Genius hacker Connor discovers Cicada 3301, an online treasure hunt that could be a recruiting tool for a secret society. Soon Conner, art-expert friend Avi, and secretive librarian Gwen are dashing from graffiti sites to ancient libraries to uncover real-world clues. But they must outrun aggressive NSA agents, also hot on the trail of Cicada, who want the glory for themselves.

Ben is a young bisexual man. He comes out to the world and develops an intense relationship with Sam, a man of color struggling with deep wounds of his own. As the summer progresses and their intimacy grows, Ben’s past crawls to the surface.

In a futuristic world, the “Nanorace,” people whose genes contain nanomachines that grant them special abilities, are controlled and suffer prejudice from the “Purerace” of normal human beings. Beck, a legendary hunter with the power of “Red Ash,” aims to undergo the surgical procedure to become Purerace. Alongside the large yet timid mechanic Tyger, they use their parallel machine to fly to the old world, doing dangerous jobs. One day, they suddenly run into Call, a girl pursued by the duo of Safari and Stripe. Call, Beck, and Tyger together travel to the clockwork world. But Safari, Stripe, and their leader Deny, stubbornly pursue Call, and are finally in a position to make their attack on Beck and his friends.

In the relentless heat of the gruelling summer, temperatures soar to blistering levels as cicadas emerge to sing their ear-shattering song. Months of continued exposure is enough to make anyone start to feel a little off. Anyone, that is, except that oddity the locals call ‘the Cicada Man’. Who is that strange man and why is he always walking around with boxes full of live cicadas? More important, what does he do with them? As the heat starts to get to our heroine, and her sanity depletes, real life and delusion begin to mix. Her darkest nightmares seep into our world and she fears the Cicada Man has planted his swarm of insects inside her. She must get them out – at all costs. Thus begins her downward spiral into extreme paranoia and self-mutilation. She just needs to make it through the summer.

With Mystery, Inc. on the tail of a strange object in Nowhere, Kansas, the strange hometown of Eustice, Muriel, and Courage, the gang soon find themselves contending with a giant cicada monster and her winged warriors.