Richard Forthrast, having dodged the draft in 1972 and become wealthy from smuggling marijuana across the Canadian border, develops a multi-million dollar, massively multiplayer online role-playing game after returning to the United States, and, after hackers create a virus that holds the electronic files of players ransom, he finds himself in a battle for survival as he travels around the world as a participant in a deadly war beyond the boundaries of the game's virtual universe.