In a dystopian future where fossil fuels were exhausted, ruling corporations had turned to desperate measures to generate energy. Books were banned and confiscated as fuel for the fire, and with them free thinking had been lost. Human beings had morphed into illiterate cockroaches. In New York City an underground group of exiled scientists, writers and artists were the last bastion of those who remembered the books. The group risked their lives to seek the books, and save them from being destroyed. They are known as The Inksect. This is the story of how one of their own, Pikes, on a book quest is led to an even more important discovery: paper, pen and literacy.