In the early 21st century, the nations of the world have realigned themselves into new power blocs. The centers of new totalitarian empires are China and Japan, both bent on world domination. Unable to learn from the mistakes of the past they are bound to repeat them in a new war that will make all earlier ones seem tame. Nor can the United States and Europe - both of which have become police states in their own right as a result of unending conflict with totalitarians - permit either Japan or China to win an outright victory, because for both sides the ultimate goal is the annihilation of the oppressor races of the West. But in this nightmare world without a future, there may yet be a way out, thanks to quantum mechanics, a secret mechanism that dwells in the heart of human DNA, and a handful of dedicated scientists.... A top-secret U.S. government program is initiated, involving a strange realm of physics uncovered following new insights to the fundamentals of quantum mechanics. Those in charge of the project care only for the political power the discovery might bring. But a small maverick group of scientists work secretly on their own in pursuit of a vision they have glimpsed, a vision of a universe staggeringly more vast than anything previously imagined, made up of worlds where history takes every course conceivable, where the wars of the 20th century were fought with curiously different outcomes... And even a world where they never happen at all.