When Owen Delancey lost consciousness at the end of gym class, he thought he would wake never to walk again. Instead, he wakes to find himself completely healed not only from the neck injury that he sustained but also from a series of childhood maladies. His vision is perfect. His lungs are strong. His mind is sharp. But he cannot remember anything that happened between his injury and his waking in the abandoned Minuteman missile site the strange people imprisoning him call home. The father and mother claim he is their natural-born son. They claim the two younger children with them have been adopted. Unable to escape from this family, Owen Delancey decides to ingratiate himself with the two children as the family plans to trek across a barren wasteland. His plan works. The daughter agrees to escape with him. But the world around him is not as it should be-no ranchers, no roads, no water in the old riverbeds, no contrails streaking the sky. Worse still are the Vultures, a savage cult hell-bent on capturing Owen Delancey because he holds secrets not only to his own past but also to a technology that could reshape the world.