Asteria

Prologue

Prologue:

9/9/2085

LEXI

"Lexi! Come on!" Charlotte yelled across the halls of the white house. "I told you! Call me Madame President." Lexi yelled back. Lexi finally caught up to Charlotte as she waited by the entrance to the business room. "Ok. Let's be professional." What will the leaders think of me? Lexi thought worriedly. "I love you, and you got this!" Charlotte explained. She could always tell when Lexi got nervous. They had been best friends since they were in kindergarten. "Let's get this over with," Lexi whispered as she opened the door. All the other leaders were sitting there in silence. All of them looked unhappy. All of them were men. Sigh. "Hello everyone. Welcome to the U.S.! Thank you so much for coming here to meet with each other." "¿Qué estamos haciendo aquí? Soy un hombre ocupado." Said the Mexican representative. Anything said in another language was translated and sent to her earbud. Lexi wanted real, human translators but with the rise of AI, it would be too hard. "I understand you are all extremely busy, but I hope you'll find this matter important." She nodded toward Charlotte, "Ms. Brown will pass out papers explaining our dire situation." Lexi grabbed herself a copy. Each pamphlet said the same thing in the leader's language.

SCIENTISTS PREDICT WE ONLY HAVE 20 YEARS LEFT                                                                             Multiple scientists have been studying climate change. They have realized that our effect on the environment has been even more significant than we expected. Scientists predict that we have 20 years before situations become dire and we go extinct. Our days are numbered if we don't stop at least 50% of the pollution we are putting out.

An awkward silence arose in the conference room. Lexi was the first to break it. She cleared her throat and said, "Something needs to be done. As you can see, your pamphlet explains that this can be stopped if we cut 50% of our pollution. A good way of doing this would be to kill half of us. That is an unethical, terrible thing to do." "Alors que faut-il faire?" The French representative asked. "Well...um we could...um-restart-the-lives-of-half-the-population." Lexi said quickly. "What?" Asked the king of Britain. "Well, you see we could have half the population completely brainwashed. They will live in the woods and fend for themselves. They will create a community. A community not poisoned by the curse of modern technology. The curse of constant notifications. The curse of falling into the rabbit hole of scrolling and scrolling to no end." Lexi announced. "Otherwise we all die. I know it's not the most ethical decision, but it's our only one." Lexi finished. "So who's in?"