NASA's Project Bright-Sky is accelerated due to Ed Scriven's death and, knowing that a next-generation version of the Bright Sky satellite is what Odyssey 5 was launching on the day Earth was destroyed, Taggart determines that he must put his career on the line to sabotage the deployment of the current version. Neil realizes he's falling in love again with his old high school girlfriend, Holly. Sarah and Angela use their knowledge of the future to try to stop the kidnapping and murder of a young girl, which was front-page news in the original timeline, only to find that their actions have changed the future unpredictably. Mendel, determining that an organism comprised of the mysterious artificial tissue would be cold-blooded, assembles a thermal imaging system that will distinguish humans from the "Synthetics".

In his continuing unsuccessful quest to make a huge amount of money from his knowledge of the future, Kurt marries a young woman who is destined to be a big star in the music world 5 years hence, but whose music is currently unpopular. Then, one by one, the Odyssey 5 members start losing their future memories. In desperation, Taggart and Mendel consult a theoretical physicist who is lecturing at a local science fiction convention, pretending that they need help with the science in a time-travel novel they are working on. But all they are able to determine is that each victim has the urge to type a bunch of weird symbols on a computer screen just before losing their memories of the next 5 years. Finally, Mendel is the lone survivor. As if stuggling with his new marriage wasn't trouble enough, if his memory goes before he can figure out what is going on, there will be no one left to save the earth from ultimate destruction.

When a top prosthetics researcher is found dead, Neil receives an anonymous e-mail telling him that the man was murdered by the "Synthetics" whose existence the Odyssey 5 group has discovered, which it says are the physical manifestations of Dr. Chandra's "Sentients". It claims that they are now after the researcher's six-year-old niece Stevie, all because of a ""cybiotic interface"" he was working on which would allow computer technology to control organic systems. Visitng Stevie's teacher, they find out that she is deaf and received a cochlear implant, which her uncle had been tinkering with. Eventually, the team locates Stevie and finds out that her implant allows her brain to control a swarm of insects that have been fitted with cybiotic interface chips. But mysterious figures who may be Synthetics have relentlessly tracked Stevie to Kurt's place.

Neil's friends at school are taking a new drug called "Rapture", which appears to boost their intelligence and may even promote telepathy and telekinesis. Neil finds out that his friend Deckard got the formula for the drug from a web site, but in his attempt to get a sample for analysis he is forced to take the drug. Meanwhile, Taggart's new boss Cynthia Hodge suggests that he had something to do with sabotaging the last space mission, but appears to be happy that the mission failure has hastened the day when manned space flights will be replaced by totally robotic ones. A retired astronaut, Leyton Scott, tells Taggart that a group called "the Cadre" have been trying for the last 20 years to get rid of manned space flight. But then Leyton reveals that he is dying from "Moon Sickness", a strange disease that strikes only Apollo astronauts, which may have something to do with their having brought more than just rocks back with them from the Moon. Because of Angela's apparent mental br