In 1993 Brian Stegner is a senior at St. Andrews School in northern Vermont, now the middle of winter. Brian's roommate, Eddy Yglesias, while researching a term paper, learns of a student that died under mysterious circumstances shortly before the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Frank Adams a teacher at the school, who has become a surrogate father to Brian, learns of Eddy's discovery. The three of them slowly uncover a conspiracy that underpins the very beginning of St. Andrews and ultimately changes their lives forever. Brian, now a neuroscientist some twenty years later and living in Boston, finds himself confronting the real possibility that what was once considered science-fiction may no longer be the case. Has humankind, according to some, become a "failed" experiment? As he slowly peels away the layers of this very old conspiracy, Brian finds himself reliving the past and worries that his own family may now be in danger of some kind.