Lionel Schultz is just an ordinary guy, living the quiet life in Pittsburgh. He has two children, an ex-wife, a regular seat at his favourite barall he needs, in fact, to keep him happy. Fang Jie is a migrant worker in a Chinese factory, making plug-in chargers for the latest generation of augmented-reality eyewear. His life is an unbroken routine of fourteen hour shifts and disappointment. In the ordinary course of things, each should be oblivious to the other's existencebut one day their dreams collide.
The factory becomes Lionel's recurring nightmare; his world becomes Fang Jie's American dream. Seven thousand miles apart, and aware of each other's every movement, the two men are drawn into one another's world. Can they co-exist there, or must one dream prevail? What price for peace, when one man has so much to lose; what price happiness, when one has everything to gain?