In 2018, Canadian archaeologist Ron Jackson makes a mind-boggling discovery in Antarctica-right before disappearing without a trace, leaving behind only his controversial theory that humans have lived on Earth far, far longer than we think they have.

Decades later, in 2042, when Jackson's wife dies under mysterious circumstances, an unlikely pair of investigators, Agatha Devenworth and Pano Hofer, begin investigating whether her death might be connected to Jackson's disappearance. What exactly was it he found before he vanished? Why is the Human Foundation, a hyper-powerful business empire built on an endless series of game-changing inventions it has been rolling out, one after another, for over twenty years, trying to hide the truth from the two investigators? And what could it possibly have to do with the first manned mission to Mars, which ended in disaster leaving countless conspiracy theories in its wake?