In Chap­ter One, the nar­ra­tor reflects on their inter­view for a high-secu­ri­ty job they’ve nev­er been qual­i­fied for before. The inter­view­er, Adela, Vice Sec­re­tary of “Expa­tri­a­tion,” has an eye patch and hay-like blond hair, and abrupt­ly asks about the narrator’s Cam­bo­di­an her­itage, specif­i­cal­ly ref­er­enc­ing their moth­er as a refugee. This leads to a dis­cus­sion about the ter­mi­nol­o­gy used for dis­placed peo­ple; Adela prefers the term “expats” despite the impli­ca­tion of their trau­mat­ic his­to­ry. The con­ver­sa­tion reveals that the nar­ra­tor’s moth­er, though a refugee, nev­er iden­ti­fied her­self as such, empha­siz­ing the com­plex­i­ties of iden­ti­ty inter­twined with cul­tur­al expec­ta­tions.

As the nar­ra­tive pro­gress­es, it is revealed that the British gov­ern­ment has devel­oped time trav­el, plan­ning to extract indi­vid­u­als from his­tor­i­cal moments of crisis—wars and epidemics—yet doing so only as a method to pre­vent alter­ing his­to­ry. The nar­ra­tor is to serve as a “bridge,” assist­ing these “expats” as they adjust to con­tem­po­rary life. This unortho­dox project intends to main­tain their human rights while track­ing their adjust­ment under mon­i­tor­ing.

The nar­ra­tor express­es their excite­ment for the job, feel­ing stag­nant in their posi­tion as a trans­la­tor spe­cial­iz­ing in South­east Asia. They recall their ear­ly child­hood ambi­tions shaped by their moth­er’s aspi­ra­tions for them. How­ev­er, the job aligns more with their her­itage and the skills they’ve devel­oped. Ten­sion aris­es among the staff regard­ing ter­mi­nol­o­gy, high­light­ing the philo­soph­i­cal impli­ca­tions of how lan­guage shapes iden­ti­ty and per­cep­tion.

The meet­ing shifts to an urgent brief­ing about their first expat, Com­man­der Gra­ham Gore, a fig­ure from the 19th cen­tu­ry. He arrives with a dis­tinct pres­ence, strug­gling to com­pre­hend the world he’s been thrust into after being extract­ed from his­tor­i­cal cir­cum­stances.

Gore, who is grap­pling with mod­ern life, embod­ies a tran­si­tion­al fig­ure, both lit­er­al­ly and metaphor­i­cal­ly. The nar­ra­tor intro­duces him to con­tem­po­rary cus­toms and tech­nol­o­gy, lead­ing to moments of humor and reflec­tion on soci­etal changes. As they bond, the jux­ta­po­si­tion of their vast­ly dif­fer­ent back­grounds unfolds, fos­ter­ing humor and dis­com­fort, which nav­i­gate the com­plex­i­ties of his­tor­i­cal trau­ma and mod­ern iden­ti­ty .