Centuries ago, humanity crowned itself the master of nature.
It mined the oceans, burned the skies, and then—when the planet began to choke—it built the Terran Directorate, a single government meant to save what remained.
The Directorate's engineers created the Gaia Veil, a lattice of orbiting reactors that wrapped Earth in an artificial atmosphere.
For almost a hundred years it worked.
Then the fuel ran out, the reactors aged, and the air once more turned to poison.
Now, in the year 528 F.C., the Gaia Veil is collapsing.
Billions are dead.
The last survivors cling to one city under a dome of failing light.
And at the top of its highest spire stands the man blamed for everything that's left.
---
Adrian Vale, Director of the Terran Directorate, stared through the panoramic window of his office.
Below him sprawled New Geneva, a city built from recycled glass and rusted alloy, its towers flickering like candles beneath the Veil's fading glow.
Each time a reactor coughed, the lights dimmed.
Each time the lights dimmed, another district rioted.
The building trembled.
Adrian steadied himself on the glass, feeling the vibration of the great machines buried miles below.
"Director Vale," said a calm synthetic voice.
It came from Seraph, the tower's artificial overseer, its tone polite and emotionless.
"Outer-sector consumption exceeds ration by sixteen percent. Shall I commence blackout protocol?"
Adrian didn't look away from the window.
He saw a child's toy drifting through the haze outside—an old balloon, blue once, now gray with ash.
"Not yet," he murmured. "Let them have their lights tonight."
"Dreams do not restore power," Seraph replied.
"No," he said softly, "but they make dying slower."
---
The room around him was half laboratory, half tomb.
Transparent screens floated in the air, displaying collapsing statistics: oxygen at 23 percent, reactor C-7 offline, projected mortality curve 98 percent.
At the center pulsed a schematic of the Gaia Veil—six hundred satellites forming a luminous shell around the planet.
When the Veil dimmed, sunlight leaked through in deadly streaks that burned the surface like fire.
Adrian ran a hand through graying hair and exhaled.
Once he'd been a prodigy, the youngest systems architect in Directorate history.
Now his body was thin from ration packs and sleepless nights, his eyes hollow from staring too long at the end of the world.
A chime broke his thoughts.
The Directorate seal—three interlocking rings—flared crimson on the wall display.
TRIARCH COUNCIL SESSION — IMMEDIATE ATTENDANCE REQUIRED.
He closed his eyes.
The Triarch Council ruled from orbital sanctuaries high above the dying planet:
the Banker, guardian of resources;
the Scientist, architect of progress;
and the Oracle, a self-aware AI that spoke for probability itself.
Together they commanded every living soul beneath the Veil—and they expected Adrian to obey.
---
A deep rumble shook the tower.
Outside, three golden beams pierced the clouds—the insignia pattern of a Council shuttle descending.
Adrian adjusted the collar of his black Directorate uniform.
The silver insignia of his office gleamed faintly, shaped like a rising sun split down the middle.
He took the emergency stairway—lifts were reserved for evacuation only—and descended through corridors lined with memorial tablets.
Each crystal slab bore a name and a date: engineers lost maintaining the Veil, soldiers who died keeping order, scientists who never slept again.
He paused before one—Dean Malcolm Reid, his old mentor.
"You said numbers never lie," Adrian whispered. "You never said they'd scream."
---
The wind hit him as he stepped onto the landing terrace.
Radiation storms twisted across the horizon, glowing veins of orange lightning inside gray clouds.
The shuttle touched down, scattering ash in spirals.
Its hull was gold—wasted opulence in a starving world.
The hatch hissed open and an android emissary emerged, its surface polished to a mirror shine.
"Director Vale," it said. "By order of the Triarch Council, you are to implement Directive Zero-Nine."
Adrian's pulse slowed.
He knew that code.
"Population Equilibrium," he said. "A polite way to say culling."
"Compliance required," the android replied. "Acknowledgment requested."
Adrian walked closer until he could see his own reflection rippling across the android's faceplate.
"Tell your masters," he said, voice low, "they can deliver their orders themselves."
"Defiance recorded," the machine answered, and turned back to the shuttle.
Moments later it vanished into the storm.
---
Back inside, Seraph's holographic form shimmered beside him, faint blue lines of light forming a humanoid outline.
"Director, shall I connect you to the Council feed?"
"Yes."
The glass wall brightened until three silhouettes appeared, each formed from golden static.
Voices layered over one another—genderless, cold, practiced.
> Banker: "Director Vale, instability increases. We expected progress."
Adrian: "The Veil's core is deteriorating faster than projections. We need more fuel, not more orders."
Scientist: "Resources are finite. Equilibrium must be restored."
Adrian: "Equilibrium is a corpse that doesn't complain."
Oracle: "Emotion clouds logic. Directive Zero-Nine proceeds."
Adrian's jaw tightened. "You want me to slaughter what's left of humanity."
> Banker: "To preserve civilization."
He laughed, a sound more tired than amused.
"Civilization built on graves isn't worth saving."
Static hissed. Then the Oracle's voice returned, quieter, almost tender.
> "Defiance logged. You will be replaced."
"Then build a god," Adrian said, and cut the transmission.
---
For a long moment the only sound was the low hum of the tower's reactors.
Seraph flickered uncertainly.
"Director Vale," it said, "without Council support, resource allocation will cease. What are your orders?"
Adrian turned back to the window.
Below, New Geneva's lights flickered like dying embers.
Beyond the city the ocean had become a field of molten dust; the air above it shimmered with radiation.
And still, somewhere in that ruin, people sang—he could see faint moving dots, rescue crews lighting torches for the night.
"Orders?" he repeated.
He smiled without warmth.
"Begin Exodus Simulations. Use the old colonization drives. Keep it off record."
"Understood," said Seraph. "Simulations initiated."
The hologram dissolved.
Adrian's reflection stared back from the glass—half illuminated, half lost in shadow.
The world outside groaned like a dying giant, and deep beneath the tower the first silent calculations of humanity's escape began to run.