The Chosen

Somewhere, sometime in the future

I am busy in my study room. More like a classroom, as in my most recurring dream. Except in this reality I’m alone. Or I think I am, until I notice him hovering in the far corner by the door: a bulky enrobed yet gravity-defying figure, typically cross-legged. I almost expect him to start praying. Instead he tells me in sonorous tones, ‘It is time to pass on. Time to let go.’

‘No,’ I insist. ‘This is a delusion. I won’t accept it.’

He hovers about a metre nearer. ‘There is no way to avoid your fate,’ he says more plainly.

‘What are you?’ I question, forcing myself to keep a calm voice and rational mindset. ‘I mean if not illusory, if not generated, then what: a god? Buddha?’

‘Your guide.’

‘I don’t need a guide, I need time,’ I declare, with a curious sense of having said those last few words before.

The figure shakes his head. ‘No amount of time can alter the inevitable.’

Still, this ‘god’ – or Buddha – just isn’t convincing me. So I tell him: ‘It doesn’t end for me, wherever this is. I just need to know what is wrong so I can fix it.’

He shakes his head once again. ‘There is nothing to fix, everything is as it should be.’ The equanimity in his voice agitates me.

So I persist. ‘If you are generated by the sim then tell me how I can fix the fault.’

Even from this far I’m sure I see him roll his eyes in exasperation. ‘I see a man,’ he says, ‘who has reached the end of his time on earth.’

‘Earth?’ I feel I have found a logical flaw. ‘Which Earth is that? Not this one, surely.’

‘It matters not,’ he intones. ‘Does a man who sees his world – himself – reflected in a lake deny he sees reality? Does he deny he is part of that world?’

‘What?’ And I think of saying: This is sounding like computer-generated philosophy. Tiresome.

Well, anyway, the ... discussion goes on for at least another ten minutes. But one thing I know for sure, if this really is The End I could delay it. Couldn’t I?

At least I must have my facts straight. Here there’s no overestimating just how important it is to establish what’s real.

I exist. Just that very thought is proof enough – and the god/Buddha (who now seems prepared to wait) reads my mind, nodding his head.

Oh, and I remember. A life less ordinary, for sure. Not always a virtuous life, to say the least.

A successful life? That’s not for me to decide.

But before I let go to the great unknown I have to be clear how it all led up to this.

1

The treatment began at the tender age of nine.

An average child becomes a genius in a matter of weeks. That was the intention.

Perhaps it took longer in my case, for I was no average kid. I was less than average. How much less I don’t know. I don’t even want to think about that.

Genetic enhancements had been around long before the ‘treatment’ became a reality. Generally the preserve of the wealthy who could claim some spurious defect to be corrected prenatally – that could never be invalidated once achieved.

What I received was something revolutionary. Only done before experimentally with pigs and dementia patients: stimulating glial/myelin propagation, and at an intensity never thought possible by most in the field. No ethical problem there, some might say. But the notion of turning ordinary kids into Einsteins or Wittens ... well, controversial hardly describes it, at least in the forums where the real story came out – those dismissed as promoting conspiracy theories.

So the project was need-to-know, essentially secret. They didn’t even tell us what they were doing, and certainly not a clue to its ultimate purpose. They didn’t tell us why we were chosen. It was only years later that we really began to put the pieces together. Perhaps we should have sooner; we were, after all, geniuses. Yet we trusted them – believed the lies about the scans for detecting some kind of attention deficit disorder – because our parents appeared to (albeit adoptive parents in my case). And if they did know the truth, would they have reason to object? Surely they wanted successful kids, and would naturally conflate a high IQ with guaranteed success.

So we accepted those nice men and women giving us treats after making us undergo the procedures. I particularly remember the mild electric pulses, the infusions of some mysterious chemical that made my head feel warm in preparation, but also the astringent smell of the place: disinfectant and lemon. Thereafter hospitals made me freak out.

For years I gave no thought about what happened, hid it in some recess of my mind in the way others suppress abusive memories. But the effects were obvious. School, I remember, was especially frustrating. Having to endure ponderous lessons. Not that I could sail through them all with every subject mastered without effort; rather that the basic stuff wasn’t interesting enough to bother mastering. My mind was often elsewhere. It used to be called daydreaming. Teachers, naturally, mistook my boredom as a lack of aptitude. This particularly confounded my adoptive parents; rows (certainly arguments) with the principle were not uncommon.

