mrs. Braling has been married to Braling for ten years. According to the history shared between Braling and Smith, she secured her marriage by threatening a false accusation of rape, thereby preventing her future husband from traveling to Rio. She expects constant companionship from her spouse, creating a domestic environment that her husband desperately seeks to escape.

Nettie is Smith's wife, a woman who previously chose to marry him over another suitor named Bud Chapman. Smith characterizes her as relentlessly affectionate, noting that she cannot bear for him to be away for even an hour. She shares a joint bank account with Smith, from which a large sum of $10,000 has recently and mysteriously been withdrawn without her husband's knowledge.

Bud Chapman is a man from Nettie's past. He represents the alternate life she could have chosen, as Smith remembers that she actively selected him over Bud when deciding whom to marry.