In 2155 there are two Americas. Half the nation lives comfortably in the technology of the 22nd century; the other half lives trapped on pre-industrial Islands: the remains of America's collapsed cities. The two cultures collide when Galen Fairchild, an Islander, falls in love with the daughter of a wealthy family in the modern city of Stratis. But Galen's dreams fall apart when a startling event drives him out of Stratis and into the ghostlike ruins of downtown Minneapolis. Inside the crumbling skyscrapers, he discovers a mysterious power linked to his family's past, which not only changes his life forever, but also pits the two cultures against each other in a cataclysmic struggle that alters the course of the nation.