Oliver Dalton's job is to see patterns in DNA. His government has hired him, on a temporary contract, and his task is to analyse data from the National DNA database. The purpose, his government says, is to find persons who are genetically fit for jobs in science and technology. Such persons are very much wanted, and we do not consider it morally wrong to use DNA profiling to find them.
Oliver discovers that there are others who seem to have the same idea. He sees traces of searches, and pattern matches, done by someone other than himself, and he considers reporting his findings to his manager. What if this is an intrusion, he wonders, into our national storage of our complete population's DNA?
Unknowing to Oliver, he is correct in his assumption. An external, in fact international, organisation has adopted the government's way of classifying humans. But in contrast to Oliver, they have decided to instead search for persons who are not fit for science and technology. And in contrast to the government, they want to take the whole scheme a step further.
The organisation refines its plans while Oliver spends time in Munich, visiting his daughter and celebrating his own birthday. His wife is with him, and they look forward to a week with museums and visits to their daughter's school. She is a student of Drama, and like her brother Michael, who is an opera student, she has chosen the artistic way.
When the organisation finally decides how to carry out their mission, by shifting their focus from elimination to prevention, Oliver is busy with his work. When Oliver is informed that his daughter is in danger, and the police steps in, this is not an end, but rather a beginning, of an even more complex situation.
As the final plans are set into motion, the police and the Dalton family do what they can to track down the organisation, and charge them for a crime that will "eliminate whole generations, without harming, or killing, a single person."