Two alien companions, later known as Terri and Steven, respond to a distress signal from EarthPrime. The unseen masters of EarthPrime's system, not a NASA equivalent, have sent the urgent beacons. The aliens are already well known on EarthPrime, though not for the telekinetic abilities they possess.
To bypass EarthPrime's closed system, the visitors decide to be born together in a single body using experimental birthing technology. Based on previous experience, they realize they are unlikely to survive an initial encounter with the local zillazeppin population. Zillazeppins are shapeshifting entities selected on the basis of their human lives and rewarded with immortality, allowing them to avoid the standard mind-erasure procedure that all incarnated spirits undergo after death.
The synthetic hybrid is then channeled into a birth mother. Because it possesses an etheric body and recognizable biomarkers, the Machine, an artificial intelligence that processes vast numbers of souls for redeployment, can identify it and send it to an awaiting fertilized egg.
Terri becomes a police officer and investigates the Ether, a limbo-like reality in which different lives and identities overlap. She is drawn into the world of the Seekers of the Eternal Flame, humans who are open to the spirit world and cooperate with the zillazeppins.
Meanwhile, Steven and Terri debate whether they should alter the spacetime continuum by repairing EarthPrime's structural core through telekinesis alone.
At the same time, the zillazeppins and their allies, the xyillacs, intend to resurrect the dictator Hister from the Source and unleash Armageddon. Their goal is to establish a new world order on the collapsing planet.
Boss Work draws on Eastern mythology and the concept of reincarnation, in which souls endlessly repeat cycles of rebirth. The system benefits an eternal community of souls that feeds on the blood of its incarnations while being entertained by their countless lives. The story challenges the scientific view of humans as organic robots, arguing instead that an etheric body encapsulates the spirit, maps onto the physical body, and animates it.
