by OMAR FINK
+46 days, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
Billy Street walked down the hallway, tossing an empty paper cup into the air, flipping it over several times, then catching it by balancing it on edge on one finger. He did this several times while he was walking, then grabbed it and stepped into a small conference room where a table was covered with papers and coffee cups and other items. He looked around the empty room, then closed the door to the hallway behind him and put the paper cup down on the table. He touched an ear piece and said, “Pause music.” Then, “call Omega” and waited a few seconds. Finally, “Hi Arty, this is Billy Street for Mr. Omega.” then, “of course” and then waited again silently. Eventually, “Hello Mr. Omega, this is Billy Street.” and “I have an update for you regarding my report last night.”
Billy continued, “Last night I described to you a small group here that is convinced they need to take action quickly and cannot afford to wait for national governments to act. A larger group feels a need to report back to their government agencies first and seems reluctant to get involved in anything that is political in nature. This morning, there has been no further resolution of this and it does not appear that there will be.”
Billy waited while he listened, then said, “Yes. Yes. That’s correct.” And then, “Yes, they do. They don’t know who to turn to for help in getting the project started without delay.”
Billy listened some more, then said, “Yes, I think they would appreciate any help they can get.” and then, “Okay.” and then “Okay.” again.
Billy said, “Ulrich Giger? Okay, can you have Arty text me his contact information?” Then he listened some more, then said, “Yes, I can do that, Mr. Omega. And I’ll keep you posted on how it goes, of course.” and then, “Thank you, Mr. Omega. Goodbye.”
As Billy stepped out of the room, he picked up another empty paper cup and tossed it in the air, flipping it over and catching it on the edge, balanced on one finger tip. He touched his ear piece and said, “Play ‘I’d Love To Change The World’ by Ten Years After.” His ear buds responded with a soft and soulful guitar line and then some lyrics. Billy flipped his cup and kept walking down the hall.
II MIGHTY WORKS AND WONDERS
4 Humanity United
“Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one”
— “Imagine”, by John Lennon
+50 days, ZURICH, SWITZERLAND
Ulrich Giger stood with his back to a wall of curved glass that provided a spectacular view of the center of Zurich, the lake called Zurich See, and the snow covered Alps beyond. He held his medium height but trim frame in an easy relaxed stance that conveyed both calm and readiness. His short white hair had a tinge of brown near the temples and his close-cropped white beard and mustache outlined a face that spoke of quiet determination and resolve. His eyes were a dull hazel that often picked up the surrounding colors, appearing to be combinations of faint brown, gray, and even light blue at different times.
Giger was facing a circular table that was not massive but thick, and gave a feeling that it was made out of wood that was both strong and old. Around the table were seated four men, leaving a fifth chair which Giger stood behind, resting his hands on the top of the back. He addressed the men in a clear voice with just a hint of a nondescript European accent, “Thank you for coming on such short notice. As I told each of you, this is a matter of utmost importance and urgency. I will tell you everything shortly, and you will have many questions, but first I’d like to do some brief introductions. Most of you have at least heard of each other, and I hope you’ll soon be working together.” A brief flicker of a smile played around the corners of his mouth.
He paused, then made a hand motion to his right and continued, “Sam Hoffman has a reputation for remaking the public images of world leaders with a tarnished reputation. He has been called a refresher of tyrants and a king-maker.”
At this, Sam began to interject, but Giger silenced him with his hand held upright and responded, “Sam prefers to think of himself as a polisher of crude jewels. Regardless of your opinion of the jewels Sam works with, I can assure you, he has no equal at his craft.”
Giger gestured to the next man at the table, “Four star General Bill Decker is well-known for having remade the U.S. Air Force with an emphasis on space systems and cyber warfare. He also has some successful battlefield victories that vindicate his positions. I don’t think he has ever fought a losing campaign, either on the battlefield or in the boardroom.”
Giger indicated the next man at the table, and spoke, “Tony Azaria has made a fortune by investing large sums of money in positions that seemed too risky to everyone else, and yet, his track record of returning huge gains consistently, indicates that his assessment of risk was more valid.”
Another gesture by Giger indicated the last of the four men, “Peter Anderson is the young technical whiz kid inventor who has started several businesses and consolidated even more, building an impressive little empire of knowledge and technology based companies. He is best known for founding ‘Knowledge R US’, a huge tech company in 3D printing and manufacturing as well as ‘The Space Consortium; and it’s subsidiaries, ‘Space Habitat Engineering’ and ‘Rockets Unlimited.”
