Chapter One:

Born and Razed

          I have noticed over my few years that some people have a hatred for things that seem irrational until you begin to understand that person better. Perhaps one may hate something like strawberries, which seems relatively stupid until you find out that a truck containing strawberries killed their mother, to the extent that her blood was indistinguishable from the jam that fell out of said truck. Following this example, I hate the word neuroplasticity.

          Neuroplasticity is the ability for your brain to adapt and change- essentially, it's how good your brain is at doing stuff, at its base. Doctors will tell you something long and winded about what neuroplasticity really is, but they are just trying to bullshit you, probably to get you to buy some 400-dollar bottle of sugar pills. The incorrectness of the usage of the word by doctors, however, is not why I hate this word.

          It is a well-known fact in the scientific community that children simply have better neuroplasticity than adults, and this is why I hate the word. Should neuroplasticity never had existed, I never would have gone through the very specific set of events that set my hateful life into the downward spiral it is in now. I know that a statement like that certainly needs more explanation than what I've given you, so simply recall this from the words that I am telling you now, as you read this book:

No matter how awful anything seems to be, neuroplasticity is worse.

         

          Often times, the takeover of businesses goes unseen to most of the population. This is the only reason, I can assume, that Rebirth Industries got away with much of the shit they pulled on this country. They did what any insane, power-hungry group would do, and hit the little guys first. They started in the computer industry. First, they bought out small, independent IT companies. Nobody really noticed that every small computer tech was on the same payroll. When you have enough little people working for you, though, it starts to hurt the big people. And when a business is hurting, that's when it gets bought.

          They did this with nearly every computer repair place in North America. Any that didn't join got choked out by the competition and had to close, so Rebirth Industries started a monopoly of the computer repair business. Using funds from this, they repeated the process for the computer industry. Jobs was likely rolling in his grave when his poor fruit-named baby got bought out. Rebirth continued to move on. Security, finance, music, and television- any industry that made money moved into their hideous grasp. Some say they had Walt himself thawed out to shake hands with the CEO of Rebirth upon Disney's buyout.

          Still, few people noticed what was really going on, because the general population is like cattle, just before the slaughter. Those that tried to say something were quickly silenced with one of two options; more money than one person could ever dream of having, or a bullet in their heads. I would love to lie to anyone reading this and tell you that I saw it all happening, and that I knew what was going on, but that would be a boldfaced lie. I was just as naïve as the next guy, until the day came about that I discovered firsthand what that much money was truly capable of.

          The goal of Rebirth Industries was to bring upon a "new age" in the world, which essentially means to dominate it entirely, in my opinion. All they needed was to complete their collection of nuclear launch codes, and change them as they saw fit.  Once any and all weapons of mass destruction were in possession of Rebirth, world government would be at a momentary standstill in their favor. This is when they'll strike a deal with the world: in trade for the removal of any sections of your brain involved with "free will", Rebirth will provide safe living quarters while they scrub the world clean with nukes.

          This is where I come into the equation. See, there is no easy way to go about the plan "acquire nuclear launch codes", so it became a group of elite geneticists' sole goal to find a solution. A super soldier program was already going to be necessary at some point for upholding the peace of their new society, so it was decided that an early formation of said group could kill two birds with one stone; travelling around the globe, stealing launch codes one day, holding the peace of a decimated human race the next.

          Like I said before, children have better neuroplasticity than adults. This knowledge is what led Rebirth Industries to a policy they referred to as Razing. It starts with the complete buyout of local law enforcement, obviously killing those who couldn't be bought, or hiding them away until the Razing was finished. After this, Rebirth would completely enclose a section of whatever town they were in, usually containing a large school.

          The moment their blockades are finished, they put the whole town into a media dead zone. No Internet, electricity, radio blockades get set, and radiation interference cuts off anything missed. They go house to house in the blockade area, ensuring no one will talk. Then, they raid the school in the area for all children, kill off witnesses, and trace the families back, killing them too.

          After an average of five to ten trucks loaded with unconscious children pull off, the blockades are removed and the whole area remains monitored for any suspicious activity that could jeopardize Rebirth. The whole operation is quite clean, really. I admire their planning.

          I can tell those reading, without shame that the school fought valiantly against the attackers, to the best of our ability. Many tried to run, to be met with a wall of tranquilizer darts, and many more cowered under their desks and in corners, to be met with a small, painless electric shock to the temple. The largest group, however, those that fought fire with fire, was met with Tasers, rubber bullets and gunstocks to the head. That was the group I was in.

          A voice roared over the intercoms that day. "Hands on your desks, sitting stationary. Those who refuse to comply with this simple command will severely regret it."

          A few classrooms blockaded their doors, some had students with an ambush plan, and some complied wit the order and sat, crying and afraid. I was in an ambush plan. The music room that I was in doubled as a storage area for a few students' sports gear. Armed with broken hockey sticks, ice skate blades taped to the tip of a ruler, and scissors split in two and small knives for sharpening the end of lacrosse sticks, we waited.

          A squad of four greeted us by breaking through the weak ceiling tiles, which we did not at all expect. They took out a guy holding one of our best weapons- a brick that was previously used as a paperweight that he planned on smashing into one of their heads.

          The fight was short lived. We tackled two of them and tried stabbing them with our limited weapons, to no avail, as their armor was too strong. The superior fighting skills of those they had taken down quickly knocked those that had tackled out of the equation. Someone who had been hidden under a desk attempted to bring it down on top of one of the squad members, but failed when the attacker dodged it.

          This killed morale of the few remaining fighters. I stood tall with a piece of broken glass using duct tape as a handle. I had lifted my hand when I was shot in the leg with a rubber bullet. I fell and they beat me unconscious. I hear the culinary department actually cut one of them. Despite minor damages to their attack teams, they got away with 1,078 of the 1,081 students. Those missing were in the culinary department.

          I was one of those unlucky children; Test Group 9, United States Sector 7, Subsector 17, Subject 845. This became my identification code, better written out as 9717845. Believe me when I say that I prefer my old name, Jonah, much more.

          Test group nine refers to what phase of testing Rebirth Genecorps were in at the time. Nine is both lucky and unlucky. Unlucky in that Rebirth was growing dangerously close to it's goal, and lucky in that we weren't test group one, or the final test group which doesn't yet exist, thankfully. Test group one involved the true guinea pigs; fools who didn’t yet know what they were doing killed those in Test Group One in horrendous ways by alterations of their brains. Test Group X, the final group, was the group that super soldiers would become fully realized, along with the technology of free will removal. Test Group X will consist of all-powerful slaves with no morals and no mercy.

          The first appearances of powers originated in Test Group 5, with the ability to regrow minor body parts, such as fingers, in just over an hour. They lost that subject to blood loss after cutting off both of his legs. The powers have grown in strength since then. Most recently, the last successful subject of Test Group 8 could break bones with his voice. He escaped, as well as several others from that group, and fewer still from prior groups. No escapees have ever been found.