Private Eye Joe Dylan's Fun City is corrupt to the bone and under the ever watchful surveillance system known as the Eye. Money has been abandoned in favor of the credit system. All citizens are required to carry hand held devises containing their credit score and personal information. Joe Dylan is recovering from the government attitude adjustment program known as the Punch since his credits reached zero. His adopted son Jimmy is missing presumed dead and his basement office is infested with contrarian rats. When Dylan is assigned the task of keeping socialite artist Trixie Sloane on the straight and narrow his pursuit of her leads him down into a sub-culture beneath the city where a vigilante Resistance force plan to strike out against the city before the last drop of human will is drained away.