In 1983, in a small town in upstate New York, Sam Beckett has a problem. He's Leaped into a brilliant but troubled boy named Sean O'Connor, who's part of a gifted students' program called Olympics of the Mind. The program is about to be canceled, and if it is, Ziggy says terrible things will happen to Sean and his friends as they grow up. But how can a twelve-year-old boy put right what is about to go wrong?

In 1999, in the center of the secret project knows as Quantum Leap, Al Calavicci has an even bigger problem. The real Sean O'Connor is in "detention" in the Waiting Room - and he's determined to escape.