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Set against the booming world of early 21st-century biotechnology, the novel interweaves storylines involving scientists, lawyers, investors, and ordinary people caught up in the consequences of genetic research. Recurring questions drive the narrative: Who owns human tissue? What happens when genes become products? How far will corporations go to profit from biology?

The story opens at a biotech conference in Las Vegas, where private investigator Vasco Borden trails Eddie Tolman, a young postdoctoral researcher who has stolen twelve genetically modified embryos from a laboratory. When a handoff to an unknown buyer goes wrong, Tolman flees into a service elevator and opens his cryogenic container, releasing liquid nitrogen into the confined space. He dies of asphyxiation, and the embryos have already been removed by unknown parties.

In a Los Angeles courtroom, Frank Burnet, a 51-year-old former construction worker, testifies against UCLA and its physician, Dr. Michael Gross. Years earlier, Frank was diagnosed with deadly leukemia and cured through experimental treatment. Afterward, Dr. Gross kept calling him back for unnecessary testing, frightening him into thinking the cancer had returned. Frank discovered that Gross had been harvesting his cells and selling them to BioGen Research, a biotech startup. Frank's cells are uniquely efficient at producing cytokines, proteins that fight cancer, and BioGen valued them at 3 billion dollars. His daughter Alex Burnet, a 32-year-old litigator, leads his legal team, but the judge rules against them, declaring Frank's tissues "material waste" with no ownership rights. A mysterious young man then approaches Frank, offering 100 million dollars for fresh cell samples and hinting that BioGen's cultures might soon be destroyed.

BioGen's CEO, Rick Diehl, started the company with money from his wealthy wife Karen but was forced to accept investment from Jack Watson, a famous venture capitalist known for hostile takeovers. Diehl's life unravels on multiple fronts. His wife is having an affair, and divorce attorney Barry Sindler demands Karen undergo comprehensive genetic testing, including for Huntington's disease in her family, to challenge her fitness as a parent. Confronted with a court order, Karen flees and abandons her children, leaving Diehl overwhelmed as a single father.

At BioGen's laboratories, researcher Josh Winkler administers a bioengineered retrovirus, a virus designed to deliver genes into cells, carrying the "maturity gene" to lab rats. The gene accelerates mature behavior, giving it enormous commercial potential. When Josh's brother Adam Winkler, who has a chronic drug addiction, accidentally inhales a dose, Adam stops using drugs, gets a job, and becomes responsible overnight. Josh secretly administers the gene to Eric Graham, a young man with a heroin addiction. Rick Diehl, eager for a breakthrough, promotes Josh when he learns of the unauthorized experiments. But rats in the study begin dying of premature aging at a quarter of their normal lifespan. Adam, only 32, rapidly develops gray hair, deep wrinkles, and dental problems. Eric dies of a heart attack at 21, his body aged far beyond its years. The gene cures addiction but kills its recipients by accelerating aging.

In Sumatra, tourists encounter an orangutan that appears to speak Dutch and French, generating sensational media coverage. The story alarms Henry Kendall, a geneticist at Radial Genomics in San Diego. Four years earlier, during a sabbatical at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Henry inserted his own human genes into a chimpanzee embryo to study the genetic basis of speech. He expected the fetus to abort, but an encephalitis outbreak scattered the chimps to other facilities before he could examine it. When blood analysis confirms a genetic connection between his DNA and a sample from the NIH, Henry flies to the primate facility in Maryland. There he meets Dave, a young chimpanzee with pale skin, blue-flecked eyes, and human-proportioned hands who speaks in simple sentences. The facility director says Dave must be euthanized. Henry memorizes the cage code, unlocks it during a shift change, and drives Dave to California.

Henry's wife Lynn fabricates a cover story, inventing a fictional genetic syndrome to explain Dave's appearance. With a haircut, baseball cap, and children's clothing, Dave passes as a human child with a rare condition. He bonds with the Kendalls' eight-year-old son Jamie, though he struggles with reading and social integration.

In Paris, geneticist Gail Bond creates Gerard, a transgenic African grey parrot injected with human genes, who develops the ability to perform arithmetic and hold conversations. Gerard also records compromising sounds from the apartment, including evidence of Gail's husband Richard's affair. Richard engineers the bird's disappearance and passes Gerard to an American investor. The parrot travels through a series of owners and eventually reaches an Ohio pet shop, where an employee begins driving him toward California.

A separate subplot illustrates the dangers of genetic information becoming public. When a hospital lab assistant's father dies and his sister demands a paternity test, the chain of genetic testing exposes an illegal body-harvesting operation at Long Beach Memorial Hospital and leads to the lab assistant's health insurance being canceled after the results reveal a gene for heart disease.

The climactic action begins when BioGen's cell line is destroyed in a coordinated attack. Brad Gordon, the company's disgraced former security chief, contaminates every Burnet cell culture on instructions from Watson's operative, while forged authorizations are used to remove all off-site backups worldwide. BioGen's legal team argues that since the company owns the Burnet cells and Frank's descendants carry the same genetic material, BioGen can take cells from them by force. BioGen hires Vasco Borden to seize Alex or her son Jamie.

Alex fights off the first kidnapping attempt at Jamie's school and goes on the run, eventually reaching the Kendall home. Vasco's team mistakenly grabs the Kendalls' son Jamie. Dave leaps onto the fleeing ambulance, bites off part of Vasco's ear, and carries the rescued boy home. Vasco circles back, snatches Alex's Jamie, and races to Solana Canyon, a luxury spa with surgical facilities. Henry, who embedded GPS trackers in the children's sneakers, tracks the signal. At the spa, Dave charges Vasco, Jamie breaks free, and Alex fires a warning shotgun blast, promising to kill Vasco if he ever approaches her family again.

In Oxnard, Alex's law firm partner Bob Koch argues that BioGen's claim amounts to chattel slavery in violation of the Thirteenth Amendment. The judge rules that ownership of a cell line does not entitle a company to extract cells from any living person, criticizes the legal treatment of human tissues as disposable waste, and calls gene patents on facts of nature fundamentally misguided.

Watson's larger scheme comes into focus: He orchestrated the destruction of BioGen's cell line and Diehl's downfall to seize control of the company. But Watson develops Vogelman's paresis, a rare neurodegenerative disease caused by a gene patented by Scripps and licensed at a prohibitive fee. Because of the patent, no lab has researched a treatment in five years, and Watson dies in a private Shanghai clinic. Meanwhile, Brad Gordon, sent by a dubious attorney to ride roller coasters as evidence for a genetic-predisposition defense, arrives at Cedar Point amusement park in Ohio. There, Rob Bellarmino, an NIH official who stole Henry's research on the novelty gene, a gene linked to thrill-seeking behavior, is filming a television segment. When researchers approach Brad to collect DNA, he panics and shoots Bellarmino.

Adam dies in a hospital bed, prematurely aged at 32, telling Josh not to blame himself. Gerard the parrot joins the Kendall household and helps Dave with homework. Henry becomes famous and controversial as the creator of the first transgenic primate. Dave struggles with school but becomes an excellent surfer. The novel closes on a disquieting note when a farmer at a county fair looks at Dave and remarks that he would like to get one of those to work on his farm.