In 1943, a Japanese-American physicist is plucked from an internment camp to join a team of scientists at Los Alamos. Military intelligence needs his breakthrough work in transferring atoms. By September 1944, the war effort needs that breakthrough to work. As team leader, he volunteers to enter "the Trick." He steps into the chamber and steps out into the hot sun of Southern Arizona-in 2008! Who can he trust? Will he be pulled back across time and return?

His luck begins when he meets a retired high school science teacher shortly after his arrival. Together they connect pieces of time to form the fabric of friends, relatives, and colleagues that he needs. He quickly discovers that much has changed in the years he didn't get to live, but science still holds many secrets.

Nagging him are the last words he shared with one of his few friends at Los Alamos, a young Native American woman who worked in the Lodge. As he left to test his experiment, she smiled, squeezed his hand and said something about spirits. He wished he could recall what she had said. Can he find her as he looks for others from his past?