Several decades from now in what has become the Islamic Republic of Great Britain, Tibor Tarent journeys across a landscape blasted by both war and terrible storms, and now rendered virtually uninhabitable by climate change. He learns that a device that using a type of quantum mechanics known as adjacency to make a target disappear has destroyed a vast area of London. Yet this is but one of several worlds in The Adjacent. During World War I, a magician is given the task of hiding the planes of the Royal Naval Air Service from the enemy. He suggests using the conjuror’s principle of adjacency, namely placing two objects close together with the aim of using one of them to distract the audience for a brief, crucial moment. Then, during World War II, a Polish aviatrix in Britain, Krystyna, meets a ground crew member who uncannily resembles the lover she believes has been killed by the Germans; now she dreams only of piloting a Spitfire to disappear into the clouds.