Reset

by Brian Andrews

  DAY ZERO 2.0

  DARPA Zero-Day Technology Black Site

  Converted Missile Silo

  Dannemora, New York

  The hologram of President Sanchez looked at her husband and then back at the room full of scientists, who were eyeing one another with confusion.

  “It appears, Dr. Pitcher,” the President said, her brow furrowing, “that the mission failed.”

  Genevieve Pitcher, Zero-Day Technology Department Director for DARPA, sighed and looked down at the launch key still in her grip. “Yes, Madame President, it appears it did.”

  “Did our probe change anything?” the President asked. “Anything at all?”

  Genevieve looked at Dr. Lao Chu, the program lead. He shrugged at her. “If it did, we will never know.”

  “And why is that, Doctor?” the President asked.

  “Any changes EVE might have brought about prior to our births could have impacted our current reality, but there is no way for us to compare this reality to the reality prior to the launch.”

  The President nodded. “Understood. Dr. Pitcher, how long until you can get the next EVE probe prepped and ready for launch?”

  “Two, maybe three days,” Genevieve said, picking up her mug of hot tea. “We’ll need to recheck all the calculations, launch parameters, and probe calibrations. In addition, I’d like to personally run new launch simulations and make adjustments to the landing time and geographic location.”

  “All right, Dr. Pitcher, you have seventy-two hours,” the President said. “I realize this was an emotionally traumatic event today, but I want everyone to remember the oaths you’ve sworn. We are the planet’s last hope. Nature’s last hope. Humankind’s last hope. Keep the faith, keep your wits, and most importantly, keep our secret.”

  “Yes, Madame President,” Genevieve said, answering for all of them. “We will.”

  She waited for the holographic situation room to disappear before sighing and letting her aching shoulders slump. She was disappointed yet strangely relieved at the same time. Had the mission succeeded, things would be different. Maybe she would have never been born. Or maybe her soul would have ended up in a different little embryo, born to different parents, in a different place and era. She was tinkering with the clockwork of time. The ramifications of her actions would change past, present, and future. Her staff had given her the nickname “the most dangerous woman alive” in jest, but they all knew it was true.

  The EVE project was the culmination of her life’s work. It was a dream she had strived for since she was a little girl. The earth was sick and dying. Nature had been exploited, molested . . . violated. No amount of atonement could undo the sins of her forbearers. A complete and total reset was the only answer.

  Verse began to play in her mind. She didn’t know where she’d first heard it, or who’d composed it, but she’d been reciting the singsong poem since she was a little girl:

  I for all and one for none,

  I take no blame for what I’ve done.

  Greed we worship beneath the sun,

  And dance in blood, oh what fun.

  Sins collective eclipse the sum,

  At Nature’s pyre, her praises sung,

  The world has tipped, the end near come,

  Reset the balance, or the Devil’s won.

  “Say again?” Dr. Chu asked, walking up to her with a quizzical look on his face.

  “Oh, nothing, just mumbling to myself,” she said, meeting his tired, bloodshot eyes.

  “So what now?” he said.

  “Time to take a trip down to level eight and wake up another EVE from storage,” Genevieve replied, setting down her mug of tea. She had an intriguing and paradoxical theory about what might have gone wrong with the last attempt, but it was a conversation that needed to happen in private. “I think it’s time that she and I had a little talk . . . mind to mind.”

  AFTERWORD

  As an author, I communicate my hopes and fears, as well as my observations and thoughts on life, through plot and dialogue. I’m not, and never have been, a preach-from-the-soapbox kind of guy. But in researching this novel, I experienced an unsettling paradigm shift. I’m concerned for us. I’m concerned for our planet. I feel I have a responsibility to use this forum to share thoughts and conclusions that either were not, or could not, be properly articulated in the story you just read.

  Reset is a work of fiction, but the Sixth Extinction is not. It’s real and it’s happening now. As of this writing, the global population is estimated at 7.5 billion people and increasing at a rate of approximately 200,000 people every day. To put this in perspective, the total population of gorillas on the planet is 200,000—eclipsed by human population growth in one day. Polar bears, 30,000—eclipsed by human population growth in four hours. Tigers, 4,000—eclipsed by human population growth in a half hour. My point is simply this: We are so many, and we are not leaving room for our animal kin. I choose the word kin carefully and intentionally. In my humble opinion, all life has worth. All life is kin. I don’t think sentience or intelligence should serve as a litmus test for life.

