Slater Ellis is driving up a remote New Mexico canyon when he stumbles upon a naked teenage boy with a number tattooed on his forehead. Meanwhile, on Florida's Gulf Coast, thirtysomething Paige Stephens picks up her phone and overhears her husband, a genetics researcher, committing suicide. Slater and Paige eventually connect as they penetrate the mystery of the "Institute," a shadowy, quasi-military operation hidden in the New Mexico mountains. The Institute is headed by one Peter Van Klees, a genetics professor who hides behind the good works of a world relief organization to divert fetal tissue from abortion clinics to his DNA research. The feral boy, who turns out to be three identical boys, is a product of that research...