What do you get when you send teenagers from 1987 to a cold, dark future where freedom is in short supply? Something totally radical, of course.

High school seniors Bob Wilkinson, Pete Dimkowski, and Lori Rainsmith find their affluent suburban lives upended after they arrive late to prom and find their classmates missing and among those abducted and sent forward hundreds of years in time and millions of miles through space to work as forced laborers on Mars, colonized and rechristened as "New Earth."

Gone are fun times spent hanging out at the local arcade. Bob, Pete, and Lori reluctantly set out in search of the truth. Bob, whose relationship with his politician father is strained, is only too happy to find himself in Lori's company, as he's yearned for the head cheerleader from afar for years.

Meanwhile, Lori's on-again, off-again boyfriend, Josh Brewer, finds himself among the abducted. The leadership skills he developed as captain of his school's football team serve him well after he is liberated by a resistance group led by the tireless Susie Walker, who longs for an end to the abductions and hopes for a peaceful sharing of labor and resources. The aging Chancellor Ross, who rules with an iron fist, has other plans, as does his counterpart in our world, enigmatic businessman Wesley Arendt.

With bodies piling up around them, our displaced heroes in both worlds are naturally wary of the authorities, but suspect that involving them may be inevitable. Several questions arise. Who can we trust? What should we tell our parents so they don't worry? How do we keep our demons at bay? Finally, that ageless, all-too-familiar query: I like you, but do you like me, too?