No, I had other interests. But so did a lot of kids. Then what, you may ask, were so special about mine?

Anyway, nothing significant came of my creative processes in my childhood years, so I will skip forward. Skip past the years of so many negative feelings, externally caused and internally generated. Well, maybe I’ll come back to those at some point.

*

Age: 21

It felt like a breakthrough. I remember the day. The room. My bedroom inevitably. Yeah, nothing better to do than run through algorithmic cluster sets on my tab console. In essence all I was trying to do was compress an old music file, 700MB into 7, with no loss of audio quality. You may think there’s nothing special in that achievement, that it’s been done before. But I emphasize: no loss of quality – measurable even by my AI assistant. I’m talking true fidelity!

The curious notion occurred to me: surely someone else had thought of it, made the connections that seemed so obvious in hindsight. Surely a quantum-c AI would have, had machine learning been allowed untrammelled, had those in authority not got caught up in unfounded fears of the Singularity.

Or did a human still offer something unique?

Metapacked virtual layering: an algorithm to unpack each layer only when needed. Store them together and it was as if they existed as one. Well, no different at a glance to standard compression, what I’d learned as a kid. The picture contains millions of pixels and most of them repeat their patterns, that can be overlaid, sometimes by rotating; you only needed to know how many repeat and where they fit – just grid numbers, ultimately. Basic stuff really. But I took it to the next level, I introduced multiple meta-coding. And, well, it does get more complicated, but most readers may not appreciate being presented with a ten thousand word thesis right now. Or ever.

It’s one thing, though, to have come up with a great idea but quite another to get it accepted. Yet even then I did have the nous to get it patented as well as copyrighted. Potential technological application from a written theory. Unconstrained thoughts of riches to come. A life of leisure – with the odd bit of work at my convenience.

No, that was not how my life was destined to turn out.

There were others just like me: chosen. And for all those years I wondered what paths they had taken. Surely those other geniuses had made a name for themselves. Had at least theories published if not set on their course for that Nobel prize, or heading towards entrepreneurial greatness.

Then on a day like any other we had an unexpected reunion.

*

Graduating young, it seemed the world should be my oyster.

Except it didn’t work out that way. For over a year I drifted from study course to part-time job to temporary full time work, the kind of jobs that people (customers) still preferred to be done by a human, even someone as unprepossessing as myself. And so became a life of just making enough money to eat, pay rent and buy used clothes, while witnessing my friends (or acquaintances) progressing to higher salaries. (I didn’t earn a salary, only a wage.) But I don’t wish to digress.

*

Yes, just an ordinary day. I remember it: April, showery, temperature fluctuating throughout the hour. On my own, still in my current state of singledom. It was my default state, partly – I could tell you – for lack of effort to find a partner. But you might suss there is more to it than simple laziness. Yes folks, an oddball like myself could never sustain a relationship. Yet here I am again digressing.

So it was on a walk back from work. Not especially tired – I would have been considered underemployed, working five hours a day, four days a week. But it did me, alone. Still, I was looking forward to the freedom the rest of the day promised, maybe delve back into a little project I’d been keeping secret.

The sun had emerged just before I entered the park, and looked like sustaining for at least five minutes. A lovely relaxed feeling of having done my day’s formal work. I followed a path by a duck-inhabited lake, letting the sounds wash over me: the sporadic splashes and quacks, the chirping of unidentified birds lining adjacent trees.

I tried not to – initially, for a few seconds – but succumbed to watching a couple of young women runners pass in their figure-hugging gear, and allowing the tightening in my trousers, and letting my mind wonder idly ... to the point of considering options on the very edge of morality. Well, back then, I saw no moral qualms in at least considering. There were always attractive women of negotiable affection, and any pleasure was possible with enough money, I assured myself.

One day, perhaps, my in many ways twenty-one year old brain told me.

Spring. April can be the cruellest month. So many opportunities suddenly seem to present themselves and then are taken away, or you just realise they were always out of reach. The winter was my moral protector, until its March grip weakened. Now the world had seemed to open up, fully, with all its temptations.

Well, all those thoughts were blasted away. One jogger, who seemed about my age if not a year or two older, stopped to the side of me. For a few seconds I imagined she had read my mind and was about to admonish me for my impure thoughts. Instead she said my name, that she knew me from uni.

