Under duress and with a promise he'll walk again, Matthew Mills, a paraplegic prison inmate agrees to volunteer to be injected with a synthetic nanomaterial. He wakes up in a steel room with restored use of his legs but he is in a spoke of the experimental apparatus – The Wheel.

Mills is a human lab-rat, part of the Future Soldier Initiative, a clandestine operation redesigning the human species on behalf of the military. Neuroscientists, Dr Emmett Snyder and Dr Allison Turner, control Mills' life. A series of assailants inflict a multitude of damage to Mills' body and torment his mind, yet the synthetic nanomaterial not only restores his damaged organs, it re-engineers his physical strength. The experiment might be designed to kill, but Mills is determined to survive -- and get back to his only daughter.

However, Mills is the perfect specimen and completes a full revolution. Snyder orders a live autopsy to harvest living samples but an ethical crisis in Turner sets Mills' escape in motion, and as they battle armored assailants, they unhinge Snyder's rage. Finally, it is discovered that Mills’ rare phenotype is the key for precipitating mass inductions.