Extinction 6

by Hosein Kouros-Mehr

  “I told you,” Beth says. “Manos is someone who leads with his self-pride. It’s always about himself. He doesn’t care about anything that won’t make him wealthier, and he’s willing to destroy everything in his path for self-promotion.”

  “What does he want from us?” Camila asks.

  “Total control. My guess is he will oust all of you and replace our management with their own. The ego perceives control as the way to ensure self-survival.”

  “We will lose our jobs?”

  “Yes, likely. The tariffs are a preview of what’s to come. GoldRock will try to take over and restructure our company.”

  Thomas shakes his head. “But that will tear Google apart. Don’t they see how taxes destroy the business?”

  Beth stares off. “They’ll justify it to themselves somehow.”

  “But they crashed the stock market! Their self-destructive policies bring everyone down. Don’t they see that?”

  Beth shrugs. “Apparently not. These people have no awareness of their actions. The ego makes a decision based on how it pleases the self. Anything that satisfies me is good, even if it’s illegal or morally reprehensible. Tyrants choose me first, and that’s why they have no problems breaking laws and acting against the common good. Their world view is limited to themselves, which is also why they can’t innovate or advance social good.”

  “That’s so true,” Ben says. “Manos can’t look beyond himself.”

  “Precisely. He is a slave to his primitive self. It takes courage and strength to transcend your pride and do what’s right for the world.”

  “It’s a shame he can’t see the big picture and help humanity. He must have a disease.”

  Beth holds out her hand. “To be fair, the ego lives within all of us. It’s an important part of our early development as toddlers, but in later life, it becomes the source of racism and sexism. Shiv Patel, our former CEO, wrote about this in ‘Awaken the Power of Insight.’”

  “I’ll have to read it,” Camila says.

  “You should. The problem with Manos is that he lacks awareness. That’s the critical issue. When you become mindful of your inner demons, you will come face to face with the source of your problems.”

  “Interesting,” Ben says. “So in a way, Manos is trapped in his own psyche.”

  “Exactly. If he could develop his mind’s awareness, he would break free from his selfish motives and reach an awakened state, but that’s not likely to happen.”

  Camila grimaces. “I’m sorry, Beth. I should have listened to you and stalled GoldRock, and now it’s too late.”

  “We can still stop Manos.”

  Ben sits upright. “How do we do that?”

  Beth makes a fist. “We have to be two steps ahead and block him from taking over. The ego will not just die and fade away. Evil forces will linger until someone strong puts them out of their misery. We have to stand up to Manos and react forcefully. Don’t be afraid of him.”

  Camila looks down. “This morning he requested access to our network.”

  “I noticed that. You see, he wants control of our resources.”

  “I rejected his bid.”

  “Good,” Beth asserts. “That’s a start, but we need to do more.”

  The copter flies low to avoid detection by the military. It passes over the East Bay Desert, once a farmland with orange crops and vineyards. Cracks separate the dry earth and expose a fault line running south to the Central Valley.

  Beth taps the dashboard. “This is the just the beginning of GoldRock’s campaign. They will try to corner us and seize power, but we must outwit them. It’s time to fight back against our oppressors!”

  Thomas raises a hand. “I’m with you, Beth. What can I do to help?”

  She lifts her chin. “All confidential data must be backed up and deleted from our private servers. Keep them in a safe place far from GoldRock’s fingers. They will try to hack their way into our information.”

  “You got it.”

  “Change the passwords to our corporate VPN accounts and block access to our supercomputers and A.I. software. Don’t allow Manos to get his hands on our company secrets. I can only imagine the deceptive plans he has in store.”

  Camila looks up. “Consider it done.”

  Beth stares at the camera with resolve. “The way to destroy Manos is to innovate. Thoughtfulness and patience are the spears to trounce anger and manipulation. I’m going underground to work on a confidential project and I hope to be back in Mountain View to launch it. I have a plan to turn the tables around but I can’t discuss the details over the phone.”

