It is 2034. A young science historian has discovered the works of a man named Rossum who learned how to make robots that are very human-like. Part of the secret was discovered on a remote island off the east coast of the United States. The young man moves to the island and with a skilled scientist, engineer, and manufacturer and sets up a business producing skilled man-like robots. Eventually the robots figure out that humans are useless and set out to eliminate them. But in eliminating the scientists that created them, they have lost the ability to create skilled robots. They themselves will eventually wear out. The world seems doomed.