Val is a track coach and geography teacher at an elite prep school, while her wife, Julie runs the local office for a politician in Washington. Their teenaged son, David, attends the same prep school where Val works, on scholarship, while their pre-teen daughter, Sophie, goes to public school. As all of David's wealthy classmates and friends begin to get Pilots, he begs both of his moms for one, under the guise of falling behind the others in school. Val is adamantly against Pilots, while Julie secretly wants one, as most of her co-workers already have one. Sophie is the only one who really doesn't have an opinion one way or the other, because she suffers from epilepsy and can't get one anyway. Needless to say, Val and Julie finally cave and David gets his Pilot, but things aren't as peachy as he expected them to be.
While it seems everyone else David talks to loves their Pilot, for him, it's almost as if too much data is coming at him at once. Everything demands his attention and he calls it "noise", but when he returns to the BNL Installation Center to ask about it, they merely suggest he redo the intro exercises, essentially dismissing his issue. This goes on for quite some time, and once Julie gets her Pilot and also doesn't understand David's "noise" issue, he feels alone in his plight and he learns to function in spite of it.
Fast-forward a few years and David has joined the military, much to Val and Julie's horror. It seems the military was subsidizing Pilots for high schoolers with the hopes of cherry-picking the best to come work for them and David was recruited. While he excels in the military, Val and Julie hope and pray he survives his tours. Sophie prefers not to know the specifics of David's military career, only wanting to know once he is done and safe at home.
Once David returns home, he is a changed man, not the kid he was when he left. He is very on edge, always with his back to whatever wall is nearest and always scouting for any danger. He doesn't talk about what happened over there and his parents don't ask. Meanwhile, Sophie has been quite busy in his absence and she is now the co-leader of the local division of an anti-Pilot group called FreerMind, in which she shares responsibility with her friend and former schoolmate, Gabe. She has quite the volatile temper and is often at odds with her moms, especially as it concerns their overprotectiveness due to her epilepsy. While she couldn't be happier that David is home, she definitely has a life of her own. When David gets a job as the spokesperson and face of BNL and the Pilot, she is furious and feels betrayed, but hopes she can gain some inside info on the real happenings at BNL. Unfortunately, David has enough on his mind, because while he is promoting this product and people love listening to him, he has issues with it that he can't seem to resolve, so he is torn.
If he deactivates his Pilot, he would probably lose his very lucrative job, but if he does nothing, he lives in continued misery. Then add to that the fact that there is prejudice against those who are not Piloted, such as his mother, Val, who lost her job. Could he even get another job without one? David makes a discovery at a party one night that changes his life forever, but it could mean even more weirdness at BNL. Once Val, Julie, David and Sophie come together as a family in regards to Pilots, they determine to expose the reality of what BNL has been doing.
We Are Satellites starts off really strong, then lags a bit in the middle, but has a nice finish. Personally, I liked the characters of David, Val and Julie, but in my opinion, Sophie seemed like a brat with a chip on her shoulder. Based on all of the things that happen, I really couldn't picture quite how it would end. While there was a loose end or two for me as far as BNL and their misdeeds were concerned, it wrapped up nicely. If you are into near-future sci-fi with a political/social justice bent to it, you might like We Are Satellites.
