AX50

Mark Helme

Description

Are we about to witness the greatest extinction of life since the Chicxulub meteor struck Earth sixty-five million years ago? Is plastic pollution, global warming and overfishing about to turn our oceans into vast dead deserts? Will poor air quality (which at present kills approximately 30,000 people a year in the UK alone) continue to deteriorate. Will most jobs be taken over by robots and AI, leaving us bored, depressed and unemployed? Will we face starvation as the world population spirals out of control leading to mass migration swamping developed countries? Should we all give up and hand round the cyanide pills now? We live in a time when dictatorships and other foreign powers manipulate the internet, and the extreme wealth of plutocrats, oligarchs and global companies threaten liberal democratic capitalism.My book explores a possible future where a new political and social order provides an equal caring and fulfilling society where everyone has all their basic needs provided for them, but they are still incentivised to work through a reward system. All this is achieved while nature and the environment are returned to how they were prior to industrial revolution. But the future depicted is not a utopia. The high ideals of the new governing elite lead to terrible unintended consequences. Is this nirvana or are the costs too high?

Sujets

• Thriller

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 18 septembre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781838599942
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Copyright © 2019 Mark Helme

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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ISBN 9781838599942

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Contents
Introduction

Maxima Spitzen
Zilgrim Mcmanus
The Apocalypse 2058-2060
Sarah Theakumkal
Zig
Ewan Davies
Zig
Ewan
Petra
Postscript, Earth, Late January AX50

