The novel opens with a prologue, in which a voice on a phone is heard ordering Hatch to find the missing children as soon as possible. Hatch guarantees their return.
PART I
Continuing from the end of the first novel, our heroes drive back from Pasadena to Idaho. When they get to Ostin's apartment, Ian sees a guard in a nearby building, whom they knock out and question. They find out that guards have taken over Ostin's apartment, and they escape with Ostin just in time.
They head to Jack's house next, which they discover has burned down. Jack is understandably upset. Taylor wants to see her house as well, so they swing by on the way to Jack's sister's tanning salon to hide out. At the salon, a mysterious woman gives Michael keys and tells him to go into a tanning room, where he is called and given instructions from a voice (seemingly representing a secret organization), who tells him that they're in danger and that they should ditch their vehicles. The Electroclan does as the voice asks, grabbing their new rides (Hummers) from the drop site and heading to a safe house, where Grace uploads her information to a computer. Ostin analyzes this info and discovers that the Elgen have created an efficient power source to fuel power plants (Starxource), and are quickly taking over the world's economy; this efficient power source consists of harvesting energy from electrified rats. The safehouse is then invaded, and everyone is taken prisoner.
They escape the truck, with some help from an unknown entity, and get to the large and fancy house of Mitchell, a friend of Jack and Wade. The voice calls again and recommends that the tracking devices in the GPs ("guinea pigs," i.e. Jack and Wade) be removed. Michael uses a pulse to disable them, but the Elgen track them to the neighborhood. Mitchell fools the Elgen when they're going door-to-door, so the clan is temporarily safe.
Ostin finds Mitchell's heavy-duty computer and uploads Grace, staying up all night to discover that Mrs. Vey is being held in the Elgen facility in Puerto Maldonado, Peru. Taylor narrowly avoids a disaster when her friends recognize her on a bagel run by "rebooting" them. The voice sends a representative to collect the data from Grace's upload in exchange for passage to Peru. Mitchell stays at home, and Grace goes with the voice's men for her own safety.
After over a week of hanging around and training, they are contacted and leave for Peru.
PART II
Hatch, on a boat for a meeting of the Elgen, Inc. board, finds out that his program is being shut down. One of his electric teens, Tanner, tries to kill himself out of guilt. Sparks fly between Torstyn and Quentin, two alpha males in his group, but he stops the fighting and tells the group to be ready to disobey the Elgen corporation. Tanner tries to bring down the plane they're on, but Torstyn stops him. When they land in Peru, Hatch shows them the facilities and speaks to the new set of Elgen guards, laying out harsh rules and feeding one of them to the rats.
PART III
In South America, the Electroclan's guide, Jaime, takes them through the Amazon jungle. They get off the boat and attempt to infiltrate the large, overly guarded Elgen facility. Goading a bull into charging through the fence, they knock out the ranchers who come to fix it. One of them, Raúl, helps them for the rest of the plot. Pretending to be American ranch inspectors, they get inside the facility, then find and free Tanner. Ian locates Mrs. Vey, and they help her escape. Hatch sends the rats after them, and Zeus heroically sacrifices himself by turning on the sprinkles, but Jack saves him and they all escape except Michael, who stays behind to distract Hatch.
Ostin comes up with a plan to blow up the water pumps to melt down the important parts of the facility in order to put it out of commission while saving Michael. Michael resists Hatch's loyalists' goading as well as Hatch's offer to join him, and he is put in the chute to be fed to the rats as punishment. In the chute, however, he absorbs the electricity from the rats' power plant and vaporizes them, becoming supercharged and incredibly powerful. He escapes the Bowl, which melts down because of his friends' explosions, and finds his way out of the facility. Michael escapes one more time from several helicopters, a couple of which Tanner brings down to help him from afar. He wanders around for a while looking for his friends before coming across a tribe of natives, who has him rest and tells him that he isn't going home soon.
