Those who control the past control the future. Those who control the future can unmake the past.

On January 2, 2026, U.S. forces capture Venezuela's president. At a press conference two days later, the administration announces the "Donroe Doctrine"—American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again.

This isn't fiction. It's happening now.

Seventeen-year-old Guardians Milo Parker and Zoe Williams watch their magical bookmarks burn with a weight they've never felt before. Milo's amber artifact, which lets him witness the past, pulls him toward moments of devastating intervention. Zoe's blue bookmark, which lets her become historical witnesses and glimpse possible futures, shows her timelines where democracy itself becomes a memory.

Something massive is happening—not just in the present, but across time itself.

Historical archives worldwide are being altered. Records of Guatemala 1954, Chile 1973, and Nicaragua's brutal civil war are changing in real-time, authentic accounts replaced with sanitized versions that erase American involvement. Behind the alterations: Heritage Clarity, an educational technology initiative with connections to the same forces the Guardians have fought for generations.

To expose the pattern, Milo and Zoe must travel deeper into history than ever before. They witness CIA coups that toppled democracies. They experience the terror of death squads trained by American advisors. They feel the hope of resistance movements crushed by foreign intervention. Through the eyes of a journalism student in 1953 Tehran, a schoolteacher in 1973 Santiago, a nurse holding Archbishop Romero as he dies—they carry back memories that archives can never erase.

Each jump leaves them more traumatized, more haunted, and more determined to ensure these stories survive.