Leif, Matt and several of their friends win the right to compete in a virtual rocket design and space race contest sponsored by the most popular space-based holodrama on the entertainment nets. The grand prize is a trip to Hollywood to compete in the final round of the race and the chance to appear on the holodrama. The winners of that final round will get some of the coolest computer stuff available. But some of the contestants - especially the team fielded by a Balkan pariah state and supervised by a sinister adult 'chaperone' - are taking the competition too seriously. Leif and Matt end up lost in a deadly maze of dirty tricks, international espionage and the madness that is Hollywood.