Life is pretty uneventful for seventeen-year-old Warren Avery, getting through his final year of school in damp, windy Southway, an isolated forest town. He studies hard, less from passion than duty, and longs for something to happen that might bring some excitement to his dull days. But then a mysterious stranger arrives in town to set up a secret research facility and, recognising Warren's flair for science, asks him to come and work there. He jumps at the chance, but is there more to this research than meets the eye? Troubling things start to happen around town and Warren realises that not only is the world not as black and white as he thought, the choices he is faced with may be a matter of life and death.