Appendix
Acknowledgements
Introduction
This book is narrated by different characters who describe their lives from 2021 until 2112. The postscript describes the world in 2112. Occasionally, a complex invention is mentioned. The explanation behind this is not necessary for the narrative, but if the reader is interested, an asterisk (*) will be appended. An explanation will be found in the appendix, in numbered order, at the back of the book.
Maxima Spitzen
writing about her life 2021-2035, California
Earlier that afternoon, I ’d had my first ‘big-air’ experience on my mountain bike. I suspect it wasn’t at all impressive but tingling fear turned to relief as my wheels reconnected with rock. I hurtled on down Hazard Peak track towards the azure blue waters of Morro Bay. We hit the sand, dropped our bikes, sprinted towards the Pacific and collected our kayaks, launching them for the second part of the race. My body hummed with adrenaline as I smashed through the breaking waves. At one point, a huge roller threw me against a rock. My left hand was bruised but not broken. In the end, I was tenth overall, but I was chuffed to be the fastest female.
I woke from this reverie as a waiter placed a plate of Puy lentil bolognese with sides of asparagus and roast peppers on the polished table in front of me. I tried, but failed, to ignore the stench of burnt flesh that assaulted me as steaks were served to my fellow students. We obeyed the rules; the soft slaps of covers hitting cell phones presaged an eruption of chatter and laughter as we ate.
I thought I heard a soft popping sound; no one else noticed. Concentrating, I heard it again, louder this time.
“What the hell was that?” I shouted.
Silence; everyone was staring at me.
“What the fuck, Max?”
“I heard something…”
And then everyone heard the unmistakable sound of a silenced gun.
“Oh my God, let ’s get out of here!” Pat screamed.
Chaos! The ‘lockdown’ room was beyond the approaching gun. Some students charged out onto the patio and across the grass of the gardens. Others chose to stay in the building and scuffled as they scrummaged through the door at the far end of the canteen. Some tipped over heavy oak tables and hid behind them. Panicking, someone had misguidedly pushed one of these tables against the door in the direction of the gunfire. It would be of little use as the door opened out of the canteen.
I ’d forgotten about the pain in my hand as I leapt over the counter and into the kitchen. Screams failed to blot out the burst of automatic fire as the gunman entered the canteen. I sprinted through the gleaming kitchen, out of the back door and up the steep slope to the conifers that overlooked the school buildings. My heart was racing and I could hear the blood rushing through my ears. I dived behind a redwood trunk. Trembling, I peered out to view the scene. There were four students lying absolutely still on the grass in front of the canteen. They could almost be play-acting except for the blood oozing onto the grass.
Silence. The gunman must have been reloading. All the students were motionless, hardly daring to breathe, fearing they might be chosen as the next victim.
Then a single shot rang out loud and clear.
“He ’s down, keep me covered.”
“No pulse, where the hell are the state police?”
My mind told me I was safe, but I started to shake uncontrollably.
Who the hell would attack our school?
I heard the unmistakable thrum of choppers approaching at speed, and somewhere in the distance, sirens growing louder.
The playing fields were swarming with heavily armed police charging towards the grounds in front of the canteen, automatic rifles leading the way. They checked the gunman was truly dead.
“No sudden movements, hands on your heads and step out slowly.”
I thought for a moment they ’d found another gunman, but they were pointing their automatic weapons at my traumatised friends!
“Move in a straight line toward the playing fields.”
More police entered the school buildings. I heard muffled sounds of “clear” as they went from room to room. Two more lines of students appeared. I saw my friend Pat, his hands covered in blood.
Then sirens were blaring and ambulances screamed up the drive, halting in the yard. A swarm of medics rushed into the school and reappeared with injured students on trolleys.
I ’d been missed during their cursory search of the grounds. I came out with my hands on my head, stumbling down the steep slope. As I neared the safety of the playing fields, the enormity of the situation hit home, and by the time I joined my grieving friends, I was sobbing my heart out.
Ten minutes later, the head teacher arrived. He was horrified that we still had our hands on our heads like criminals. He vouched for us all and led us off to the gym. I heard a single ringtone and then a cacophony of jingles as every cell seemed to go off. News of the shooting must have been broadcast. Mom phoned. I tried to remain brave, telling her I was fine but broke down as she kept saying how much she loved me and that Dad was on his way.
That was fourteen years ago, nearly half my life, and yet it ’s as vivid as if it occurred yesterday. After gaining a BSc in computing sciences from Stanford, I won a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford in 2028 which was to change my life.
In my first year, I met a guy called Dan. He was about my height (6ft 2in) with very short dark hair (he cut it himself with a no 2 spacer) and overlapping, crowded teeth. He had a squint; I never did work out which eye he was using. He was a strong, wiry guy with incredible energy and enthusiasm. His background was the polar opposite of mine. His mother had been studying history in Warsaw when she came over to pick strawberries in Hereford (UK) one summer. She ’d met his father while waiting for a bus. He was from Lisbon and worked in a chicken factory. Dan was an only child, brought up in a small rented flat in Hunderton (a run-down suburb of Hereford). He wasn’t impressed by my parents’ enormous wealth (my dad owned one of the biggest electric car plants in the USA). He thought it must be hard to be so rich when many Americans were impoverished. He was a paid-up member of the Labour party and was studying PPE (philosophy, politics and economics), hoping one day to be an MP. He believed it was more important to follow your beliefs than to be successful. I told him about the animal and bird sanctuary that Dad and I had created in the grounds of our home. Like me, he loved nature and was incensed that human greed was causing so much destruction of natural habitats around the world.
Besides his love of politics and nature, his other passion was rock climbing. He belonged to the university mountaineering club and had climbed in Snowdonia and the Peak District. At the beginning of our second year, we moved out of St John ’s College and lived in a rented flat in Jericho. These were the happiest months of my life. Never for a moment did I imagine this nirvana would be so short-lived.
In January 2030, his club was going ice climbing in Cervinia. He was embarrassed as he confessed that he ’d never been abroad before. He couldn’t afford the trip, so I said it was to be my Christmas present to him, and while we were there, I would teach him to ski. I knew he would feel uncomfortable in a hotel and so I rented a little private Airbnb apartment in the old part of Cervinia. We were lucky as high pressure had settled over the Alps. Each night there was a hard frost, and dawn would reveal sparkling snow and bright blue skies. Dan would slip out of bed in the dark as they needed to start the ice climbs at first light to be safely off them before the ice melted. He returned in time for us to grab a quick bite before hitting the ski slopes where we would laugh as he kept falling in a heap of slushy snow. In the evening, we would sit on our balcony enjoying a cold beer and watch the Matterhorn glow red with the last rays of the day.
On the sixth day, by coffee time, it was warm enough for me to sit on the balcony in a T-shirt; apparently a ‘Foehn’ wind was blowing from the south. I feared that the snow would be very sticky by the time Dan returned. He was late for lunch and didn’t answer his cell phone. By 3 pm, I was really worried. Soon