Greg Feely is a "dodgy bachelor" living in London alone but for his elderly cat, Tony. While returning home after buying cat litter and a pornographic magazine from a newsagents, an unknown woman on the bus tells him "not to fuck with The Filth". The next day after work he is told "The Hand never lets go" by the same mysterious woman. Returning home he is confronted by a strange woman named Miami Nil who informs him that "Greg Feely" is actually a "para-personality", in effect a secret identity, and he is in fact Ned Slade, the top agent for an organisation called The Hand, a group of extra-dimensional agents attempting to keep society on the path of "Status Q" (status quo).