One evening, a parrot appears in the backyard of a Boston computer scientist known only as the coder. He entices the bird to perch on him, but after it escapes, he suffers life-threatening injuries when he tries to track it down. Since no one else has seen the parrot, the coder and his family question his judgment. Perhaps his fondness for a powerful psychedelic accounts for his troubles. The advent of a more sinister explanation plunges the coder into crisis. He must verify and destroy his assailant, or somehow heal a profound rift in his own psyche.