Nine months before the AI Purge, Cray Solnik, newly hired onto the Far Trails, accepts an invitation to Zion Station's null-grav arena to celebrate Police Chief Jones's birthday with an experimental virtual reality experience. He and his new friends become characters in a throwback sci-fi story, run by the station's AI Max, complete with rocketships, ray guns, and evil Martians who want to steal Earth for themselves.

But the fun ends when the birthday treat goes arwy, threatening both Jones and the station itself. Can Cray save the day?