The novel opens with the introduction of Richard “Dodge” Forthrast, a wealthy and successful head of a video game company based in Seattle. After a routine medical procedure results in Dodge’s untimely death, his family are surprised to learn that years prior, Dodge had altered his will to ensure his body and/or his brain would be preserved to be reawaken in the future. Somewhat reluctant but legally bound, they place Dodge’s mind within the care of the mysterious and eccentric billionaire Elmo “El” Shepherd, the head of a company which works on uploading and storing brains. A few years later, El, in an effort to show the fallibility of the internet, secretly arranges a massive hoax claiming that a nuclear bomb has been dropped on the town of Moab, Utah. Corvallis Kawasaki, Dodge’s former assistant, goes to Moab to investigate and meets a resident named Maeve. The two fall in love and get married.

Several years after this, the world has been fundamentally transformed with the advent of visors which provide a pre-screened feed of news and information to its wearers, custom tailored to their political and social beliefs. At the same time, a small group of extremists have cut themselves off from the rest of the U.S., calling themselves Leviticans and their country Ameristan. Dodge’s grandniece Sophia, a computer science student at Princeton, goes on a trip to the Forthrast family’s ancestral homes and briefly tours through Ameristan.

Returning to Seattle, Sophia announces her senior thesis: attempting to “wake up” Dodge. She is successful, much to everyone’s surprise. Dodge, going by the name Egdod, has no memory of his previous life but slowly begins to create a world to reside in, which those on the outside refer to as the Bitworld. The Bitworld slowly becomes populated with a wide variety of deceased, who are referred to as souls, and Egdod serves as their reluctant leader. One such soul is Maeve’s sister Verna, going by the name Spring, who develops the ability to create human life spontaneously. Spring’s creations disturb El, as does Egdod’s ruling over the Bitworld, since El wants that power for himself. El requests to have more control over the Bitworld, but he is denied. Deciding to work from within the Bitworld, El kills Sophia and himself. Sophia becomes Daisy, the only being in the Bitworld with the power of life and death. Determined to take power, El banishes Egdod, Daisy, and their allies and creates a religion to have the souls worship him as a god and obey his rules. He imprisons Egdod and Spring.

Corvallis dies in the real world and comes to the Bitworld as a crow named Corvus. Corvus partners with Prim, the reborn version of Daisy, and several other souls to free Egdod and Daisy, and topple El’s rule. After a long journey traversing through the Bitworld, they finally manage to free Egdod and Spring. Egdod defeats El and restores peace and freedom to Bitworld. Prim is killed and reborn again as Sophia, and Egdod and Spring care for her.