In the year 2201, a company known as The Recurse has developed an interactive program containing an exact simulation of human history. In order to avoid the de-evolution and eventual extinction of man, The Recurse begins to use the program to tinker with time, utilizing a system of time portals and trained human agents to alter past events and observe how they will affect the future. When The Recurse gives birth to the first engineered child, Freedom, they start to train her with the skills to survive time travel through physical human history. However, before she is able to carry out the plans of The Recurse, Freedom is abruptly abducted and hidden within the simulated program without memory.

At the age of 4 she is dropped in the simulated year 1993, growing up under the name Andrea Garcia. Fast forward to the simulated year 2018, where a 28-year-old Freedom finds herself being pulled back into the world she has since forgotten. Upon discovering the system of portals within the simulated program, it doesn’t take her long to realize she is being hunted down by a group of characters, all eager to get their hands on her for various reasons. In a story told through interlinked alternate and parallel timelines, Freedom uncovers the jarring mysteries behind her own past, present and future, as well as those of THE RECURSE itself.