A team of archaeologists is hired to dig up the past
What they find is the future
Pip Sedgwick arrives in the Wiltshire village at the height of a heat wave. The 18-year-old university dropout is hoping to join an archaeological dig. Company director Holly Anderson hires him to conduct all the geophysical surveys. It's a 'rescue archaeology' project, hurried on by the clients, who intend to build a waste incinerator.
Pip's data identifies strange, subterranean anomalies. When further sections are dug to investigate, fossilised human remains are discovered. Secrecy is now paramount, to avoid client interference and fend off unwanted publicity – 'Widderstone Man'.
Pip is increasingly concerned about his own health. The 'hallucinations' he experienced as a boy are returning. When other members of the team are spooked by similar ghost-like sightings, the team realises they've activated a time device: not from the past, but the future.
Excavated stones exhibit unique physical properties that defy the accepted laws of nature, absorbing energy and able to create distinctive mathematical forms throughout the whole site. Holly's physicist father, Max Anderson, studies the stones using Oxford's Synchrotron. He discovers that they're manufactured, composed entirely of binary code. It will take many years to read and decipher the mysterious content.