  As a parent, I have a moral obligation to safeguard my children and help them actualize their potential. I assume this responsibility because I possess foresight, experience, and the mental and physical capabilities a child does not. A child is simply not equipped to fend for itself in the world. This fact is obvious and recognized by people the world over, regardless of race, heritage, or creed. Why, then, does the same not hold true for our animal kin? We have terraformed the planet into an environment in which our kin can no longer survive without our aid. For life to persevere on planet Earth, humanity must assume the role of steward. Stewardship has become an obligation for our species, now that we have wrested control of the land, waters, and sky from Nature.

  Stewardship is not a partisan issue; it is a moral one. For those individuals who don’t believe in climate change, who don’t believe it is possible to change the composition of gases in the atmosphere, answer me one simple question: How long could you last breathing air in a garage with the door closed and a gasoline car engine pumping out exhaust? The volume of air in a garage is small, so the composition of gases becomes toxic quickly. The volume of air in the atmosphere surrounding the planet is large, so the composition of gases is becoming toxic slowly, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. The garage is a microcosm, but so is the Earth—it just happens to be a big one. No author has better illustrated this allegory than Stephen King in his novel Under the Dome. If you want to understand where we as a species are headed, read King’s book. When you’re done, I promise you’ll come to the same realization that I did—we all live “Under the Dome.”

  We must act now. We must assume the mantle of ecological stewardship and take responsibility for the sanctity of all life on this planet. But for this to happen, it requires a paradigm shift away from the psychological ethos that we inherited from our ancestors that Nature must be conquered or else it will conquer us. Somewhere along the way, humanity declared war on Nature so that we might prosper. The decimation meted from that war is evident everywhere I travel. What Nature desperately needs now is to be nurtured. We have to become better global citizens. We have to become ecological stewards—protecting and nurturing all life on this planet—because if we don’t, the “Reset” button is going to get pushed on us, and when it does we will be powerless to stop it.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  There’s an army of people I want to acknowledge and thank for bringing Reset to fruition: My agent, Gina, for believing in this novel and fighting tooth and nail to find a home for it in today’s crowded marketplace; my editor Jessica for guiding me around plot pitfalls and then patiently championing it through every stage of production; Caitlin for her sage editorial counsel, enthusiasm, and challenging me to discover the soul of each character; Jeff for his selfless encouragement and patience while I worked on this book, even when it impacted time on our Tier One series; Adrienne for seeing the
story’s potential and taking it to the dance; and last but not least, Karen, my most loyal and devoted fan, for never complaining about all the times she and the kids had to wait while I gave priority to imaginary people and their imaginary dilemmas. I adore each and every one of you for empowering and enabling me to be a professional storyteller . . . Thank you!

  GLOSSARY

  ARPA—Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA precursor)

  BRIG—Ballistics Research Information Gathering

  CASEVAC—casualty evacuation

  CDC—Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

  CIA—Central Intelligence Agency

  CRISPR—Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (DNA-editing tool pronounced crisper)

  CO—commanding officer

  DARPA—Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

  DOD—Department of Defense

  DS&T—CIA’s Directorate of Science and Technology

  EOD—explosive ordnance disposal

  EXFIL—exfiltrate

  ICBM—intercontinental ballistic missile

  IED—incendiary explosive device

  JCAD CED—joint chemical agent detector with chemical explosive detection

  LCC—launch control center

  LOX—liquid oxygen

  MCCC—Missile Combat Crew Commander

  MEDEVAC—medical evacuation

  MFT—missile facilities technician

  MOAB—Mother of All Bombs

  MP—military police

  NGO—nongovernmental organization

  NOC—non-official cover

  OIC—officer in charge

  ONR—Office of Naval Research

  OPSEC—operational security

  PCR—polymerase chain reaction (DNA amplification technique)

  QRF—quick reaction force

  SCIF—Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility

  SITREP—situation report

  SMS—strategic missile squadron

  SyNAPSE—Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics

  TIMS—Office of Technology Integration, Management, and Security

  TMS—transcranial magnetic stimulation

  USAF—United States Air Force

  USAMRIID—United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases

  WD—Westfield Dynamics (DARPA front company)

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Photo © 2012 Jennifer Hensley

  Brian Andrews is a US Navy veteran and nuclear engineer who served as an officer on a fast-attack submarine in the Pacific. He is a Park Leadership Fellow, has a master’s degree in business from Cornell, and holds a psychology degree from Vanderbilt. He is the author of the Think Tank thrillers, The Infiltration Game, and The Calypso Directive; and coauthor of the Wall Street Journal bestselling Tier One thriller series (Tier One, War Shadows, and Crusader One) with friend and fellow veteran Jeffrey Wilson. Andrews is a husband, father, and advocate of planetary stewardship, and would like to someday visit Mars. Discover more about the author at www.andrews-wilson.com or follow him on Twitter @bandrewsjwilson.