‘You remember me, don’t you? It’s Gabby. I was in your applied statistics class.’

I tried to think: one of many study courses I’d taken to give myself a sense of purpose. I was surrounded by older students, some by a few years, yet surely I would have remembered her, running gear or not. Would have never thought myself to be in with a chance. Maybe the odd furtive glance at the most, and the fantasising thereafter. But in reality I would never have trusted someone who looked like her – to be faithful, to not be constantly searching elsewhere, to not be high maintenance. To not be ultimately disappointed in me. The very prospect of a relationship with the likes of her would surely only lead to my unhappiness.

And so here I was, once again, thoughts racing; getting ahead of myself; thinking of the endgame when I hadn’t even made the first move.

‘Yes, I remember how studious you were,’ she continued. ‘We were the last few survivors, made it past the first week. I should have spoken to you, we could have inspired each other to stick it out till the end.’

‘Oh, yes,’ I lied, confused. ‘I do remember you.’

‘No you don’t,’ she perceived, though with a smile. ‘You were too absorbed in your study. But that’s what I admired about you. That’s why I wished I had spoken to you.’

‘Well, you are now,’ I noted, heart oddly skipping, aware of slight unsteadiness in my voice.

‘Yes,’ she chuckled. ‘Yes, I am, aren’t I.’

I nodded meekly.

‘So maybe we should get together and talk properly.’

‘Okay,’ I agreed, feeling my breath quicken, along with my pulse-rate.

There was an immediacy to that moment. A hundred images flooded my brain but I tried to focus on her. Hair bright red dyed, tied back; pony tail swishing as she fixed me directly in her gaze.

‘Well, actually tonight I’ve got nothing on.’ Then she laughed at her own potential double entendre. ‘I mean, I’ve got no prior engagements.’

I merely nodded once more. I’ve got so used to planning, strategising. Taking time to think things through; arranging activities from the comfort of my home. This all seemed to be happening too quick for my brain to process. Was she – someone like her – truly interested in me?

‘I know this restaurant,’ she said. ‘It’s really cheap. But in case you think I am one of those types that like to leave men waiting, you can call round my place first.’

She gave me her address and phone number. Exchanging numbers. That was a first!

*

My mind was on fire. It felt like all those years of dashed hope and subsequent despair were banished. That such feelings were nothing more than a product of my distorted mind. My lack of confidence. How ludicrous, I should (I told myself) have been smart enough to create these opportunities. Now a chance to be happy was not so much something to be grasped as had presented itself to me.

Shaving, I asked myself that time-old question: is tonight really a chance to have sex? The very prospect spun me into a panic, thoughts of failed scenarios flooding through my psyche. Would I be any good? There were so many ways to, well, make a complete idiot of myself. The possibilities for making a mistake seemed almost infinite. My mind had to calm, the stream of thoughts had to slow, or I’d be a complete nervous wreck.

Only one thing for it, what I always reach for in times of stress: old-fashioned, naturally-distilled booze. I always keep a bottle of vodka – at least half a bottle in case of emergencies (as some might keep painkillers). I would be careful, of course, not to get drunk, at least before I arrive.

Sobriety and drunkenness are not clearly defined states but simply two ends of a continuum. After five units (yes I’d always measure them) of vodka it was difficult to precisely judge which part of that continuum I had reached, but still safely in the in control zone.

At about 1900hrs I arrived at the address, although mildly inebriated, still feeling my heart racing and adrenaline flushing through me. The building was nothing special, just another terraced three storey block of apartments. I took the stairs rather than the elevator. Third floor. Her apartment number: 26. The exertion disguised an already quickening of my heart. I looked into the ident scanner, which should have alerted her to my presence. Yet I waited. There was no specific time agreed, just an approximate between 7 and 8. It felt like a minute but may have been no more than twenty seconds before she opened the door. She wasn’t dressed as I’d imagined she would be for a date at a restaurant, instead wearing only casual blue jeans and a loose azure top. I was in smart black jeans and long sleeve semi-casual shirt beneath my ink-blue jacket.

‘Ah,’ she smiled. ‘Good that you could make it.’

‘I hope I’m not too early,’ I said.

‘Early?’ She chuckled briefly, though awkwardly. ‘No, not at all.’

I sensed something was wrong, just the beginning of suspicion. ‘So,’ I said with false cheeriness. ‘Too early for the restaurant, I guess?’

