In the near future, Earth's population has topped 10 billion and civilization is teetering on the brink of destruction. Secret societies have seized control of the world's governments through "stealth politics," using a hierarchy of "spook" organizations as their police force. Rene, a brilliant and unorthodox technician, covertly travels back in time some 50 years to the time period of the Third World War. His mission is to save the woman he has fallen in love with (across time) from suicide. They join forces with our time traveling submarine and its 18th century refugees from the first Safety Factor book (The Use of Power), but are forced to flee yet another 365 years into the future - to escape a world falling into unprecedented social turmoil. Is there anything they can do to stop the endless cycles of empire building, prosperity, decline, collapse and chaos that the human race has experienced since the beginning of time? This is the second book of The Safety Factor series.