  “Can we join you?” Ben asks.

  “No. I need you to protect our assets and fight back against GoldRock. Don’t give them any leverage. If I need something from you, I will reach out. Please be safe.”

  She drops the call as her helicopter arrives in Livermore. Tenements stretch across the shantytown, their metal roofs reflecting the intense sunlight. People congregate along the riverbank as stray dogs roam through dirt streets.

  The chopper descends on a fenced industrial complex on the outskirts of town. As it lands on a helipad, a destination icon flashes on the cockpit tablet. “Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. Founded in 1952.” Once a military aviation factory, the campus houses the world’s most advanced lasers and other research equipment.

  Beth rushes from her vehicle towards a massive hangar. She finds the front doors locked. She swipes her badge on a security post but it fails to grant her entry.

  Where is everyone?

  She hears shouting. Out beyond the barbed wire fence, children are playing football in the searing heat. They run barefoot in the dirt.

  Why aren’t they in school?

  The door opens and Austin comes running out. He appears disheveled. “Beth, come inside.”

  She turns and smiles. “How did you know I was here?”

  He points to a camera. “I have a live feed connected to my smartglasses. If there’s activity outside, I receive a notification. It’s a security precaution. Follow me.”

  “Who else is here with you?”

  “Everyone.”

  She follows him through the entrance and down a hallway. Austin badges into the secure laboratory and motions for Beth to enter. She gasps as she steps into a colossal space the size of a football field. A one-hundred-foot neodymium laser spans the room, its steel scaffold wrapped in pipes and wires. Around it, a maze of drones transport boxes and machinery.

  Austin holds out his hand. “Say hello to the National Ignition Facility, the world’s most powerful laser. It was designed way back in 2009.”

  “This is incredible!”

  “There are 40,000 optics guiding 192 beams onto a single target the size of a dime.”

  “Amazing,” Beth says as she approaches the laser. “I read that a nuclear reaction took place here many years ago.”

  “Yes. The longest one lasted 10 microseconds, and it happened in 2041.”

  “That’s right. I remember an article claiming the end of fossil fuels. And yet here we are still addicted to oil and natural gas.”

  “It’s the curse of fusion,” Austin mutters.

  “Let’s hope we break it.”

  He groans. “Honestly, I don’t know if we can.”

  They walk along the instrument’s perimeter, passing networks of tubes and monitor panels. At the end of the warehouse, they approach the laser’s target point and find a team of welders anchoring steel cables to a six-foot silver cube. Sparks fly from their welding machines. One of them stops the pair from walking any closer.

  Beth turns to Austin. “When is the gravity event?”

  He frowns. “In two days.”

  “What’s the matter? You seem edgy today.”

  He moans. “I’m stressed. I can’t describe the pressure we are under. Honestly, I don’t think we’ll be ready in time.”

  Beth looks into his eyes. “Don’t give up yet. Let’s keep up our motivation.”

>   “Easier said than done.”

  Anil appears carrying a box of equipment. “Dr. Andrews, take a look!” he shouts eagerly. “I just picked this up from our 3-D printers.” He unveils a T-shaped anchor covered in metallic glass.

  Beth’s jaw drops. “Is that the gravity engine? It looks like the drawings you showed us.”

  “Yes, exactly. It’s made of graphene, the strongest material on the planet.” He rotates it and shows them two holes on opposite ends of the device. “The laser runs through this port and emerges to hit the reactor. The other hole is for the titanium ions.”

  Beth nods. “I see. The two fields intersect.”

  “That’s right. Once the gravitational wave strikes, this machine keeps the neodymium beam at a constant 100 million degrees.”

  “Hopefully with no explosions this time.” She points to the metal cube anchored to the ground. “I assume that’s the reactor?”

  “Yes,” Austin replies. “We encased the deuterium fuel in a zirconium scaffold.”

  She chuckles. “It looks like a giant Rubik’s cube.”

