Max Dyson has been dead seven times this year, and he's never felt better. After an environmental catastrophe, adults are unable to sleep. Suicides are common. Desperate people try alcohol, drugs, and coma-parlors to find relief from their exhaustion. It's rumored that doctors inside the city's perimeter wall are to blame, but nothing alive can penetrate its defenses. Max invents a dangerous but effective method that provides curative rest. With it, he saves his girlfriend, Amanda, and she feels so rejuvenated, she lets everyone know, throwing the city's factions into a war for control of Max's miracle machine. Max devises a way to pass through the perimeter wall defenses, confront the doctors responsible for the mass insomnia, and save the city from anarchy. To succeed, he'll have to die again, but this time without the help of his machine.