Economics Professor, George Garrett, is in the middle of writing his first book, which is set to be an economic best-seller, proposing a revolutionary new monetary system. But there’s one big problem: he doesn’t know how to finish it. As a recovering alcoholic teaching a full course load with a literary agent breathing down his neck, a rapidly approaching deadline, and a $100,000 book deal on the line, the pressure is overwhelming.

Into this dilemma comes a mysterious young man named Talon Evans. He claims to be a time-traveler who needs George’s help to solve the economic problems of the future within 25 days. After trying to dismiss him, then putting him to the test by making him prove his claims to one of his classes, George eventually agrees to help Talon with economics in exchange for an in-depth explanation of time travel.

After Talon puts on a convincing display of time-travel knowledge, explaining how he travels across a blend of timelines and multiple realities called Worldlines, George begins to dig into Talon’s stories. What he discovers changes him forever.

While praising Dr. Garret as “an American hero,” Talon reveals that not only does the book George is writing become successful, it incites a populist revolution. George’s work becomes the flashpoint of a new American Civil War, a Third World War, and, ultimately, the destruction of a third of the world’s population. The fate of the world really does rest in his hands.

Meanwhile, one of George’s students, Grace, develops a meaningful romantic connection with Talon, and a CIA agent begins to look into the powerful message contained in George’s work with a motive to stop him at all costs.

When George decides not to finish the book and caves under the pressure, Talon begs him not to quit and explains that, even though the book causes a cataclysmic event, the world ends up a better place because of it and that without George’s work the world will suffer an even worse fate. When Talon disappears right on schedule, 25 days after their first meeting, leaving behind a well-worn copy of George’s yet-to be written book and a crater in the ground caused by the time machine’s exit, there is no doubt that he was telling the truth.

So now what does George do? Does he finish the book? Will he be able to get it published before the CIA gets to him and it’s too late? And no matter how he finished it in Talon’s past, how does he devise a system that solves the future problems Talon described? What would you do, if doing the right thing meant the end of everything you know?