Giger shifted his balance as though getting ready to move, and looked more serious, “Enough with the short introductions. Let’s move on to the important matter.” His lips pressed together and thinned.
He turned his back on the men at the table, stepped toward the wall and glass and gazed out on the spectacular landscape for a few seconds, then turned back and spoke slowly, “The Earth and everybody on it is being threatened by the comet we have all been watching on the news in recent months.”
Several men started to speak at once and again Giger asked for silence, this time holding up both hands and interrupting, “Please gentlemen. Wait, wait. I can save your time by telling you what I know first, then I will attempt to answer all your questions.”
He stepped back toward the group of men and leaning forward, placed both hands on the table in front of him, “The unusually large comet was broken into more than seventy pieces when it swung around the Sun. It was torn apart by the gravitational force of the Sun and had its orbital trajectory changed. Astronomers have determined that the entire train of fragments will leave the Solar System and then return in ten years and strike the Earth, extinguishing all life.”
Questions and chatter interrupted Giger as all four men chimed in together. Giger pulled out the fifth chair which was in front of him and sat down. He waited until there was silence, and then resumed, “I can assure you that all the top astronomers in the world have been working on this problem, and there is a clear consensus that the column of comet fragments, or train as they describe it, will impact Earth in ten years, and they are in agreement that there is little or no chance to either destroy or deflect the comet pieces in order to save Earth.”
Giger waited for the idea to sink in, “We are left with only one course of action. We must find a way to evacuate all of humanity into space, where everyone will be safe.”
He paused again, then continued, “This means moving nearly eight billion people into space, and building habitats there that are capable of housing that many people and providing all life support functions. Furthermore, this cannot be accomplished using conventional rockets. The only way to do it is to build hundreds of space elevators that use high strength ribbon cables made from carbon nanotubes.”
Tony Azaria said, “I thought space elevators were only science fiction.”
Peter Anderson explained, “No space elevator has ever been actually built, but that is only because carbon nanotubes a
re a recent development. The engineering principles behind the idea of a space elevator are sound, but have never been implemented because prior to the existence of carbon nano-tubes, no known substance was strong enough to suffice.”
Tony asked, “Is it possible to move eight billion people up space elevators in ten years? How many elevators will be required?”
Giger answered, “It is possible and one of the key ingredients is the number of elevators required. You have hit the nail squarely on the head, Tony. We don’t yet know how many it will take, because nobody has manufactured a ribbon of carbon nanotubes that long, and we don’t know how much weight it will hold or how quickly we can move loads up the cable. There are still a lot of unknowns involved in this project, specially the part about building habitats for everybody to live in once we get them off the planet.”
Bill Decker asked, “This sounds like an engineering and science problem. Why have you selected this team?”
Giger smiled, “Good question General. We already have a science and engineering plan being put together by the best minds there are in those fields. A meeting of the International Institute for Space Studies or IISS, over in Geneva, has been working on this for several weeks. Once they began to get the framework for the plan in place, they realized that financing the project could be a major obstacle. Estimates show that we can finance hundreds of space elevators. It is likely to cost around ten trillion dollars. The cost of training people for living in space, and medical exams and health support, and transporting eight billion people to the bottom of the elevators is far more expensive than the elevators. It is likely to cost around thirty trillion dollars. This too can be done if we so decide. But the largest cost of all is associated with building the living spaces, the habitats where eight billion people will live. That will cost around seven hundred trillion dollars. All combined, the total cost is somewhere in the vicinity of eight hundred trillion dollars.”
Giger paused and several men at the table leaned back and audibly exhaled air. Then he continued, “The mission for this team is how to recruit support for the project plan, how to finance it, and finally how to actually implement it within the ten-year time limit.”
Now, it was Giger’s turn to lean back from the table, and he asked, “Sam, you haven’t asked any questions. Can we do this?”
Sam Hoffman looked like he was born wearing a navy blue suit over a pressed white shirt, and a tie with diagonal stripes, in this case, dark blue alternating with light blue. He presented a warm, friendly clean-shaven face, an intelligent smile, and short medium brown hair. Sam seemed to be thinking hard and eventually responded in a smooth baritone voice, “Now you make it sound like a sales problem instead of an engineering problem. But yes. Yes, I think we can and the biggest problem will be the governments and politicians. It will be one hell of a job convincing everybody to work together.”
