The Great Betrayal

The morning of 10 January 2060 brought no cheer. The tension in the war room was palpable. The President sat ashen-faced in his chair. His corn-gold wisps of hair clinging to his scalp. Nobody thought that this day would dawn, least of all the president. He belonged to an alternative reality. Where threats existed and were peddled only on paper. Never in his wildest dreams, even in his alternate reality, could he sense or smell the danger licking at our feet, as we paced around. The clock was swiftly ticking to the countdown. Everyone had eight hours to report back to the base or be left behind. For Forever!

Tomorrow was to be the roll call for the Top Secret Club's undisclosed exit. An hour after takeoff, the President would address his country and the world from above. And then it would dawn on mankind that they had been truly abandoned by the leaders, whom the world had hero-worshiped, as invincible and incorruptible. Each man, woman, child, and creature was on their own, hereafter. There was no time for a turnaround. There was no viable leadership structure in place. And most tragic of all, mankind never stood a chance. As the truth was kept undiscovered under piles and piles of hubris-feeding false narratives that the unthinking public lapped up like hungry wolves, feeding on the same rotting carcasses. Now the heedless mankind, if they did not die at the hands of marauding hordes, would die of the heat, hunger, or thirst. Whichever got them first.

No one thought this day would come. A day for which countless secret drills had been held over the past hundred years. Ever since the threat of a nuclear annihilation overshadowing the cold war had loomed over mankind's destiny. A real high point had been the years between 2020 to 2022 when a genetically engineered biochemical virus WC19 had threatened to undo the work of 8000 years of human civilization. The flesh-eating virus was extremely contagious, and almost always swiftly exterminated its host. A concerted collective effort, never before or again experienced in the history of mankind, defeated the virus from the brink of society's collapse. The world, as one family, stopped all activity for a week. Each household was shipped its antiviral dose, after which a seven-day lock-in period ensured its demise.

That event was hailed as a real promise and window of opportunity to inspire human civilization, to pull back from mindless greed and materialism. To embrace the new mantra of 'One-Earth, One-Mankind' launched by the fiery, pigtailed, Viking warrior Greti. It was a powerful movement carried on the shoulders of young utopians.

Just when it seemed the edifice of self-destructive human tendencies would be vanquished forever, the grand old Tea-Party, smelling blood, swiftly got their act together and mounted a powerful rebuttal. They silenced the nature-loving, minimalist living ideology spreading like a steady fire.

The grand old Tea-Party survived the brutal war of ideas, but with a very heavy price. At least three hundred years of freedom-loving democracy had to be undone. There was no other way. A fair fight would have resulted in a sure-shot defeat. With the Tea-Party members fat, greedy fingers stuck in all vital resources for mankind, it was meant to be a do-or-die battle.

Today was the last evacuation drill. Only a hundred hand-picked living beings could board the capsule designed to orbit in space. The NOH space capsule was designed to be self-sufficient for 1642 days, or four and a half years. It was planned for an annihilating event devastating our planet, where survival would be impossible.

So why the decision to evacuate the secret club now?

The last proverbial straw had broken our back. Vast landscapes had already turned barren and unsupportive to life. The whole western half of America had succumbed to desertification, 55 degrees centigrade was the median temperature there. Australia had become a scorched land a full ten years before. Those who could secure their access to the free world survived. The rest slowly perished to the unquenchable heat, the acidic ocean, or cannibals masquerading as pirates.

Thirty percent of the landmass had been swallowed by the rising, tepid oceans. The oceans themselves had lost sixty percent of their species. Most of the ocean waters were dark and stinky, with jelly white algae invading and choking out life. Machine-gun-protected borders of the free world were constantly under threat by the fierce and famished refugees of the autocratic world. Their savage world had simply been vanquished under their wars that now could not sustain civilization, let alone mount any kind of coherent defense to the onslaught of the tyrannies of natural disasters. Like hungry wolves with crazed eyes, people mauled each other to make it to the free world borders, only to be gunned down by the desperate and frightened elite civilization facing twin threats: from climate refugees and encroaching nature, ripping up settled cities with fires, tsunamis, and famine, in succedent rotation.

The earth could not be saved. That was a given. But some of us could be saved, those with capital, power, and knowledge to quickly re-establish civilization when suitable conditions presented themselves on earth. For the last hundred years, a secret ministry had been dedicated to preparing for the worst-case scenarios; with technology, space capsules, biodiversity preserving cell cultures, and seeds. I was the team leader of the genetic biodiversity ministry, with a mission of capturing, cataloging, and preservation. Without my vital department, reentry to earth was not even a possibility.

