At the University of Chicago, a research team that includes brilliant student machinist Eddie Kasalivich experiences a breakthrough: a stable form of fusion that may lead to a waste-free energy source. However, a private company wants to exploit the technology, so Kasalivich and physicist Dr. Lily Sinclair are framed for murder, and the fusion device is stolen. On the run from the FBI, they must recover the technology and exonerate themselves.

After thirty years teaching in London, Mark Thackeray retires and returns to Chicago. There, however, the challenge of teaching kids in an inner city school proves to be too much to resist.