The node is a world within our world, camouflaged by stationary storms that erupt periodically around the globe. Each time the node has appeared through the eons, it has swallowed pieces of the ecosystem at that particular time in history. Everything within the node has existed separately from our world, and those things it has added have all evolved to survive . . . plants, animals, even humans. A beautiful, but emotionally damaged, tough-talking young woman, Natalie West, embarks upon an archaeological expedition with her parents' old exploratory team-the only incentive strong enough to entice Natalie from her self-imposed isolation. The mission, on the surface, is a noble quest to find extinct, medicinal plants. But, secret and dangerous agendas threaten to destroy more than just the altruistic high hopes of the naive scientists.