In the year 2038, Anena, a twenty-five year old woman, is fed up of living under a dictator. She grows up in a rural village, but teaches herself programming through internet communities and tutorials. She migrates to Kampala, a city over three hundred miles away, to escape from her violent father, who she thinks is similar to the brutal dictator who has ruled her country for over forty years. This inspires her to invent a technology, Yat Madit (or Big Tree), to foster direct democracy by enabling thousands of elected persons to be joint-presidents and every citizen to be a parliamentarian. She crowdfunds this project, and returns to her village to pilot it. People are excited about it, and a revolution brews, but she does not know she has a formidable opponent.

This is Tabaro, a forty-five year old man who got into bio-technology after his daughter died from sickle cells. Tabaro discovered a butterfly enzyme that can edit DNA in vivo, and could make cheap sickle cell medication, but he can’t get anyone to listen to his pitch because he works in a bedroom-laboratory, and not for a big pharmaceutical or university. The only audience he gets is with the military, who want him to create biological weapons to replace riot police, and he sells his soul to the devil because he thinks it will help advance his career.