She peered skywards as if suddenly remembering something. ‘Oh, erm. Well come in anyway.’

I followed her in, through to a lounge area. What I saw next made me recoil for a second. There were other people, on a couch, someone in an armchair. They seemed about my age: two males and one female casually dressed in the way students often are – the affected used vintage look.

‘Hey, Jerant,’ said one of the men, sporting a revival grunge look, lounging on the couch. ‘Good to see you again, man.’

There was no recognition, and neither did I care to try recollecting. So, still dismayed that I wasn’t to be on a date alone with Gabby, I replied plainly: ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t remember you.’

‘Yeah,’ he nodded. ‘It was so many years ago. Twelve, if I’m correct. I was nine.’

‘Oh,’ was all I could manage.

Gabby had brought an old wooden chair up to me. ‘Jerant, you’d better take a seat.’

I complied, still feeling annoyed at having been duped into this reunion. Somehow I was being manipulated. This was no get-together of comrades; suspecting it was sure to have been organised from on high, and Gabby had been the bait to reel me in. I felt an urge just to up and leave. But I was curious. What had these people been doing for all of those years? Why had I not heard from them or even one of them? These were no more than ten percent of the ... subjects.

‘What is this about?’ I said, still feeling the residual effects of the vodka.

The girl with short chestnut-brown hair spoke this time. ‘It’s about work. Our chance to do something amazing.’

‘Naa,’ I replied, unable to hide that I felt peeved at being duped by Gabby. ‘I’ve got my own work.’

A smile played slowly across her face. I immediately sensed her perceptiveness. ‘Ah,’ she began, with a subtle nod. ‘I guess you must be disappointed. You were drawn here on a pretence you’d be fucking Gabby tonight.’

Her forthrightness, I have to admit, did shock me. I felt my face burning. ‘W-What?’ I stuttered. ‘No.’

‘Oh, so you don’t find her attractive?’ I could see the two men grinning, suppressing laughter.

Gabby intervened. ‘Jerant, I must apologise if I gave you the wrong impression. Only, you being here – us being here – is vital. We have been contracted for an assignment that will bring rewards you can barely imagine.’

One of the men, the grungy one, with long dark greasy hair, now spoke. ‘Listen, man, you’ll be getting all the pus—ladies you could possibly want once you get with the program.’

My embarrassment was mutating to anger. ‘The program?’ I spat. ‘You were there, an experimental subject, with no choice of refusing. And now you are with The Program?’

‘Realistically, there was never any choice,’ he said, a detectable slur to his voice that was sure to be from something more potent than alcohol. ‘They’ve had us monitored right from day one. Just awaiting the right moment to reel us in.’

‘So if walk away, what will happen?’

Gabby said, ‘You will find life becoming very difficult. Things you take for granted, they will make every effort to remove from you.’

I shot her a defiant glare. ‘They? The all powerful ones?’

‘They control the levers of every developed economy.’

‘Sounds like you’ve been taken in by one conspiracy theory too many,’ I said as I rose to leave. ‘Now if you don’t mind I have a life to get on with.’

A life? What kind of life was that? I wondered as I exited the small unkempt garden illuminated in the twilight by a ground apartment.

Pace quickening along the street, the anger blossomed in me once more, thinking of the lie she had spun about the restaurant; the false promise of a night together – of sex. Or, not for the first time, I had played out a fantasy, letting scenarios run through my mind fuelled by naive expectation. And maybe that’s why I hurt, why I bore the scar of humiliation, more than simply the reality of having been duped and manipulated. The lone single twenty-something male, just ripe for that kind of manipulation. Whatever smarts I had hardly came into it. I’d read of an acclaimed quantum physicist who’d been persuaded to traffic drugs through airport security by a woman he’d fallen in love with online, only to get caught in the attempt. Intellect is no protection against gullibility. Buying in to the most absurd lie takes the most elaborate reconstruction of reality. It takes creativity.

Yet it turned out Gabby was not trying to deceive me with her last sentence: ‘They control the levers of every developed economy.’

*

Typically for those who could not afford a replicator I, mostly, ordered my weekly food shop online. But for a top-up of supplies I’d go to the nearest minimart and let my com-chip (liquid-pressed onto the back of my hand) process the payment of whatever I picked up. It was so simple; none of that awkward communication with an actual person. The purchased items were simply confirmed by an exit scanner. Until one time they weren’t. The scan arch flashed up red. It came as a shock; I had a vague idea this could happen if there was some anomaly but never actually witnessed it. Suddenly a person appeared, as if prepared for that to happen – and perhaps I had already been flagged.

