There have always been two constants in Rory's life: their hatred for Finn Williams and their love of winning arguments. Luckily, four years on their high school's debate team has given Rory plenty of experience with the latter. Unluckily, they're almost always partnered up with Finn. Rory knows why and the fact that Finn refuses to acknowledge it is yet another reason they find her unbearable. Despite how unbiased judges claim to be, no one wants to take on the risk of partnering up with one of the nonbinary kids.

Rory loves winning though so nothing, not even Finn, not even the asteroid conspiracy nuts claim is hurtling towards their town, is going to stop them from winning this final tournament. But when an overbooked motel leads to the two of them spending the night before the tournament in the owner's emergency bunker right before finding out that the conspiracy might not have been a conspiracy after all, Rory suddenly has a much more important thing to fight for: their life.

One of them has to be the first to brave the world outside the bunker to find out what's happened to the rest of civilization, and it's not going to be Rory.