Caitlin Decter, a formerly blind sixteen-year-old math genius, desperately wants to protect her friend, Webmind--the consciousness that sprang from the infrastructure of the World Wide Web--but the Pentagon views him as a threat.

In a parallel world in which Neanderthals, rather than homo sapiens, became the dominant intelligent species, a dangerous scientific experiment traps a Neanderthal physicist on Earth.

Experimental psychologist Jim Marchuk has developed a flawless technique for identifying the previously undetected psychopaths lurking everywhere in society. But while being cross-examined about his breakthrough in court, Jim is shocked to discover that he has lost his memories of six months of his life from twenty years previously--a dark time during which he himself committed heinous acts. Jim is reunited with Kayla Huron, his forgotten girlfriend...