‘Sir,’ the young man began, who looked barely out of his teenage years. ‘There have been multiple declines on your payment.’

I was aghast. ‘I don’t understand,’ I told him. ‘There is money in my account.’

‘Not according to the chip reader, it has registered a withdrawal limit block and no delayed payment option.’

‘How can that be?’ I queried with emphasis. ‘I need to contact my provider.’

‘By all means. But in the meantime I will ask you to relinquish the items.’

The anger was there in me again, but I gave it my all to stay calm and focused.

I sat in the office, wondering if this was the kind of place attempted shop lifters were taken before such a thing became, seemingly, a curious concept. On my comm I got through, eventually, to an assistant. I was probably talking to an AI, not that that mattered – they were designed to deal with anomalies.

‘Your account,’ said an androgynous voice, ‘shows you have exceeded your overdraft limit. Therefore we put a block on any further withdrawal of funds.’

‘I don’t understand,’ I said, feeling I’d repeated that line too many times. ‘I always keep within my limits. And besides, why no delayed payment option?’

‘There have been a number of irregular payments debited within the last twenty-four hours.’ He/she/it went through a long list, and I was sure none of them were my own purchases, and made that clear.

‘Then if you are sure,’ came the response, ‘we can put those payments down as unauthorised and therefore fraudulent.’

Well, to cut a long story short, my ident was rescinded. I did eventually get reimbursed but it was at the very least a massive inconvenience – a two day wait to download a new ident code. The delay not for any technical reasons, they had to further investigate (or so they told me, but with no subsequent apprise). Hacking of that kind had become rare even in those days; it had previously been such a lucrative business for criminals that the chip companies had to throw a huge amount of time and resources into securing them, so when there was a successful hack it was looked upon with great concern and in my case a measure of incredulity. Still, they couldn’t go calling their customers liars without proof, only thence I had to constantly confirm any purchases that were not repeats of my usual.

A week later I was stopped at a train (virtual) barrier because it wasn’t reading the code verification from my chip. That should have been counted as a repeat purchase. The station tech overseer had trouble explaining the anomaly. His one explanation: ‘Your chip may have been damaged by a strong EM field.’ Though I don’t think even he was convinced by that theory.

But I knew what was going on. A chip can be easily hacked if someone has the encryption key. It was claimed nobody has those except the chip provider and me. Of course there were rumours the security services had possession of them, and by implication the government.

These inconveniences persisted for weeks. There was no question: they, whoever exactly they happened to be, were trying to wear me down. But it only galvanised me not to give in. No, I assured myself, I will maintain the homeostasis that had become my life – the standard short-term jobs to make enough to live on, and my own project.

*

Then one day, a day much like any other; a morning when I was experiencing my usual ennui, I got a surprising message – from a company simply initialled IRG.

We have been aware of your research for some time now. Would you be interested in selling the rights to it? We are prepared to offer you 8million credits.

The rights, the patent, protected all my work from being viewed. Selling meant the purchaser would not only own my research but would prevent me from viewing modifications to it. Still: 8 million credits! I’d never need to work again. A life of leisure with no pressure from them. I would be free.

And yet. For anyone to offer me so much had to be a sign of desperation. Confirmation I was onto something extraordinary. Revolutionary! Could I really give that up? Would it make me feel like a venal sellout? A coward? How could I trust I’d even get the money? Well, I assured myself, there had to be some official procedure. They would have to reveal their identity at some point to seem remotely credible.

I didn’t respond to this anonymous sender. Not for two days.

If 8 million was their initial offer then it seemed reasonable I could demand 10 million. So I replied, suggesting 12, yet to be convinced they were genuine.

The first day passed with no response. It was a long day, but I was glad of the job, however tedious and monotonous. There’d be no question of anything more creative. The same was true for the following day, and the day after that. Perhaps it was a genuine offer and I had over-reached, been unreasonable. Been greedy.

Then a week later I got a reply. We are prepared to consider an offer of ten million – which can be discussed at your convenience.