Sometimes I would have these moments of epiphany. Could mankind re-establish civilization, when they had completely failed to protect and heal an existing civilization, that was thriving as recently as twenty years ago?

There was one key amino acid vital to regenerate and activate the cells of the millions of DNA and genetic material already packed and ready to lift with NOH. Without the critical RNA polymerase, we might as well land on Mars or Earth, it would not matter. However, it was virtually impossible to preserve. My secret experimentations with the zircon crystal held out hope.

My amateur research into archaeological hunts had me alerted to the vicious ability of human hubris to override nature's wisdom, to its peril. The last time a catastrophic event took place, the earth was flooded and most men and creatures perished. At least the ocean was still alive and teeming with life then. This time it was different. We had truly hit a point of no return.

Once upon a time, in the cradle civilization of Airyamen, the soma elixir had the power to not only protect mankind, but to elevate us to our true spiritual nature, to pierce the veil of ignorance and hubris, and to psychically connect with the gods, and to truly repent with bleeding hearts on their foolish ways. What use is a man who has conquered the world, but lost his soul?

We have drunk the soma; we have become immortal; we have gone to the light; we have found the gods.

What can hostility do to us now, and what the malice of a mortal, o immortal one?

Rigveda (8.48.3)

(The Soma) He covers the naked and heals all who are sick. The blind man sees; the lame man steps forth.

Let those who seek find what they seek: let them receive the treasure.

Let him find what was lost before; let him push forward the man of truth.

Rigveda (8.79.2-6)

The secret of soma too had been lost to civilization, with time. However on the digs into a deep burial in the forests of Siberia, I had obtained the mantra from the tablets, carved with eulogy and prayers to the Deity of Soma. With powers to bridge the human to the divine realm, without the veil of ignorance impeding. What is man, but a beast, without his spiritual nature?

This was the missing link between man and nature! Between our human world, with a hundred alternative realities, and the one true reality of the divine universe. Buried deep in the tombs of the dead were the preserves and treasures of our spiritual nature, the soma plant seeds. I was convinced we had our source. My decoding of the tablet scriptures led me to a crazy crystallization preservation technique. The only way to preserve them for another millennium was to encapsulate them in the zircon crystal completely. The extracted genetic material and encoded soma mantra was preserved in one half of the heart-shaped crystal, while the other half had RNA polymerase preserved, without which no genetic material could replicate. Two halves, to make a whole. Sealed in a heart-shaped locket, my soma catalyst was preserved within the zircon and strung on a chain, to be worn in the event of an emergency evacuation.

I felt I was walking in a nightmare, unable to escape, pinned down by a crash, and slowly dying. Except, this time, it was mankind dying. Being wiped out. My, our, whole life flashed before me. The caveman, the discovery of fire, of languages, and writing. Of science, religion, art, and culture, all flashed like a collapsing dystopian film around me.

I did not know my left hand from my right, I was operating in automated mode. I still could not distinguish if this was reality or just a very bad dream from which there was a possibility I could wake up.

SKOOOOOOOOOO - RED ALERT! RED ALERT! "Report back to the base. Calling all urgent personnel back!" Everybody in the glass building was seen rushing back to the war room. I followed without thinking.

"Ok!" said the flight commander in a soft, tense voice. "Change of plans. Everyone board now. We have news that the border has been compromised on three fronts! Fifty-five minutes to take off."

Suddenly, panic erupted! People were hyperventilating, eyes bulging, we filed into the space capsule, like trained auto-mans, prepared over a thousand drills. Everyone was silent and systematic, there was no chaos, as each one took their place. I strapped myself into my seat and pulled on my face mask. I could not even pray as doomsday stared at me. Pray for what?

This was an existential threat, engineered by mankind. After a strained, interminable wait, the space capsule took off and safely docked onto the mother space station. The heavy air, stagnant with bated breaths, could have been cut with a knife, then there was a collective sigh of relief. Mankind could survive now, hopefully…eventually?

For the first time in forty-eight hours, it seemed that my lungs could breathe and take in air. I looked down at the beautiful white and blue marbled ball, that was our true home, become smaller into the distance. Unable to swallow the lump stuck in my throat, my heart filled with a deep heaviness that felt as though it would kill me, as I thought of what mankind had traded for this technologically advanced, designer space-can packed with humans. Dazed, I reached up, my fingers searching for the soothing surface of the locket to grasp on to, with its fragile promise of hope.

AAAAARGGGGHHHHH - a shock of realization washed over me as my eyes rolled back into my head. The encoded heart-locket….(gasp)..had been left behind!