Giger said, “You are correct Sam. It is both a sales problem and an engineering problem and perhaps most important of all, a project management problem. And now you may understand why I have selected this team. Each of you has a well-founded reputation for accomplishing things that most think cannot be done. And each of you bring to the table a rich variety of resources and connections. It will be our job to determine who the key players are and how to get them to come on board. We will also need to decide how to get the funds allocated to make the project work.”
Tony Azaria leaned forward, resting his arms on the table and offered, “The current global production value for all countries combined is seventy-four trillion dollars per year. That would predict a global production rate over the next ten years that could exceed seven hundred trillion. You said we might need eight hundred trillion. I’d expect mission creep to inflate that number, but considering growth over ten years, it is possible to reach that number.”
Tony ran a hand back across the stubble on his nearly shaved head and then adjusted his glasses. Even sitting down in a chair it was obvious that he was short. His thin face with precisely defined features was shaved clean. He spoke softly, often with a slight grin teasing the idea that he knew more than he was saying. Tony was wearing a white dress shirt under a gray suit jacket with no tie.
He dropped his hand down and continued, “The most important consideration is that those numbers reflect all the production capacity of the entire world. So, the question remains as Sam framed it; how the hell will we get everybody to agree to concentrate all the effort of the human race on this single project for the next ten years?”
Bill Decker added in, “Exactly. We’re talking about asking political leaders to give up a substantial amount of their control and power and work together in a group toward the same goal. That won’t come easily.”
Sam Hoffman responded, “Well, we need both a stick and a carrot. We have to offer them some benefits that have the potential to outweigh what they think they will lose. It’s obvious that we have a big stick, in the fact that if this doesn’t work, everybody on Earth will die. But we should also consider how to offer them some kind of reward to go with the stick.”
Tony Azaria said, “Money is the biggest problem. It’s one thing to get them to agree to cooperate, but it’s another thing to get them to give up control of all their money. Besides, when we talk about global production numbers, they include private business all over the world. The yearly budgets of governments alone don’t come near to making up the total production values. In other words, the annual U.S. budget is around four trillion dollars and the number for U.S. production is just over seventeen trillion. The economy of the government alone is less than one quarter of the entire U.S. We don’t just need all the governments in the world to cooperate, we also need all the businesses and industries to join in too.”
Peter Anderson was nodding to himself and pushed back from the edge of the table, “Yes, Tony’s right. We need complete control of world-wide finances. And there’s only one way to accomplish that.”
With that, he looked up at the group and smiled and waited. Peter had a crooked smile that was usually on his face and his shock of wild prematurely white hair belied his mid forties age. He wore a simple black tee shirt with a sketch of some cubes containing balls and connected by lines. He held a hand out palm up supported by an elbow on the table as though he was waiting for somebody to place something in it.
Giger asked, “What is that Peter?”
Peter responded, “Cyber currency.”
Again he smiled and waited for several seconds, then added, “We will need to convert all the money in the world from the currencies of individual nations into a single cyber coin. That would give us the ability to buy out businesses and place them under the control of the project and also to pay people in a coin that can be guaranteed to appreciate in value.”
Now Tony was also nodding, “That’s brilliant Peter! A single cyber coin would consolidate trust in the entity that issues it. If every currency in the world is converted to our coin, our organization will adopt a position of leadership. If we announce that we will guarantee a steadily increasing value over the next ten years, we will have our carrot. And we already have the big stick. We can make this work!”
Bill Decker chimed in, “I don’t understand what you’re talking about with cyber currency. I mean, I know what that is but I don’t get how the value works. I thought the value of cyber currencies tend to fluctuate wildly. In any case, assuming what you say is correct, it would become a huge carrot for those who have political power.” He wore a hand knit white wool pullover sweater with a wide weave pattern in it. His thin face and lips and intense expression would have looked more in place with the military uniform everybody was used to seeing him in. He leaned forward with elbows resting on the edge of the table and fingers clasped together in front of his neck.
Decker continued, “We need a way to convince them that any power and leadership they give up will be only temporary and the gains available at the end of the process are large. Then we need a kind of domino the
ory about whom we should push over first. This is one of the secrets to my success. Once we tip over a few key players at the top, the others below them will follow suit much more easily.”
Sam Hoffman added, “And I’ve seen you accomplish that feat many times General Decker.” He smiled and continued, “He’s right. If we can get the top tier of leaders to buy in quickly, everybody else will be afraid of being left in the dust.”
Tony was nodding again, “Yes, yes, yes. And we can frame the cyber currency value to show how it will appreciate over time. Whoever decides to take the plunge first will benefit most. This creates a sense of urgency.”