  Austin rubs his eyes. “Listen, we need to set our expectations. This experiment ran here ten years ago and it failed.”

  Beth smiles. “Yes, but this time we have the gravity engine. That’s the missing piece of the puzzle. Don’t be so negative, Austin.”

  “Negative? We still don’t have a particle accelerator and there are two days left to assemble a very complicated machine. This project is impossible!”

  “You don’t have to yell.”

  “Well, I’m at my wits’ end!”

  Beth lowers her tone. “Please relax for one second. Take a step back.”

  Austin throws his clipboard and storms off. “I can’t take this bullshit anymore. I’m ready to quit!”

  Beth finds herself alone with Anil. “Poor guy.”

  “I’ve never seen Dr. Sanders like that.”

  “He’s under a lot of pressure,” Beth reassures. “This is the most difficult challenge we’ve faced together.”

  Anil sighs. “Yes, and there’s no guarantee it will work. We are losing our confidence as a team. I’m having doubts as well.”

  “That’s unacceptable. You have to remain positive.”

  “It’s hard, Dr. Andrews. Everyone yells at each other and the shouting just slows us down. I wish we could be more united.”

  She contemplates. “Let me see what I can do.”

  She grabs her briefcase and takes out her smartglasses, connecting them wirelessly to the speakers in the room. Stepping onto a chair, she climbs a crate and looks down to her team.

  “Everyone, please listen,” she declares, her voice amplified through the warehouse. “I want you to take a break and gather here for a few minutes.”

  The workers stop welding and remove their faceplates. Fei and Diego approach the makeshift podium. The workspace grows quiet and a crowd of forty people convene around Beth.

  “I appreciate your hard work and dedication to Project Titan. Our journey has been extremely challenging and we are now in the home stretch. Uncertainties remain and it’s not clear that we’ll succeed.”

  Austin turns and walks back towards his boss.

  Beth’s voice projects across the lab. “This isn’t our first rodeo and we’ve been tested many times before. Look what Google has accomplished—the world’s best search engine, artificial intelligence, smartglasses and augmented reality. We are the world’s most valuable technology company and that means high expectations to take risk and innovate.”

  Sprinkles of applause drift from the crowd.

  “Project Titan is the most important endeavor in our history. We are in the midst of a mass extinction. The human population has declined by one billion and every month twenty species of plants and animals go extinct. Clean energy is the only solution to save the world. Without it, the human race will disappear from the face of the Earth.”

  Silence grips the warehouse.

  She continues after a pause. “I know you’re trying your best, but the stress is taking its toll. We can’t succeed with this level of tension.” She sits on the box and crosses her legs. “I want us to do a group exercise. Please have a seat.”

  Anil looks up and sees his boss. “Dr. Sanders, what is this about?”

  Austin plops down next to his associate. “I’m not sure.”

  Beth continues. “Shiv Patel, our former CEO, taught that innovation comes from deep within our brain. His book, ‘Awaken the Power of Insight,’ described how the subconscious mind solves our problems even while we focus on other tasks. By nurturing a connection with that deeper part of our intellect, we can unlock our intuition and solve any task in our way.”

  Austin leans over to Anil. “I know where she’s going. We used to practice this during Project Bodi.”

  “Practice what?” Anil asks.

  “Mindfulness.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Beth closes her eyes and inhales deeply in front of her team, then slowly exhales. “You can tap into your subconscious mind by being present and freeing yourself from fears and anxieties that block your insights. Please take ten deep breaths and calm yourself.”

  Austin shuts his eyes and tries to focus.

  “Place your attention on your breathing and be here now in this moment. When a thought or emotion disturbs you, simply watch it and acknowledge that you’ve been interrupted, and then return to the present.”

  Austin grimaces, appearing disturbed by something.

  “By developing awareness of your thoughts, you will identify the mental blockages keeping you down. You will discover your core problems so you can liberate yourself and reach a state of peace. By reopening the connection to your subconscious mind, you will unlock the insights to your challenges. Mindfulness will improve your innovation.”

