It's 1949, and the Cold War is heating up across the world. Operating in the shadows, the Variants - once ordinary US citizens, but now imbued with strange paranormal abilities and corralled into covert service by the government's top secret MAJESTIC-12 program - find themselves on the front lines of an international crisis.

In Syria, Variant agents have been sent to support a coup by a pro-American army officer. In Washington, a shocking suicide has them fighting for their very freedom. And at Area 51, the operation's headquarters, the strange interspatial phenomenon which originally granted Variants their abilities has yielded disturbing discoveries.

All the while, dangerous figures flit among the shadows, and it's unclear whether they are threatening to expose the Variants for what they are . . . or completely destroy them. Are they working for the Soviet Union, or something far worse?