In New York, a body has been found, its face and fingerprints removed, a coin-sized circle carved into its thigh. On an island off the Southeastern coast, a young man is running from a place he cannot survive, toward another he cannot comprehend. An in Manhattan, another young man is moving closer to an encounter that will later alter everything he has ever believed about himself. For 30 years, a colony with its own laws and values has been growing. Covertly supplied with the latest technology and DNA materials, its leaders carefully monitor their human trials and conceal them from the outside world.