Prologue:

The human race has faced adversity like never before. Antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria began to develop in the late 1960s. Eventually all antibiotics were rendered entirely useless. Hospitals were packed to bursting, but mortality rates climbed. Humanity stripped the rainforests down to stubble, searching vainly for a miracle cure that was never found. Health services collapsed and became inaccessible for all but the extremely rich.

If that wasn’t enough, temperatures began to rise at an alarming rate, as there were so few trees to clean the carbon dioxide from the air. It was predicted by many scientists that the human race would be all but extinct by 2130.

That was when all the governments of the world met together. They devised a scheme that would ensure that the healthy stayed that way.

The following weeks were carnage.The world was split in two. All were screened. Then they were sanitised and allowed through the gates. Or they were not. Infants were ripped, screaming, from their mothers’ arms; husbands were forced away from sobbing wives; sisters were torn from brothers.

Unbeknownst to all but a few, each person was not only screened, but was injected with a tiny metallic chip at the base of their skull. These allowed government officials to send electrical impulses through the brain of each and every person. There were two circuits: one for the healthy and one for the unhealthy. In this way, they began controlling their thoughts: everyone forgot about the quarantine. Life had never been any different than it was at that moment...

Plot:

It is the year 2427. #C674 lives somewhere. She doesn’t know where. She’s never asked where. She live with 389 others. They might be people. She’s never wondered what they are. She’s never wondered what she is.

Every day they wake up at what might be the same time. That are injected with fluid. Then they work. They don’t know what they are working for or what they are making. All they know is: to work is our purpose.

One day everything changes. She wakes up. She doesn’t know where she is, but now she’s confused. Who are all these others around her? What are they? What is she? Everyone around her seems solely focuses on one thing and one thing only: work. She quickly realises that she no longer knows the one fact that had been the truth all her life. She no longer knows her purpose.

She tries to continue as if nothing is wrong. She does what she supposes she’s supposed to do; she copies everyone else. Within four days, however, she realises that if she remains where she is, she’ll go insane. She has to leave.

She instinctively knows that this is not allowed- no one ever leaves. She begins looking for ways to leave without the guardians noticing. She soon sees that nearly every fence is in disrepair. It’s clear no one believes they’ll ever want to leave. One night after dark, she sneaks out of the compound.

She finds herself trekking across a desert, with no food water or shelter. She moves quickly to avoid detection, eventually finding herself by a polluted pool of water at dawn. Desperate, she stoops to drink. Just as she is about the bring a handful of water to her parched lips, a skinny and ragged girl with startlingly pale eyes runs towards her, yelling. She tells #C674 that the water is dangerous to drink and that it must first be purified.

The girl leads her around the pool, where there is a grove of starved trees growing. There, she discovers, live 17 others, all with questions. They tell her that the first of them had "awoken" a while ago and had left, finding this grove, where she had lived ever since. A while later, more had joined and then children had been born.

#C674 quickly becomes part of the group, learning what it takes to survive in a broken world. She learns what it means to laugh and love- what it means to be human. She is even given a name- Cindy. After some time, Cindy begins to understand that freedom is a gift that she hasn’t always possessed. She starts to question why and asking how they can free all the others...