In a document from the “Joint Republic Hearing Committee on the New Sonoran Incident,” a government official describes a film streamed on “the final night of the Operation Bounce House disaster” (7). The report notes that the film was created by Rosita Zapatero, a New Sonoran farmer and filmmaker. The first scene of the film shows a group of young people—Sam Amboya, Harriet Riggs, and Oliver Lewis—being interviewed by Rosita in a barn housing musical instruments. On the wall is a banner for “The Rhythm Mafia,” a band that Sam, Oliver, Tito, and Axel are in. Sam and Harriet are a couple excitedly expecting their first child.

As Oliver and Roger head into the hills to search for Priscilla, Roger quizzes Oliver on math. Oliver is annoyed that, even though he’s 25, he still has to put up with Roger’s nanny program because his grandfather, Edward Lewis, died before it could be deactivated. Oliver wishes that Roger could go look for Priscilla alone, but “rule number one” is that Roger must be protected because he’s the only remaining hive queen unit—one that coordinates all the other drones and technology on the farm (13). Losing him would be disastrous. This rule was made by Oliver’s grandfather, who was one of the original settlers of the planet New Sonora.

Roger explains that Priscilla disappeared while investigating an unknown radio signal. Suddenly, they see a bizarrely decorated, three-meter-tall robot walking toward them over a hill. Oliver realizes that the robot is a “mech,” like the ones he’s seen in anime and video games from Earth. They hear a child’s voice whining that his birthday is ruined because there are no good targets to shoot at; Oliver realizes that the voice is coming from the mech and that the child is remotely piloting it.

Oliver looks up into the sky where the pinhole gate that connects New Sonora to Earth is located. It has only been operational for the past 20 years; only electronic communications and official governmental delegations are supposed to pass through it until the quarantine of New Sonora expires in eight more years. The mech fires a cannon, and Oliver suddenly realizes that Rosita might be right: Earth’s government wants to get rid of the New Sonoran people and take over the planet for itself.

The mech fires on Roger next, and the child piloting it issues vulgar threats against the small drone. Roger cuts the mech’s leg and causes it to fall over. Roger warns that more mechs are likely on the way from a drop ship. He has activated the “perimeter-defense protocol” (24), which Oliver has never heard of. From the markings on the mech, Oliver realizes that its pilot, Hobie Martin, is using the username “Subhuman Slayer.” Earthers consider New Sonorans subhuman because of the gene editing that allows them to survive on New Sonora. Oliver tries to reason with Hobie by speaking to him through the ruined mech, but Hobie only replies with insults and threats. When another mech lands nearby, Roger insists that Oliver run back to the farm.

In the film, Rosita interviews an elderly couple, Roberto and Maria Gonzales. Roberto is covered in dirt, but his cowboy hat shines a clean white because of the excellent care Maria takes of it. The couple met many years in the past. Roberto offers Rosita a popsicle, and she’s delighted, as it reminds her of her childhood. For a long time after the couple’s two sons died, Roberto stopped making the popsicles from fruit in his orchard, but he has recently started making them again.

Oliver meets up with his diminutive 23-year-old sister, Lulu Lewis. Many members of their community have gathered at the Lewis farm. Everyone is either old or young: There is no one between the ages of 30 and 60 in the community because a disease killed an entire generation. Lulu and Oliver go into Lulu’s streaming studio, where Lulu earns extra money as “Farm Girl Gigi,” streaming sexual content. The studio is full of elderly neighbors watching an Earth commercial for “Operation Bounce House.” Apex, the company running this operation, claims that New Sonora is overrun with terrorists and offers customers the chance to design their own mechs to kill the supposed terrorists. The full operation is scheduled to begin in seven hours.

The operation is scheduled to last for five days. Vast numbers of mechs are being printed onboard a massive ship, the Apex Pinnacle, in orbit above New Sonora. Lulu gets on the computer and tries to get the word out that there are no terrorists on New Sonora and that innocent people are being targeted, but no one believes her. Outside, Oliver runs into his best friend, Sam. Sam explains that Apex Industries is a mercenary outfit now being run by the former head of a gaming company, Eli Opel. Opel has found a way to earn twice as much for his mercenary operations: Apex is getting paid both by the Republic government of Earth and by gaming customers who want to run the mercenary mechs instead of Apex’s AI.

