Plot
One morning, Travis wakes up in his apartment in Brisbane to discover the city has been covered in a three-foot layer of man-eating strawberry jam after it devours his flatmate Frank. The jam eats organic material; such as rubber, cotton and people and is repelled by inorganic material such as plastic. The jam also can extend part of itself towards any organic material it can sense.
Travis and his roommate Tim soon join up with Angela, a journalism student, and Don Sunderland, a game designer (who had previously appeared in Mogworld.) While searching for supplies, Travis and Tim come across a giant goliath bird eater spider, which Travis decides to take with him, soon naming it "Mary."
The party decides to head to the Hibatsu Building, a large infrastructure in the middle of the city. While Tim believes they will need to rebuild society, Don believes they are merely waiting for rescue. Soon afterwards, a helicopter crashes into their apartment building, and the group recovers two American soldiers from the wreck; a female who names herself "X," and a male soldier who is named "Y." X lets it slip that they had mistaken Don's rescue sign for an organization named "HEPL," but denies it soon afterwards.
Unable to return to the apartment, the group makes their way to the Hibatsu Building. They discover a sailing boat named the Everlong, which they use for their travels. Along the way, Travis and Don stop by Don's office to pick up his "build," a hard drive. However they are ambushed by three men wearing bin-liners, who steal the hard drive and take it with them. Don and Travis realize they can move through the jam if they cover themselves with plastic.
The group tracks the plastic men to the Briar Center shopping center whereupon they discover a settlement of young people all wearing plastic coverings, who all engage in "ironic" behavior and worship "Crazy Bob." Their leader, Lord Awesomeo "ironically" executes somebody, leaving the group on edge. Tim becomes concerned with how the settlement is being run and discovers "Crazy Bob" to be the senile janitor.
Travis, concerned about Mary, feeds her a budgerigar he had found in a cage. He soon discovers the bird, named "Whiskers", had belonged to the "princess" of the settlement, Ravenhair, whose real name is Deirdre. It soon becomes apparent that anyone who tries to leave the shopping center is killed by the jam, and Tim takes the opportunity to assert himself as a replacement leader. Travis also overhears X stating she feels responsible for the jam, as well as disclosing something known as "the Sunderland issue." That night, Don and Travis flee the center; with Don recovering his build and accidentally disturbing Crazy Bob, with the two becoming trapped on the roof. They discover the cause of the deaths to be the work of Y, sniping anyone who leaves the center with arrows.
Don and Travis make it to the Hibatsu building and discover the settlement under a strict rule of bureaucracy. The head of divisions, named Kathy, instructs the two to return to the Briar Center as spies. Travis and Don return to the mall and manage to accidentally reveal themselves to a plastic person before learning that Tim is trying to usurp Lord Awesomeo as leader. After learning Y is the one killing the plastic people, Tim and the group take off in order to stop Y and gain political power.
X manages to subdue Y and stop his murder-spree, learning that he was sent by the Hibatsu Building to "suppress" the plastic people. Angela and Travis also discover Y's identity card which shows HEPL stands for "Human Extinction Protocol Libra." Upon returning to the plastic people however, Crazy Bob outs Don and Travis as the ones who had disturbed him as well as Travis’ role in Whiskers’ death, causing the plastic people to turn on them and oust them from the settlement. After learning that the Hibatsu Building was the one who sent Y to kill them off, Lord Awesomeo declares war and "ironically" sends his people to their deaths. Y manages to stop Lord Awesomeo and send them both into the jam.
Hibatsu acquires what little remains of the plastic population, and the group moves to the building, where Don reacquires his build. However, the jam starts to rise around the building, in response to the number of people who reside in it. It consumes Kathy and causes the bureaucrats in charge to consider killing off people to reverse it. X discovers an aircraft carrier named the USS Obi-Wan, which had been the one she and Y escaped from, abandoned out on the river. She and the rest of the group flee from the Hibatsu Building on the Everlong, but Deirdre is left behind.
The group makes it to the carrier, but the jam suddenly destroys the Everlong, separating Travis from the others. With X having hidden herself in a chest freezer prior to the event, Travis locks himself in with her to save them from the jam. X confides that she is responsible for the jam but the two are rescued before they suffocate.
After boarding the ship, Travis and the others are introduced to Dr. Thorn, a scientist who works for HEPL and was studying the jam and its effects. Don also makes use of the onboard internet connection to upload his build, while also finding out the jam had only covered Australia. Dr. Thorn reveals he could create a compound to neutralize the jam's effects if he had his flash drive, which had been given to Y. However, he is soon shot to death with a sniper rifle. Travis realizes that the shooter is Tim, who has locked himself in the bridge, intending to take the Obi-Wan out to sea.
Travis suddenly remembers that Don had taken Y's trousers after the helicopter crash, and realizes that this was "the Sunderland issue" mentioned earlier. Don discovers the flash drive in the pockets and uploads it. The gang discovers the truth behind the jam outbreak; it had been used for testing and was given to X and Y for transport. They had left it on the roof of their car and driven off, accidentally releasing it and causing it spread.
The Obi-Wan is attacked by the US Navy, who had set up a perimeter around the continent. X and Angela are consumed by the jam while trying to stop the ship and Travis manages to save Don's life. Travis chases after Tim, who had taken a life raft and manages to jump onto it as the carrier sinks. The two confide in one another; Tim had shot Dr. Thorn because he believed that jam was ultimately a good thing and did not want to give up his dream of rebuilding society. As the jam detects the two, Tim attempts to kill Travis to spare his own life, but Travis acts quickly and throws Mary onto Tim, startling him and sending him falling out of the raft and into the jam.
After some time stranded at sea (at which point he hallucinates that Mary is speaking to him) Travis is rescued by the US Navy, leaving him and Don the only two survivors left. Don uses the flash drive as leverage and he and Travis are sent to America. A few weeks later the jam is cleared away and Travis prepares to return to Brisbane to find Deirdre before leaving Mary in the care of Don.
