character :: Nick
Nick's got simple dreams: marry his high school sweetheart, get a good job to support her, start up a family, maybe even give a little back to his country by serving in the military. But everything isn't as easy as it seems and what Nick will have to give up to make all of his (and her) dreams come true is what everyone has had to give up by now: their feelings.
Emotions, thanks to mutations, poor genetics and overmedication, are a thing of the past and it doesn't take long for the government to realize that this is no way to live and they devise a plan: harvesting hormones from those who haven't yet lost the ability to feel, alter them in a lab to strengthen them and then...sell them for profit as tiny, colorful pills. After all, people will give anything to feel normal. But as production begins to dwindle, it's apparent that the small pool that's available in the United States won't meet demands so all eyes fall on the US Army.
Their mission? Find, kidnap and harvest from the best possible candidates: children and teenagers whose bodies are still ripe and fresh. And although Nick knows how wrong it is, he can't say no for he too is in the throes of an addiction of his own, to the injections they provide to all recruits that they say will 'strengthen' their abilities and 'lessen their distractions'. He, too, is slowly losing the ability to feel.
Back in the United States, his efforts seem to be helping but the pained faces of his young victims won't leave his mind and just when he's ready to quit, Nick sees a way out that he never expected: a revolution is on the horizon back at home and Rene, an escaped psychiatric patient, is threatening to bring pill production to an end. And all she wants to know now is: with what side does Nick stand?
