Alan Dyson, a research engineer for a pharmaceutical firm, is experimenting with the longevity effects of a newly discovered bristlecone pine gene when his viral delivery formula is stolen, and all notes are wiped from his computer. Then his friend, the firm's computer programmer, secretly tracks the thief to a P.O. Box in Zion, Iowa. Under suspicion, and with his project cancelled due to a bizarre death, Dyson visits Zion to discover that he's not the only stranger in town, and that someone has been using the residents as guinea pigs in a chilling medical experiment. In a dangerous gambit to expose the truth behind the changes he observes in the town folk, but with no one to trust except a young woman hiding there under the Witness Protection Program, Alan is soon being hunted by whoever is running the clandestine tests, and must join forces to uncover a conspiracy of silence involving the potential for immortality. Because whoever is behind it all has made an astonishing discovery about aging, and is murdering everyone to cover their tracks. [With thanks to Dr. Jon Selbo, a pharmaceutical scientist, for assistance on technical aspects. And Dr. Cynthia Kenyon, whose pioneering work on longevity inspired the premise.]