The prologue focuses on Angela DuPre, a gate agent at Sky Trails Air. It is her first day at the job, and she sees an airplane appear out of nowhere at her gate. Angela’s boss discovers there are no planes scheduled to land at that time and sends Angela to help with the deplaning process. When no one gets off the plane after several minutes, Angela investigates. The plane has an insignia on its side that reads Tachyon Travel. As Angela watches, the insignia “suddenly changed into the familiar wing-in-the-clouds symbol of Sky Trails” (9). Angela boards the plane, where she finds 36 infants and no one else. Government officials arrive on the scene and swear everyone there to secrecy.

Chapter 1 picks up 13 years later. Jonah Skidmore and his new friend Chip Winston play basketball and discuss how Jonah was adopted. Chip asks if Jonah wonders about the circumstances of his adoption, and Jonah confesses he does not. Jonah’s parents think of the adoption as a perfectly timed miracle, but to Jonah, it “wasn’t much more of a deal than his liking mint chocolate-chip ice cream” (13). Jonah’s sister, Katherine, relays that their mother wants Jonah to get the mail.