Chapters 1 through 4 Summary

As the story opens, Kira Walker is working in the maternity ward on June 30, 2076. She and the other nurses are recording information about an infant who just died. Kira says all babies die and that they have stopped naming them. Instead, the infants are assigned a number. As the nurses provide the various pieces of information they were in charge of monitoring, Kira realizes she can't continue to be part of this team. She is sixteen and joined the maternity team in the hope that she'd become part of the search for a cure. Since the release of a virus called RM more eleven years earlier, no babies have survived more than a few days. Though only part of the team a short time, Kira realizes the current plan - to keep the remaining population producing as many babies as possible...