The new UN has tasked Jack Crowley to convene a team of scientists to discuss a problem of global impact; the current world population is 13.29 billion, well up on the old UN's forecast earlier in the century. The team's 2090 target is 5.5 billion, and Crowley has only eighteen years to achieve it. He sets his team a set of six options of approach, and the pros and cons of the six options are threshed out for the consideration of Crowley and his team of representatives from the new UN Headquarters in Dubai.

Sydney:

Shelby Watson is one of four lawyers representing Milsteel Australia in a workplace incident case, which the company loses, and only he receives a punishment for the failure to perform. Reduced by one salary band for twelve months, he discovers that the application he and his property broker wife, Pryanne, have before the Australian Department of Population Management & Birth Control is put on hold, and Shelby receives a ten year reproduction ban as a result. When the ban then changes to life, Pryanne reacts, and her actions send her into hiding and on the run, with Shelby following suit shortly thereafter.