By midnight he still hadn't killed anyone. Dr. Dakota Thomas isn't prepared for the gunshot victim who rolled through his emergency room doors. Michael Ricco looks like an average young Marine. His dog tags, however, tell a different story. How could this fresh-faced Marine have a birth date of 1898? What was he doing wandering in the desert at night, alone and wounded? And why were thirteen people murdered to try to keep his secret? In a world where genetic experimentation pushes the boundaries of how far someone would go to live just a little longer, the main question is...how many must die to keep one person alive?