In a cruel turn of fate, Mac, a high-end necktie, is thrown in the trash. There he meets others in a similar predicament: a broken vase, an air freshener bottle, a boot with gum stuck on its sole, and a spool of thread down to her last bit of thread. Mac believes that he is better than this riff-raff and dreams of regaining his former life. The others want to reach a place called Paradise, thinking that's where they can make their wishes come true-and if you're stuck in a dumpster, you probably have something to wish for.

Three children from an ordinary Moscow family—a fifteen-year-old robotics fan, a twelve-year-old blogger, and a seven-year-old animal-obsessed girl—suddenly discover that their father is not an engineer at all, but a genuine secret agent. The entire family embarks on a life-threatening journey from Moscow to Siberia, to a research base hidden in the taiga wilderness, where an incredibly powerful, previously unknown energy has been discovered. The children must unravel the mystery of this extraordinary energy, linked to Russia's historical artifacts, and protect it from the advances of a powerful corporation seeking to exploit it for its own gain.