A man called Robert kills his escort, Mona, or “Jasmine.” He removes the camera in her eye and leaves a note by her head. Mona’s mother, Sarah Ding, hires a Chinatown-based private investigator, Ruth Law, to find the killer.

Robert, the Watcher, moves from place to place while he unencrypts the eye camera and downloads its contents onto a computer. The Watcher learns that his video shows an official in the Chinese Transport Ministry. He relates how a robber named Dagger explained Chinese politics to him, then posts the video of the official online as a demonstration. He isolates more videos with more men. He also tells of an escort he loved, named Tara, who had first told him about the eye camera implants. He had killed her: “He misses Tara, like missing a mirror you’ve broken” (157).

Ruth, whose emotions are mechanically regulated, gets ready for her new job by having all her cyborg parts replaced, updated, and recharged.

She starts to investigate, learning quickly that the note left by the killer is a quote from a Chinese soap opera. She also realizes that Mona is a certain high-class escort, not the kind Chinese gangs would use.

Ruth visits Jasmine’s place and encounters a neighbor who happens to have installed a technology called EchoSense, which can see how people move using Wi-Fi.