Roger announces that there will be a special Saturday lesson on the perimeter-defense protocol. He refers to Sam as “Oliver friend number three” and stings him repeatedly for swearing (50). Sam asks why he’s still designated by a number when even the honeybees are now being referred to by their names. Oliver explains that he cannot change Sam’s name in Roger’s program because he doesn’t have the administrative password to override the nanny part of Roger’s programming.

Roger sends Rosita, whom he refers to as “Lulu unqualified babysitter number one” (57), into the attic to retrieve a stored document. If she complies quickly, Roger will give her “a gold star on [her] daily Smile Statement” (58). Roger explains that the 433 honeybee drones can defend the farm for only a short time. He shows them a map, zooming in on a warehouse in Burnt Ends where important supplies are stored. When Lulu interrupts him, Roger tells her that she will be getting a frowny face on her Smile Statement. The farm will be their base of operations, but they will have to send a team into Burnt Ends to retrieve the supplies. Rosita returns with a folder marked as the guide to defending the settlement. On the folder, Edward Lewis wrote, “Remember rule number ten” (60).

Roger warns that Burnt Ends is occupied by five hostile mechs that have been killing everyone they can find. Rosita is frightened because her two toddler nieces live in Burnt Ends. There are very few young children in New Sonora. Rosita’s nieces are part of a small experiment to see if the genetic changes introduced into Oliver’s generation will be transmitted to their children and keep the next generation safe from the sickness that killed Olver’s parents’ generation.

Oliver, Lulu, Rosita, Sam, Tito, and Axel accompany the drones on the mission to Burnt Ends. As they leave the farm, Oliver sees his family’s drones building defensive towers and fences. In Bunt Ends, they pass a barn used as the town bar. Oliver remembers that when he and Sam were younger, they asked the owner if their band could play there. The owner laughed and said they only could if they played covers of old Earth songs, not their own music. Sam was angry, and they never asked again. Oliver thinks of all the people he knows in town and worries about their safety. Suddenly, he hears a vehicle approaching. In his earpiece, Roger issues a warning: They must leave the grain transports and run.

As the group runs for the tree line, they hear explosions. Roger tells them that the mech approaching the convoy will soon be neutralized. Since the enemy now knows they’re there, they should travel to the warehouse separately from the grain transports. Moving carefully to avoid attracting the attention of the four remaining mechs, they make their way through the deserted town.

The friends turn a corner and discover hundreds of mangled bodies in a field. Lulu takes pictures, and Rosita films with her camera drone, recording the scene for posterity. Oliver feels numb as he watches Tito on his knees, crying. He recalls that Tito witnessed a terrible farm accident when he was a child. That was when Tito stopped speaking.

They continue on to the warehouse. Roger, speaking through a drone called Trixie, directs the group to open a hidden hatch in the floor. The hidden storage area contains a new kind of honeybee, much larger than the agricultural ones on the farm. These honeybees have guns mounted to their backs. Oliver realizes that this is the “rhino” bot that his grandfather told him about. The group begins loading the transports with supplies.

Sam imagines aloud what it would be like to play a concert in the huge underground space. Lulu teases that, after 10 years together, the Rhythm Mafia has still not practiced enough to give a decent concert. Records indicate there should be three more hive queens like Roger, along with the supplies to repair them, but these are missing. Roger speculates that they were removed when a governmental delegation from Fat Landing visited 20 years ago, when the Earth gate first opened.

Most of the remaining supplies are from the Hibisco, one of the 15 ships that brought the colonists to New Sonora. Roger tells them that the Lewis honeybees are all also from this ship. Oliver recalls that this particular ship had trouble near the end of the voyage. The captain is said to have developed a mental illness and destroyed his ship’s AI. The town of Burnt Ends gets its name from the site where the Hibisco crashed. After the disaster, the captain died by suicide. They find a crate of the nutrient-milk powder that was supplied for babies in the colony, along with a scrawled warning not to use it. Rosita reminds them that her grandmother always believed that this powder was responsible for the deaths of their parents’ generation, but Oliver says this is just a conspiracy theory. There are sounds of explosions, and Roger directs them all to find and put on body armor and arm themselves.

