The Extinction Trials(104)

His life hadn’t turned out the way he had planned it. Or imagined it. It was different, but that, he thought, was simply the way life was.

He walked upstairs to the second floor and then up the creaking staircase to the roof-top deck where Maya was leaning over, peering through a telescope pointed at the sky.

She turned and smiled when she saw him.

“Looking at home?” he asked.

“Yeah. It helps me wrap my head around it all.”

“I know what you mean. It still feels odd here. The smell. The gravity.”

Maya nodded and returned her face to the eyepiece. “Remind me again what they call our world?”

“Venus.”





Epilogue





In the lavish restaurant overlooking the Pacific Ocean, Owen stood and brought a fork to his glass and tapped it three times, the ding-ding-ding echoing in the cavernous room.

The dinner guests looked up from their plates and set their wine glasses aside.

“Tonight,” Owen said, “I’d like to pose a simple question: what is the destiny of the human race?”

He paused, allowing his guests to consider what he had said. “We all know the answer. At some point, our species will go extinct.”

He moved away from his table to a set of double doors that opened onto a veranda overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Below, waves crashed on the beach, and couples and small groups, and individuals walked along the shore, flashlights guiding their way.

“What will be our end?” Owen asked his guests. “A technology one of you is developing? Nuclear war? A natural disaster, perhaps? Will an asteroid or a solar flare or a supervolcano be our undoing?”

He took a deep breath. “The real question is not how our species will end. The question is what we plan to do about it. We can’t fight the future, but we can plan for it. In this room are the people creating the future. We’ve invested in many of your companies. We’ve given you capital because we think you’ll prosper, but more importantly, because your companies and labs are building the technologies that will radically alter our society. What I’m proposing is that we collaborate on a project just as important. Let’s call it... an Escape Hatch.”

He walked to the placard and pulled the white sheet off of it.

As Owen described his plan, a few guests gasped. Some laughed, unsure if this was a prank.

“I know it might seem fantastic now,” he said, “but soon, what we’re building will be a global obsession. We will be the first to do it. And we won’t be doing it for the buzz or for the money. We will be creating something that will ensure the survival of the human race. You see, I believe one day soon, we will need an Escape Hatch. One day, Earth will be in trouble. And we will be the light in the darkness.”

As the room broke out in thunderous applause, Owen glanced over at Maya, who was clapping politely, her elbows resting on her swollen belly and the child growing inside of her.