The equation of everything

Europa Dome, Earth, July 2031

Europa Dome, Earth, July 2031

Samuel was shocked. His gaze fell on one of the posters in the conference room and was just locked.

“Explore, not exploit. Don’t be fuel-ish”

He had played the game by the rules. On what ground was he being disqualified? He had chosen the poster himself, as a reminder of mankind’s previous destructive lifestyle. 

The opening pleasantries before the meeting were tainted with a slight uneasiness on the partof the chair. He suspected this meeting would be different. But not that different.

This was the most incredible news he had received in all his years with the company, he pinched his lips together in a smile and thanked the board for their time. There was nothing else he could say peacefully and stoically at this point.

A lot had changed in the recent decades.  After the collapse of the world economy and of the Ecosystem, mankind has had to adopt radical reforms in order to survive. The world of business was turned on its head. Stripped of their power, it was rightfully relegated back to be servants of the people.

One thing that had not changed was the decorum required when addressing the board of directors, even though their bottom line was supposedly more humane than once upon a time.

This made Samuel all the more confused. His contributions had been saluted as outstanding and his approach inspiring, to quote but one philanthropist magazine. He thought the board had called to promote him, not to bring in this half-wit amateurish businessman whose name nobody remembers.

He made his way to his office at the other end of the building, deep in thought, nearly bumping into his secretary in the corridor. She immediately sensed something was amiss.   “No calls this afternoon, sir?”

He nodded dismissively. He entered his office, looked outside the window. Everything was impeccably in order and the vegetation was lush inside the dome. You could make out the desert lying outside it though. This half-wit must have struck gold somehow, he thought. Must have found a way of reversing the desertification process or something of the sort.

His thoughts turned to his wife and his two children. At least he had done enough good to secure their future, he could accept early retirement and still provide comfortably for them. He was nonetheless intrigued by what had possibly swayed the board.

Samuel decided to lead his own little investigation.

“Shut blinds”

“Open Search tab”

The voice commands were obeyed and a 5 foot monitor hidden in the ceiling slowly came down.

“L.u.c D.a.k.o.t.a.s”

The screen filled up with news items. He scanned quickly for some outstanding piece of information.

“What!?  He’s just a boring linguist…What is this all about?”

A rage was building up inside him. He rushed to his desk to make a call.

“This isn’t over”