The story is split between parallel narratives. The odd-numbered chapters take place in
'Hard-Boiled Wonderland', although the phrase is not used anywhere in the text, only in
page headers. The narrator is a "Calcutec," a human data processor/encryption system who
has been trained to use his subconscious as an encryption key. The Calcutecs work for
the quasi-governmental System, as opposed to the criminal "Semiotecs" who work for the
Factory and who are generally fallen Calcutecs. The relationship between the two groups
is simple: the System protects data while the Semiotecs steal it, although it is suggested
that one man might be behind both. The narrator completes an assignment for a mysterious
scientist, who is exploring "sound reduction". He works in a laboratory hidden within an
anachronistic version of Tokyo's sewer system.

The even-numbered chapters deal with a newcomer to 'the End of the World', a strange,
isolated walled Town depicted in the frontispiece map as being surrounded by a perfect
and impenetrable wall. The narrator is in the process of being accepted into the Town.
His shadow has been "cut off" and this shadow lives in the "shadow grounds" where he is
not expected to survive the winter. Residents of the town are not allowed to have a shadow,
and, it transpires, do not have a mind. Or is it only suppressed? The narrator is assigned
quarters and a job as the current "dreamreader": a process intended to remove the traces of
mind from the Town. He goes to the Library every evening where, assisted by the Librarian,
he learns to read dreams from the skulls of unicorns. These "beasts" passively accept their
role, sent out of the Town at night, to their enclosure where many die of cold during the
winter.

The two storylines converge, exploring concepts of consciousness, the unconscious mind (or
as it incorrectly referred to, subconscious) and identity...

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