alan is a middleaged entrepreneur in contemporary toronto who has devoted himself to fixing up a house in a bohemian neighborhood this naturally brings him in contact with the house full of students and layabouts next door including a young woman who in a moment of stress reveals to him that she has wingswings moreover which grow back after each attempt to cut them off alan understands he himself has a secret or two his father is a mountain his mother is a washing machine and among his brothers are a set of russian nesting dolls now two of the three nesting dolls edward and frederick are on his doorstepwell on their way to starvation because their innermost member george has vanished it appears that yet another brother davey who alan and his other siblings killed years ago may have returnedbent on revengeunder such circumstances it seems only reasonable for alan to involve himself with a visionary scheme to blanket toronto with free wireless internet connectivity a conspiracy spearheaded by a brilliant technopunk who builds miracles of hardware from parts scavenged from the citys dumpsters but alans past wont leave him aloneand davey is only one of the powers gunning for him and all his friends