Anxious to use artificial intelligence to improve the world, Rosetta Stone, a bio-geneticist, devises a recipe through which she can download her own DNA into a "live" brew she is growing in her computer. She succeeds in breeding three beings (Self Replicating Automatons - S.R.A.'s) that are part human, part software, whom she names Ruby, Marine and Olive. They look human, but are in fact intelligent machines. The only flaw in Rosetta's creation is that the S.R.A.'s need injections ofmale chromo found only in spermatozoa to survive. As they cannot distinguish dreams from reality, Rosetta programs Ruby, via movie tapes, to seduce men in the real world and share donations with her sisters. Ruby's evolving contact with the real world introduces her to art, spirituality, and ultimately, when she meets Sandy, a lonely Xerox shop worker, the capacity to fall in love. All of the characters struggle to find meaning in a world where love is the only thing that makes things real. In the process they also find harmony between the real and the virtual world.