California, Mojave Desert, 1998. A strange glow appears in the sky. Sam, a forty-something door-to-door salesman, travels through the few inhabited zones of the Californian desert in search of clients.

A famous British actress gets involved with two members of a reserved British noble family, whose plan to get rid of her backfires.

The lives of several Japanese families are shattered as the USA and the USSR move toward war, Japan finds itself caught in the middle, and Tokyo is ultimately evacuated as the two superpowers invoke the 'nuclear option'.