In an England two hundred years hence all children are brought up in single sex creches: the Blocks. Molly Zero, young and intelligent, resilient and loving, is a product of the Blocks and is destined for the Elite--the governing body of a country now crippled by martial law. When Molly rebels and escapes, she finds a new way of life in a small town, then with an eccentric band of travelling gypsies, and finally as a middle-class terrorist.