Fifteen-year-old Kivali was left as a baby on the doorstep of Sheila's house, a nonconformist artist. Sheila sends Kivali to CropCamp, where, she says, Kivali may find a way to unlock her latent saurian genes. Kivali isn't sure she really comes from an ancient race of lizard people, as she looks like a human, but after a few weeks at CropCamp and becoming addicted to kickshaw, a mysterious drug, she feels like she may just have unique abilities--abilities she may one day have to use to escape the camp.