The friends hurry upstairs and look out, trying to spot the enemy as the drones continue loading the transports. Roger tells them that the four remaining mechs appear to be working together as a team. Oliver sees how terrified everyone is, so he decides to take action, giving orders to coordinate everyone’s movements. They hear a teenager’s voice coming from one of the mechs, taunting them. Markings on its body identify the pilot as “Skeet-Skeet.” A second one, marked “Chode,” appears beside it. Roger tells them that the mech team, “Team Cannon Fodder,” is livestreaming their attack on the internet. Roger sends a drone toward the two mechs, distracting them while, elsewhere, he uses a train to destroy their two teammates, “Queef” and “Steamer.” Roger, speaking through the drone, asks whether Chode is aware that his father is having an affair with a coworker. As the two mechs turn to go check on their teammates, Oliver gives the command for his group to begin their attack.

At first, Oliver, Lulu, and their friends struggle to accurately aim their weapons; even when they do hit the mechs, it does minimal damage. When Lulu finally manages to take out one of the mechs by damaging its leg, Roger awards her a gold star. After a tense few minutes of back-and-forth battle, Lulu takes out the second mech. Roger tells them that he has been studying modern warfare tactics and that psychological warfare is an effective strategy. He shares his research on Skeet, whose real name is Jeffrey Pyle. Sam stands over the remains of Skeet’s mech and taunts him. When Skeet angrily replies that he will return in another mech and kill them, Sam tells Skeet that the Rhythm Mafia will be waiting for him.

In the film, Rosita interviews her cousin Annabeth Capstone about her one-and-a-half-year-old toddlers, Mia and Tabitha. Annabeth explains how much medical testing she had while she was pregnant and how much the girls still undergo.

As they ride back to the farm, Roger explains that Chode’s real name is Benji Winters and that he made the affair accusation against Benji’s father from information he gathered about Benji’s family online. Oliver takes a mental inventory of the supplies they’ve retrieved. The most important ones are the two fabricators. He worries that, even with the new weapons, drones, and food supplies, they are still underprepared to hold out against a five-day assault. Roger reports that robots similar to Peacekeepers, or AI-controlled ground troops, are now being transported to the planet’s surface. The group is surprised and concerned.

At the farm, people are digging holes and drones and continuing their building. Oliver looks at his ruined crops with dismay. Roger reveals that much of the farm’s infrastructure has been repurposed into defensive towers and gun turrets. Feeling that he needs a moment alone, Oliver moves off, but he runs into the elderly Mr. Gonzales, who asks whether Oliver remembers when Gonzales used to bring him popsicles when he was younger and hands him a pear popsicle.

Through Oliver’s earpiece, Roger explains that the new robots landing on the surface wear skins designed to make them look eerily human. Twenty-five of them are currently turning the nearby Yanez farm into a stronghold. He sends Oliver a video feed. Oliver sees that the bots seem completely unaware of Mr. Yanez’s chickens, which are running all around the barnyard. He wonders if these chickens are part of the eccentric “Circus of Miracle Animals” that Yanez has claimed to be training (123). On the walls of Yanez’s barn, Oliver sees a banner proclaiming that the chickens are magical. Yanez appears and shouts at the bots to leave his farm. A bot lifts a weapon and kills the man instantly. Oliver is filled with rage and sadness.

Roger’s video feed zooms in on one of the bots, and Oliver is shocked to see that it’s wearing a patch that says, “The Rhythm Mafia” (126). Roger explains that these bots are being dropped around the planet to act as the supposed terrorist insurgents to give Apex’s customers a more exciting battle. He believes that Sam’s conversation with Skeet led to Apex choosing the band’s name as the name of the pretend insurgents. A timer beeps on Oliver’s bracelet, and he realizes that Operation Bounce House has officially begun.

In the film, Rosita interviews Sheriff Jake Acosta. Acosta explains that construction is underway to renovate the old school building, now that there will finally be a new generation of children in Burnt Ends. Before becoming sheriff, Acosta was a science teacher; he helped investigate the sickness that killed so many people. Rosita asks him to elaborate. Reluctantly, he explains epigenetic rejection syndrome, an illness caused by the impact of New Sonora’s electromagnetic field on developing fetuses. The problem was eventually solved by adjusting the genes of babies in utero, before the electromagnetic field could act on them. Rosita asks why the colonists didn’t use the remaining AI units still orbiting in generation ships to help solve the problem. Acosta answers that the colonists’ deal with Earth required that AI be turned off permanently immediately after landfall. He reminds her about “the AI war” and the dangers of AI technology (133).