Set in the future, Shiro is a linguist in the newly formed East Asian Union, a bloc of Asian countries excluding China and North Korea. Daily life is made easier thanks to the presence of robots, or androids, some of which have outlawed “consciousness chips” that were originally meant to make them smarter workers but resulted in the formation of the Posthuman Liberation Front, a rebel organization. Another character, Yunpyo, is an affluent lawyer who seems to be on good terms with his former paralegal android Rodhos, who visits him in secret. Rodhos is part of the PLF, and is working with Zhao, a mysterious android theorist.

Shiro hears about a company called AndroKind that creates androids that look exactly like their owners and he has one ordered, wanting “someone” who understands him fully. The android is bought and named Ao. Shiro has trouble having conversations with Ao and he is upsold a consciousness chip on the black market. A counselor talks to Ao as he wakes up from the consciousness installment, and she reveals to him that she herself is an android and tells him about the Posthuman Liberation Front. Ao exhibits signs of independence, which alarm Shiro, including traveling outside of Seoul to the factory he was manufactured in. Ao, in a confused sexual rage when he sees Shiro making love to his girlfriend, kills Shiro and makes a run for it. He goes to the counselor, who recommends a lawyer, Yunpyo, who specializes in android rights. Yunpyo hears from Ao that he had confused himself to be the human and not the android in the moment of murder.

Yunpyo advises that he needs to argue to stand trial as a person, not as a robot, for the latter would only lead to his dismantling. The police come, but they do not have a warrant to enter Yunpyo’s house. Yunpyo has five hours before they return with a warrant and so he gets a judge on video to argue for a case for Ao, blocking Ao’s arrest and dismantling. The trial begins, and they argue the court’s jurisdiction over whether Ao can be tried as a person.(Interstingly, the judge is an AI.) They gather his memories for the case and make a shocking discovery: Shiro made Ao and his girlfriend have sex with each other several times. Shiro has tried to erase the memory of them happening, but remnants of it were left in Ao. Shiro’s girlfriend claims Ao developed feelings for her, and Ao agrees.

It looks like the chances of Ao being tried as a person is 50/50. The human court officer is worried that the AI judge is not aware of the impact of the ruling, but there is no way to interfere with the judgment. There is some existential conversation about the android theorist Zhao’s ideas of what it means to be human as they await the verdict. The verdict is in: Ao must be tried as a person. As they triumphantly leave the courts, Yunpyo is called up by Zhao, who is in hiding, and he asks her if she ever came to a conclusion about her existential theory of the universe; she laughs, and says she has and will publish her findings someday. Suddenly, the police try to arrest Ao with a warrant to confiscate his consciousness chip, and they shoot him as he tries to escape. Holding the fatally wounded Ao in his arms, Yunpyo apologizes to Ao for giving him hope, saying how in the end, “it was only a human court.”