I didn’t immediately accept. I considered what I created could make me hundreds of millions, maybe a billion. With ten million I could buy a modestly large house – though living alone it may have seemed wrong, and something more to worry about. Of course, with money I’d not want for company – female company, I reasoned. I would hardly have to try, surely. At least a car would be useful, one good enough to fly me around the world to my holiday homes. Maybe I could start a new project. There was so much I could do, being, after all, a genius.

Still, I had to try not to get ahead of myself.

Despite my reservations – that is, my continued lack of trust in said offer being genuine – I agreed to the meeting. Really, what was the alternative? A total refusal seemed unlikely to leave me with an untroubled life. Or much chance of financial reward. Here was a way to divest myself of the one thing that had put my freedom in jeopardy. It had taken a long time to admit it but from the age of nine, at least, my life had never really been my own.

*

I arrived at the address in the message. It had been a two hour journey by cheapest option of train with many connections. I had been expecting a large company office in the town centre, but my nav led me to a somewhat derelict-looking industrial estate.

My stress levels were high. But I’d come all this way. To turn back only for another 180km journey would feel like an immense act of cowardice.

No, I had committed myself now. And admittedly, the thought of that ten million credit payout was simply too much of a lure for someone getting by on part time minimum wage jobs.

The entrance had no sign other than a property number. An old wooden door with chipped blue paint, hardly the place I’d expect someone with multiple millions at their disposal to reside. Even the security was unconvincing. Or maybe that was all a bluff – in the same way many rich people affect to look poor.

I pushed at a fingerprint reader just under the handle. Nerves on fire, heart hammering, adrenaline coursing to my fingertips, cortisol flooding my brain. I was preparing for the worst. But more importantly I had to calm myself, all too aware of how a heightened stress response leads to clouded thinking.

A young woman answered. Middle eastern appearance, long black wavy hair, clad in business-like but figure-hugging attire; she seemed to me unfeasibly beautiful, like an a-list actress, star presenter or pop-music sensation that even in my wildest dreams or most outlandish sim-fantasy I would have no chance with. But her presence here, I could not decide, was either a very good or very bad sign.

‘Ah,’ she half-nodded. ‘You must be Jerant.’

‘I am he,’ I confirmed, trying not to betray my trepidation.

With another half nod she turned back into the building, saying, ‘Please follow me.’

As I strode behind her along a long corridor I tried to focus my thoughts on how I should reluctantly accept the money offer. But I failed, and found myself distracted. I was twenty-one, after all. To me I seemed mature, though maybe in some ways lacking of my contemporaries; my mind easily captured by such superficial thoughts.

She stopped at a side door with a gold plaque affixed. My breath quickened as if about to hyperventilate. She pushed it open, did a half turn and invited me to walk through. The office inside was reassuringly lavish. The man seated behind a desk appeared old with his white beard, which I also took to be reassuring.

The woman exited. I had the sudden sober feeling I’d never have any contact with her on a personal level.

‘Mr Perdue,’ the old man began. ‘It is good to see you after so many years.’

‘Do I know you?’ I enquired as casually as I could sound.

‘You may not remember me. It was some while ago – well, eleven years. I have, admittedly, aged noticeably in that time.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t,’ I confirmed.

‘Well, Mr Perdue. My name is not important.’

‘Jerant is OK – to call me,’ I offered.

‘I am ageing rapidly, Jerant,’ he reiterated. ‘What I have is terminal.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ I said, attempting to sound concerned.

The man nodded dismissively. ‘Therefore time – I have come to appreciate – is such a precious commodity. Action must be taken as soon as possible.’

‘I see.’

‘Oh.’ He peered up to the ceiling with a grin. ‘You want to know about the money?’ he stated as much as asked.

I nodded, non too vigorously.

‘I will ensure that it be wired through to your account.’

Did they have my account details? I wondered. Did they have my life?

‘The money, however,’ he continued, ‘will only be transferred on one condition: that you will assist us.’

I let out a quiet sigh. I was already sensing some kind of entrapment. ‘I don’t understand,’ I told him plainly. ‘I thought I was handing over my work, relinquishing any association with it.’

‘It was not my intention to mislead you, Jerant. Your input will be invaluable.’

‘Invaluable for what?’

‘To save humanity from total annihilation.’

‘I wasn’t aware of such a threat.’

‘Neither is at least ninety-nine percent of the population.’

‘What threat?’ came my most obvious question.

‘One that will cause untold catastrophe,’ he said without missing a beat.

‘Which is?’

‘Which is