A gentle android named Tender cares for the guests at the Elysium Spa, who spend their lives in a state of perfect ecstasy, called Joy. They are born, reproduce, and die in scientifically calibrated baths that satisfy their every need. When a hurricane destroys the Spa, Tender must protect his only surviving charge – a fifteen-year-old girl named Virgo who has the innocence of an infant. He takes her on a journey across a post-American landscape depopulated by war, famine, and plague. On the road, they meet other travelers on the New Frontier, a scientist in search of life's greatest secret, a group of First Nations warriors seeking to reclaim their stolen land, and a young power thief fleeing forced labor and looking for a better life and his lost family. Tender's sole purpose is to return Virgo to the state of bliss that is her birthright. But as they both adapt to this painful, beautiful world, they must decide whether she should give up her new-found existence for a life of Perfect Joy.