Equally reviled and loved in a surprising polarization of opinion, the world-renowned American political philosophy writer Ayn Rand's controversial dystopian novella paints one of the grimmest imaginable futures in a world engaged in total war against the individual.

Equality 7-2521 was born with a curse, the desire to think and to question; and if that was not bad enough in the cold, collectivist brotherhood of the City, he had a gift for math and science, and lived in the transgression of seeing himself as other than We. Robbed of his dream to be a Scholar by the Council of Vocations, who are only too eager to crush the seed of individuality out of Equality 7-2521, they assigned him to the profession of Street Sweeper to toil in the silent suffering for the common good.

Tiring quickly of his mundane existence far below his talents, his curiosity takes over his better judgement; and while this curiosity leads him to find love, lost science, and self-determination, it costs him everything he knows. Escaping only with his life, his love, and his simple discovery, he builds a new life for himself as an individual beyond the control of the City in the Uncharted Forest, where he uncovers the greatest of all truths once lost in time: the Ego.