This book is primarily told on two threads. One, in 2223, follows Justinian Sibelius, a human counselor who specializes in AI psychological problems. He has been taken to a planet just outside the galaxy M32, to try to find out what has been happening to the AIs on the planet -- each has committed a sort of suicide, reducing its intelligence radically. Other mysteries on the planet include Schrödinger Boxes -- which seem only to fix their position when an observer notices them; and Black Velvet Bands, which form at random locations and constrict about whatever they enclose. Justinian's problems are worsened because he has had to take his child with him -- his wife is a victim of the White Death, in which human intelligences cease to believe they are conscious.

The other thread follows Helen, an upload of whom was kidnapped and copied multiple times over decades in an illegal Processing Space called the Private Network, where people subject these illegal uploads to sexual slavery and such perversions. Helen is freed, and in company with a Social Care official, Judy, and several of her copies, the villains behind the Private Network are tracked down. But they have a different ethos -- they don't believe that AIs are sentient, and so what happened to Helen's copy in the Private Network is unimportant -- and when the primary villain is captured, he is happy enough to have that copy suicide -- it's not real, anyway, eh?

The two threads do eventually converge, although to my taste not in a terribly convincing manner. Indeed, the book as a whole failed to convince, nor to really involve me. Neither of the three viewpoint characters (Justinian, Helen, and Judy) really interested me. And the arguments advanced by the book, while certainly concerning interesting questions, never seemed very interestingly posed. Nor very coherently argued. In the end, some promising material seemed wasted on an uninteresting plot, unengaging characters, and unconvincing thematic arguments.