The countdown to nuclear catastrophe begins in the skies over Washington DC.
At 10 000 feet, Captain Scott McKay gets the nerve-shattering news . . . aboard his Boeing 727 is a ticking time bomb - and not just any bomb. It's the Medusa Project, a thermo-nuclear monster that could wipe out every computer chip on the continent, obliterating any and all traces of modern technology. Now Scott is flying blind, with nowhere to land and nothing to rely on but his own instincts. And one wrong move could ignite a worldwide apocalypse by unleashing . . . 'Medusa's Child'.