Story overview

250 USA

A detailed alternate-history science-fiction novel set between 1918 and 2026. The story follows two American brothers during the final months of World War I. The older brother is Dr. Theodore Hawthorne, a 37-year-old genius scientist, engineer, inventor, and government researcher working for the United States government at Langley Experimental Aeronautics Station in Virginia. He is quiet, serious, analytical, awkward around people, and considered one of the greatest scientific minds of his generation. Despite his reputation as a genius, he dislikes war and originally dreamed of creating passenger aircraft and machines that would improve people's lives instead of weapons. The younger brother is Lieutenant Benjamin Hawthorne, a 24-year-old United States Army pilot serving during World War I. Benjamin is friendly, brave, charismatic, humorous, and much more social than Theodore. The brothers lost both of their parents years earlier and only have each other left. Their relationship is the emotional heart of the story. The story occasionally switches between first-person and third-person narration. First-person sections usually follow Benjamin's thoughts and experiences, while third-person sections follow Theodore and the larger world around them. The first four chapters take place entirely in 1918 and focus on building the brothers' relationship before the main plot begins. Chapter 1 introduces the Hawthorne brothers at Langley Experimental Aeronautics Station in Virginia during the summer of 1918. Theodore works on a secret military aircraft project while Benjamin prepares for deployment overseas. They joke with each other, discuss the future, remember their parents, and reveal how much they care about one another despite expressing it differently. Theodore secretly worries that Benjamin will die in Europe. Unknown to Benjamin, Theodore hides a sealed metal cylinder inside the aircraft containing letters, scientific notes, and messages intended only for his younger brother if anything ever goes wrong. Chapter 2 introduces Theodore's creation, an experimental aircraft called Project Asteria. The aircraft is far beyond anything that exists in World War I and appears almost futuristic by 1918 standards. It contains three mounted machine guns, additional weapon storage, advanced instruments, a rocket booster, and can travel approximately twenty percent faster than the fastest aircraft of the war. It was built using steel, wood, silver, gold, experimental alloys, and various unusual materials. The United States government keeps the aircraft extremely secret because it represents revolutionary military technology. Benjamin is selected as its pilot. Chapter 3 focuses on the brothers spending one final peaceful day together before history changes forever. They walk around the base, joke about the future, discuss Theodore's hopes for aviation, remember their parents, and make plans for life after the war. Theodore predicts aircraft crossing oceans in only a few hours and even imagines rockets reaching space. Benjamin jokingly predicts flying cars. Neither realizes this will be the final normal day they ever share. Chapter 4 covers the launch of Project Asteria on July 4th, 1918. Theodore and Benjamin say goodbye at the airfield. Benjamin boards the aircraft and begins his mission across the Atlantic toward Europe and the war. During the flight an impossible storm appears around the aircraft despite there being no storm anywhere else in the Atlantic. The aircraft begins spinning uncontrollably in a violent barrel roll. Strange blue energy surrounds the aircraft. Benjamin loses consciousness during the event. Before waking, Benjamin experiences a strange vision in complete darkness where an unknown voice simply says: "Welcome." The voice disappears. The main timeline begins in Chapter 5. Benjamin regains consciousness during a crash in Washington, D.C., on the morning of July 4th, 2026, during America's 250th birthday celebration. Project Asteria crashes into the side wing of a hospital. The aircraft catches fire and emergency services arrive quickly. Because the aircraft design matches nothing in modern military records and because nobody recognizes its technology, authorities fear they may be witnessing a terrorist attack or hostile military action. The United States government rapidly becomes involved. Benjamin is trapped inside the cockpit and badly injured from the crash and fire. Police, firefighters, military personnel, and federal agents slowly approach the wreckage expecting danger and possibly explosives. Instead, they discover a severely injured pilot wearing an authentic World War I American military uniform. The damaged remains of an American flag painted on the aircraft become visible beneath the wreckage. Investigators discover markings identifying