Jipi, a former Pacific-rim airline flight attendant, is staying with her friend in a high-rise luxury apartment building inside Manila's walled district of Intramuros. The fiftieth floor of a neighboring high-rise, houses the Asian-Pacific headquarters of Mindshare Management, under regional supervisor, Mr. Cardoza. Goto Engineering is conducting a citywide sewer replacement project which produces unpleasant gases that have hurt the city's hospitality industry. Jipi, looking for work, is given employment by Mr. Cardoza at the Manila Hotel in order to monitor guests in the lobby for signs of having noticed the unpleasant sewer gases and having the guests distracted by Cardoza's actors before they become aware of the construction across the street and lower the hotel's reputation by word of stay experiences.