Reset by Jacqueline Druga Page B

his family. He cried for humanity.
    “It’s called the Genesis Project. Or at least I believe that is what this is,” Will said. “Eight years ago, before I was president, a study was completed that stated the human race, without a doubt was heading for extinction. Not by any outside influence such as bombs or a comet, but by nature. Less disease, better medicine, more people. Population was on a baffling incline and at its current rate, it was predicted that natural resources would be depleted in less than three generations. The consumption, the CO2, emissions, all would contribute to the degradation of the environment. That alone would put at risk our ability to produce food. A starving population, existing merely to try to eat would be a society focused on growing what food they could with the resources they had. Technology eventually would be secondary. It is or was a crisis. Our children, grandchildren would not have any quality of life. Eventually Earth would not be able to sustain life. Something had to be done. Dr. Hassleman is very aware of this.” He looked to Meredith.
    “That was a study I worked a decade on. I was working on a solution.”
    “And what, doctor, was the only solution you could find?” Will asked.
    “There were two. Find another planet to terraform or population control. One child law, but that would be a long process and more than likely wouldn’t work.”
    Will nodded. “So another plan was devised. Mother Nature often takes care of these things. She’ll clean house every hundred years or so, but despite her best efforts, man found a way to cut her off at the pass. It was time for mankind to play Mother Nature and clean house.”
    Jason held up his hands. “Wait. What does that have to do with us and …” he faced Meredith. “Do you know what’s going on?”
    “I’m guessing.” She replied.
    “Doctor Hassleman was not part of the plan,” Will said. “Her findings were, she was not included. She is just as much in the dark as all of you. I was onboard at first. But then I made the initiative to try to stop it.” He looked around. “I failed. With only eight of us standing here, I’d go as far as saying, the entire Genesis preservation plan failed. Let’s just hope the rest of it didn’t.”
    Jason asked. “Rest of what?”
    John replied “Meredith said it earlier. She nailed it. This is a tank. A preservation tank. We … all of us, were to ensure or insure, that a sampling of humanity would still be here. Forty-eight people. Tucked away … why?” He peered at the president. “What was the Genesis plan?”
    “To decrease the world’s population by thirty-five percent. To do so by mass distribution of a virus. Some places in the world hit more than others. The idea was to place the human sampling into stasis until the virus has run its course. Preserved in case, by some small chance things went wrong. An insurance that life would go on.”
    Malcolm asked, “So the timer on the door, that is our release into the world?”
    “Yes,” Will answered.
    Amy asked. “How long have we been asleep? Weeks? Days? Months?”
    “I don’t know.” Will shook his head.
    “So let me get this straight,” Grant held up his hand. “That door opens and everything may be just fine, less a few people.”
    “That’s the Genesis Project,” Will answered.
    “And if it didn’t quite work out the way it was planned?” Grant asked. “Then what will we see?”
    Jason stood, sadly shaking his head. “Our worst nightmare.”

FIFTEEN – Knowledge
     
    The news seemed surreal at first. Jason took it in as if a story. It didn’t happen, there was a mistake. If some sort of virus had been released then what of his family? How did ‘whoever’ took him explain his disappearance.
    That was his first reaction.
    Sort of like the stages of grief. Shock and disbelief then anger.
    Never one to lose his temper often, Jason was outraged. How dare someone take control of his life like that?