Sam is a supervisor with a knack for solving problems; Jane is a binge alcoholic raising her prodigious daughter Clare on her own; and Calvin is a rebel out to fight the system. These strangers are ripped from the streets of their city and awake in the middle of a feud between the murderous military and a band of anti-government guerillas. After two days, the new friends are taken back home...almost...to find that nearly four years have passed. They soon determine the truth, that an incident far in the future has created a pendulum, one that crisscrosses time and space and draws ever nearer to the disaster that created it. Can four people stop the disaster before it kills tens of millions?