Chapter 1
The year is 2059. Most of the world’s governments have collapsed and current estimates put the population at about 10.5 billion. The global economy has gone belly-up, while the European Union has become splintered into separate economic states – each reverting back to their own independent currencies. This was done as a last-ditch attempt to keep the planet from falling into the dark ages. Everyone thought it would work, but the damage had already been done and recovery seemed impossible. People were living from hand to mouth using whatever means necessary and society now teetered back and forth somewhere between survival and a protracted war. Overpopulation, poverty and threats of war wasn’t the worst that had occurred…fresh water had become a precious and rare commodity. It started in the developing nations. Fifty years ago, most third world countries were experiencing large-scale protests over water and power shortages. At the same time, 36 states were considered ‘water stressed’.
Things were much worse now, with wars being fought over water and terrorist groups attacking any villages that were even suspected of having water. It was not unheard of to read about people in the third world killing each other, even neighbors, to protect or steal a source of water. They only thing they were guilty of was trying to survive.
In the United States, whole cities had turned into deserts – Los Angeles, Dallas, Albany, St. Louis. The list grew every year while the states along the continental divide were still trying to suck the last few drops of water from the ever-dwindling mountain runoff. It wouldn’t be long before even Denver would become an abandoned ghost town, another casualty of a planet that was slowly turning to sand. In Congress, the usual bickering and partisanship prevailed; finding a solution would be impossible without teamwork. No one was willing to even consider that the human race was in the process of passing on, a victim of our own greed, selfishness and unchecked indifference towards a planet that gave us life – a planet that we had successfully managed to kill.
Due to conditions in the third world, the influx of illegal immigrants skyrocketed and in spite of new legislation designed to keep their increasing numbers in check, they just kept coming. Maybe they believed that they had a better chance of survival in the states – after all, anything was better than being shot for standing near a well. And if they couldn’t get into the country through the airline network, they’d sneak across the Canadian border. Eventually, the President was forced to close the borders and in time, Canada would follow suit. Even the wealthy began to feel threatened when their kitchen taps began to do nothing more than trickle out a few drops of discolored water. In the early twenty-first century, the most valuable commodity was information – data. Now, it was water.
But the American attitude had not changed and the country was still heavily divided into the haves and the have-nots. The poor were even poorer while the wealthy still acted like a bunch of spoiled brats, refusing to make any contribution to the nation’s circumstances that might be seen as selfless. This attitude would change when even they would experience the symptoms of the countries dehydrated condition. So, a project was organized by the development of a private corporation that was funded by the wealthy in order to construct a number of industrial desalination plants that would be built up along the east and west coasts, tapping into the oceans and using a pipeline system to feed the country’s reservoirs. Most people believed that those who were funding the project did so out of selfishness. And even though we had essentially isolated ourselves from the rest of the world, the country seemed to take a long-awaited sigh of relief.
But with the U.S. population at 600 million, it was too little too late and reforestation was seen as a complete failure. No one was able to grow trees in the sand. So, out of panic and greed, the wealthy pulled their money from the project and the desalination plants remained as local industries. The outcome was that areas surrounding wealthy enclaves would benefit from this technology and because it had now been turned into privately owned utility companies, only those who could pay the high rates would water. This left most of the country, once again, without adequate water and Congress again began debating possible solutions. This time they consulted some of the greatest minds in science and technology. They reached out to places like MIT, Cal-Tech, RPI and the Navy’s marine research division and a ‘water summit’ was held. It was quickly determined – and to no one’s surprise – that there simply too many people and too few resources. And when the country closed its borders, many countries cried foul, freezing trade agreements and threatening to go to war. Only one possible solution stood out. However, many – even Republicans considered it unthinkable. It was proposed by Dr. Simon Farnsworth, a demographics expert who stated that a page be taken from the internal policy of China’s one child per family rule. This seemed like a viable solution even though many in Congress complained that the U.S. was now modeling public policy after the largest communist country in the world. But after some time, people came to the belief that this radical departure from what was held to constitutional would be very good for the country. And miraculously, every member of Congress was on board with the idea, but the public was not. As a result, rioting escalated and protesters claimed that their constitutional rights were being violated and once again, America lay at the edge of anarchy.
Another possible solution was debated. This was such a radical idea that any discussions were held at a secret location, far from the prying eyes and ears of the press and without the approval of Congress or even knowledge of the president. Republican congressman Stanley Rhye organized a secret meeting to be held outside Washington at the now abandoned Andrews Air Force base. He had contacted a small group of the country’s top genetic scientists who proposed an idea of their own – a national birth control program. This program would be operated under the guise of a new ‘well baby initiative’ and completely funded by the federal government as a way of screening both new and prospective parents for genetic anomalies that might affect their offspring. The details of the plan seemed flawless, but there was one small issue that needed to be resolved. What about those who failed the screening process?