Aspiring novelist Jane Black suddenly winds up unemployed. Hoping for a more conventional lifestyle, she goes in search of a job, hoping to find something with a 40-hour work week and maybe even dental insurance. Her adventures in the corporate world are not so ordinary, however, and she learns that a normal life may not be so normal after all.

The once clean and healthy city of Toronto becomes the pariah of the western world when a deadly chain of infection lands in the city. Panic spreads as the number of SARS cases increases as there are no effective treatments.