PROLOGUE
In the year 2009, 12 kids escape from an ultra-secret government/military project. Colonel Donald Lydecker, Manticore's project head, has been ordered to find the genetic misfits and bring them back. Unfortunately for Lydecker but fortunate for the children, the U.S. becomes a third world country after the Pulse hits - an electromagnetic shockwave unleashed by nuclear terrorists. Almost all computer data is lost and the kids disappear.
In 2019, ten years later, Max Guevara is a 19 year old girl who also happens to be one of those 12 transgenics who escaped from Project Manticore. Now she wants to find her Manticore brothers and sisters, while keeping out of the searching eyes of Manticore.
On the run from her creators and constantly in search of her past, Max joins forces with Logan Cale, aka Eyes Only; the idealistic cyber-journalist who hacks into the television signals and reports wrongdoings going on in the city.
She finds some of her brothers and sisters and makes a few friends in Post-Pulse Seattle. In the meantime, she also falls in love with Logan and he with her; but their individual priorities seem doomed to interfere with a potential relationship. Eventually, another lead from the government is assigned to head Manticore, and the new lead orders Lydecker to be terminated. He joins the transgenics and they strike an attack against Manticore. Unfortunately, Max was captured by Manticore forces under the new command of a woman named Renfro. Max however was believed to be dead by Logan and her friends.
While at Manticore, she befriended a transgenic from an earlier series. His name was Joshua. With his help and the help of another X5 named Alec, she escaped. Soon however, she discovers she's been infected with a targeted retro-virus. Unfortunately, it's targeted to Logan (in an attempt to take out 'Eyes Only') and if they touch, it will kill him. She returned to Manticore and destroyed the project, freeing the rest of the transgenics.
An NSA agent, Ames White, is ordered to hunt down and destroy all Manticore evidence, including the transgenics. Max wasn't about to let that happen, so she went to stop him. What she finds out though is that he has discovered something she didn't previously know... she doesn't have any junk DNA.
Over time, she discovered that White isn't all he seems to be... he's also part of an ancient cult who over the past five thousand years have initiated through selective breeding a kind of super-human that rivals the durability, speed, intelligence and strength of the transgenics. They seem to have some kind plan to take over the world, and potentially destroy humanity. Lydecker discovered the same thing, and White has his thugs run Lydecker's truck off into the Puget Sound.
Ultimately, a situation rises and Max's friends are taken hostage at the place she works, Jam Pony. She helps her friends but is discovered for what she really is, a transgenic. The transgenics retreat back to an area in Seattle that is contaminated by a toxic waste spill 10 years prior, but the transgenics are immune to. Wanting just to either be left alone or treated like everyone else, the transgenics bide their time in the 'Freak Nation' they've built in the tiny section of Post-Pulse Seattle.
Some people aren't willing to bide their time so quietly…