Summary

The dedication, narrated in an omniscient third-person voice, describes a character named Giovanni building a house in the forest after escaping a city. He uses scrap items ranging from nuclear cores to seeds. A man and woman, escaping from an unknown force, leave a boy with Giovanni, asking him to take care of the boy. The dedication ends with the boy, Victor Lawson, growing up and loving Giovanni as his father.

Chapter 1 opens in media res with robots Nurse Ratched and Rambo playing with Vic in the Scrap Yards. While they search of interest, they avoid the Old Ones, machines that can identify intruders in the Scrap Yards. The group returns to their home in the forest. They listen to music from a record player. Vic secretly works on a backup wooden heart for Giovanni in case his current heart...