Nearly 20 years ago, Owen Strand was the lone survivor of his Manhattan firehouse on 9/11. In the wake of the attack, Owen had the unenviable task of rebuilding his station. After a similar tragedy happens to a firehouse in Austin, Owen, along with his troubled firefighter son, T.K., takes his progressive philosophies of life and firefighting down to Texas, where he helps them start anew. On the surface, Owen is all about big-city style and swagger, but underneath he struggles with a secret he hides from the world - one that could very well end his life.

A bullied teen receives mysterious help from someone online: a stranger soon revealed to be her recently deceased father, David, whose consciousness has been uploaded to the Cloud following an experimental destructive brain scan. David is the first of a new kind of being – an “Uploaded Intelligence” or “UI” – but he will not be the last, as a global conspiracy unfolds that threatens to trigger a new kind of world war.