Sixty years ago, an eccentric Hungarian genius discovered how to artificially trigger a polar shift, but then his work disappeared, or so it was thought. Now the leader of an anti-globalization group plans to use it to give the world's industrialized nations a jolt, before reversing the shift back again. The only problem is it cannot be reversed. Austin, Zavala, and the NUMA Special Assignments Team have faced dire situations before, but never anything like this.