  The team meditates for five minutes amidst the electric whir of the laboratory. Austin’s frown disappears and his demeanor relaxes.

  Beth opens her eyes. “I want you to perform this exercise anytime you feel overwhelmed. Use it to relieve your inner resistance and access your deeper intellect. There you will find the solutions to your questions. Now let’s get back to work.”

  People stand and return to their duties. Austin greets his boss. “I’m sorry I yelled at you, Beth.”

  She cocks her head. “No need to apologize. We’re all under a lot of stress.”

  He collects his thoughts. “You know, I haven’t done mindfulness exercises in decades. I forgot how helpful they were for me.”

  “You should start meditating again.”

  “I will. It was a great idea to introduce it to the team.”

  “Thank you,” she says. “I want us to succeed. What else can I do?”

  Austin ponders. “We have to connect the gravity engine. We need a supply of titanium and a particle accelerator, and we have to assemble all of that in the next forty-eight hours.”

  “Let’s get to work and build it.”

  “Not only that, we need a design the output for our device. Assuming we’re successful, where will the energy go?”

  Beth gleams. “It’s time to rise up, Austin. We’re up against the impossible and we have to tap into our collective intelligence for the answers. It’s time to execute and deliver for the future of our planet.”

  24.

  A PRIVATE JET lands at San Francisco International, an airport in Millbrae constructed after floods destroyed the original site on the Peninsula. Dense fog hangs in the air as it barrels down the tarmac. Seconds later, it comes to a stop next to a helicopter.

  The door opens and Felina emerges wearing a fur coat and knee-high boots. She looks back at her boss. “It’s my first time in California, Mr. Kharon. Thank you for bringing me along.”

  Manos steps from the plane. “Of course, my dear. Looks like our next vehicle is ready.”

  “This leg is a short one.”

  “Good. I’m sick of trave
ling.”

  They board the self-driving chopper before it takes off and flies south towards Mountain View. Felina peers through the window. “Where are the sandy beaches I heard about? I wanted to lay in the California sun.”

  Abandoned buildings sit along the oceanfront. “The sand is all underwater, Felina. You must be watching old movies.”

  Felina’s smartglasses vibrate and she accepts an incoming call. “Good morning…er afternoon to you, Mr. Allen.” She glances at her boss and he nods. “Yes, hold on while I get Mr. Kharon on the line.”

  Manos smiles as Gareth’s face appears in his view. “Hello from San Francisco, friend!”

  “I have an urgent matter to discus,” Gareth says tensely.

  Manos chuckles. “If the price is right, I’m all ears.”

  “Listen, the conflict with China is deteriorating. They’ve blockaded Mars and our colony there is under siege. The attacks won’t stop and we’re now preparing for Defcon 1.”

  “Yikes!” Manos perks up. “It’s a good thing we unleashed the tariffs. That was my brilliant doing, by the way.”

  Gareth appears upset. “We need more from you. The President wants cyber viruses in the arsenal. We need firepower for a major offensive.”

  “That’s great, but what do you want me to do about it?”

  Gareth pauses. “Aren’t you the CEO of the largest technology corporation on the planet?”

  Manos’s eyes widen. “You want Google to design munitions?”

  “Well, of course. No other company has sophisticated A.I. and machine learning tools. I can only imagine the weapons you could create there.”

  “I hadn’t thought about that. So you’d like our A.I. to build viruses for you?”

  “Precisely. They will be far deadlier than anything a human could design. Imagine next-generation strains that evolve on the battlefield and learn to penetrate the enemy’s defenses. We can finally destroy the Chinese firewall.”

  Manos grins and looks into Felina’s eyes. “Google the military factory? That’s the best idea I’ve ever heard!”

  Gareth nods. “Glad you’re on board. Silicon Valley has been a thorn in our side for decades. With you at the helm, it’s our chance for technology companies to join the War on our side.”