Marketing executive Alison Morris bets her reputation on a project to sell empathy in a perfume bottle. Her husband, Jim, is inspired to try a similar thing in a game he's developing - sinking all their money into EmPath, where people progress by learning to understand one another without direct communication. All at once Alison's fragrance develops dangerous effects and Jim's game falters in the market, then the chemist working on the perfume project vanishes. His son, David, seems to be the only one looking for him. A widower with two children, David is a man of routine who just wants to get on with his life, but his love for his father takes him into a murky world where empathy can be bought and sold and can lead to murder.