After his genius father's untimely death, James Mathews falls into a bit of a funk until he discovers his father's last invention, a portal made of pure energy through which things disappear, but never reappear. The teen feels drawn to the lab beneath his father's home in Nevada City, California, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. He can't seem to stay away, and one day, while messing around with the portal, he is pulled into it in full...