In the distant future, James is the last human on Earth. He is raised and protected by a humanoid robot, the Machine, who brings him up on a strange composite religion described in a handheld device called The Manual. The Manual's teachings fuse aspects of old-world religion and incorporate robots as spiritual beings in the afterlife, alongside and equal to humans. The man wrestles with loneliness and depression while the search for other humans becomes more and more futile. As his faith in The Manual is shaken, he sets out to test one of The Manual's core beliefs: reincarnation to the next life in the city of the Creator. What he finds could be described terribly as exactly that.