Part One – Running

Prologue

"At the end of the twentieth Century, scientists believed that they were finally making a difference in the world of technology. Artificial Intelligence was being developed, more vaccines were being found, and a number of astounding research facilities had promising experiments in artificial blood, donor transplants and transgenic species. It was not the end of an era, so much as a beginning of a brave new world.

What no one realised was that it may have been a beginning to a world that the Human Race was not ready to see. If humanity is introduced to something that shattered many of its beliefs, it could also be the beginning of the end. That is what has happened in the twenty-first Century.

Religion is a strong point for many of our world's nations, as you all know. What we at the United Nations did not realise is that if science continued unchecked in this new Century; it could unintentionally prove many religions were incorrect, jarring the beliefs of millions of people. Science has caused more terrorist attacks and more racial hostility than anything else in history. We stand on the edge of the most dangerous world war, and cannot take back what has been proved by science. This is why the United Nations has been in conference for the past month. We have little control over our people and can not stop a world war, let alone a nuclear war from plaguing this planet. We have done what we have to do.

For those of you who are prejudice against science, know tat it may be our saviour as well as our destroyer. We have discovered a means of preserving the human race from even the deadliest nuclear weapons imaginable. When the war begins, eight adults, along with three of our best scientists will be put into a stasis that they can not deactivate themselves. However, because it is questionable as to these peoples fertility after being in stasis for thousands of years, the three scientists that we choose will be given enough invitro-fertilised eggs to repopulate the planet in approximately one hundred years.

As we stand before this dreadful war, know that humanity will not be destroyed. We will survive to see a new world…"

- John Christianson, United Nations Spokesman

Worldwide Address on War, 5th July 2010

"…When we were chosen to continue the human race, we did not realise that things could go so wrong. After burning as many religious and discriminative texts as we could find, we thought that the worst was over. We were wrong. When our test tube humanity grew of age, we began to see adverse effects from either the prolonged reproductive cycle, or the so-called harmless amounts of radiation left in the world. Their genes were mutated on such a minute level that we did not perceive it before most of them were thirteen. Parts of our brains that lay dormant were fully functional in one in five of these people. They had what would have been called psychic powers. We may have handled this, if only these people had not questioned our authority and knowledge. But now, they are ruining our hopes of a familiar world. Discrimination of these mutants abounds between the normal people. Mass murder, torture, and dangerous threats are ruining our hopes of a new world. I am afraid that everything we sacrificed was for nothing."

- Professor Janet Honet, Genetics and Psychology Specialist

Personal record of human progress, 20 years After Rebirth

"They believe us to be freaks. Mutants. A threat to "normality". We are the Freedom Rebellion, fighting for acceptance among savages. Those so called "saviours of mankind" try to stop us with torture and death, but we will persevere. The Reapers are like us, but they are to afraid to admit that they have been given a gift. We enter a world where survival of the fittest is the only true practise."

- Alathea XX5, Freedom Rebellion Leader

Secret meeting No. 13, A.R. 25