In the year 2060, when people hardly ever leave the security of their houses and instead do everything online, Madeline Freeman, the seventeen-year-old daughter of the man who created the national digital school attended by all citizens, is wooed by a group of radicals who are trying to get people to "unplug."

Idaho is a war zone under Federal occupation, and Danny Wright and his friends in the Idaho Militia are determined to fight back, running guerrilla missions against the army--but what at first seemed like a straightforward battle against governmental repression quickly grows murky, and Danny finds that even winning the war does not mean an end to tyranny.

Danny Wright is considered to be a hero by many in the rebel held area of Idaho and the Northwest, but he has little faith in what passes for a government there, or in the secretive and repressive Brotherhood--and when nuclear weapons are detonated in Washington, D.C. and New York, the Civil War suddenly turns into World War III.