the aircraft as property of the United States Army and dated 1918. Benjamin is rescued and taken to the hospital. Chapter 6 follows Benjamin waking up in the hospital and discovering that he has traveled one hundred and eight years into the future. He meets Colonel Rebecca Mitchell of the United States Army and FBI Agent Michael Torres. Benjamin learns that World War I ended long ago and that the Allies won the war. Benjamin then learns the devastating truth that his older brother Theodore lived an entire life without him and died in 1959 at the age of seventy-eight. For Benjamin, Theodore was alive yesterday morning. For the rest of the world, Theodore has been dead for sixty-seven years. Benjamin struggles with the reality that everyone he ever knew is gone while fireworks celebrating America's 250th birthday explode outside the hospital window. He also learns that Theodore became one of the most important figures in American aerospace history and is considered one of the fathers of modern American aviation and aerospace engineering. Chapter 7 begins when investigators searching the wreckage of Project Asteria discover the hidden cylinder Theodore secretly placed inside the aircraft in 1918. Benjamin opens the cylinder and discovers letters written by Theodore shortly before the flight. Theodore explains that machines and aircraft can be rebuilt but brothers cannot. Theodore reveals that he hid another object inside the aircraft: a brass key hidden inside the left instrument compartment. Benjamin recovers the key. The key has the year 1958 engraved on it. Theodore's final message tells Benjamin that he came home, even if he arrived very late. Benjamin realizes that Theodore never stopped caring about him. Chapter 8 follows Benjamin, Colonel Mitchell, and Agent Torres tracing the key to a secret research estate called the Hawthorne Aeronautics Research Foundation, which Theodore established in 1958, one year before his death. Benjamin explores the estate and discovers what his brother became during the decades after his disappearance. He sees photographs of Theodore growing older throughout the years. Benjamin experiences the emotional shock of seeing his older brother as an old man for the very first time. The key opens a hidden laboratory beneath the estate. Inside the laboratory is another letter from Theodore explaining that he spent forty-one years trying to understand what happened to Project Asteria and never stopped searching for answers. Theodore tells Benjamin to "look beneath the stars." Chapter 9 takes place inside Theodore's observatory. Benjamin discovers a hidden room concealed behind a bookshelf. Inside is an audio recording left by Theodore decades earlier. Benjamin hears his brother's voice for the first time in over a century. Theodore explains that the storm surrounding Project Asteria never actually existed according to weather records and that the aircraft simply disappeared from reality for approximately one hundred and eight years. Theodore reveals that he spent forty-one years investigating Benjamin's disappearance and refusing to accept that his younger brother was dead. Benjamin learns that Theodore devoted much of his life to a classified research effort called Project Homecoming, whose purpose was simple: Find Benjamin Hawthorne. Bring him home. Benjamin realizes that Theodore spent his entire adult life searching for him. The chapter ends with Benjamin finally understanding that his brother never abandoned him and never gave up hope. Chapter 10 shifts the story into a new mystery. Scientists examining the wreckage of Project Asteria discover impossible changes inside the aircraft's rocket booster and materials. Parts of the aircraft appear to possess atomic structures that should not exist according to modern physics. Benjamin discovers words carved into the aircraft by Theodore before the mission: "NOT YOUR FAULT." Suddenly, the aircraft emits strange blue energy identical to the energy Benjamin saw during the storm in 1918. The laboratory experiences power failures and electronic disruptions. Computers detect mysterious coordinates originating from Project Asteria. The coordinates point toward Nevada. At the same time, Benjamin notices distant thunder despite clear skies and sees a faint blue flash high above him among the stars. The story ends with Benjamin realizing that the mystery of Project Asteria is not over. Theodore spent forty-one years searching for Benjamin. Now Benjamin must continue the search and discover what truly happened during the eleven minutes in 1918 that erased one hundred and eight years from his life. Themes of the story include brotherhood, grief, family, loss, hope, time, war, sacrifice, scientific ambition, and the idea that some people continue searching for the people they love no matter how much time passes.