The Reset

They’ll be needing a whole new history

— Bernard, you look tired. Did you just fly in?

— I’m surprised I made it in one piece. Did you know they have already dismantled the landing equipment?

— Yes, we’re almost finished here. I expect to be shipping out in a month.

— I won’t be staying on much longer. I just came from the Pyramids. It’s so depressing out there. Now they’ve ripped out the machinery and wiring, they are just husks standing in the desert.

— Why didn’t they just level them?

— Re-designated, would you believe, as tombs!

— You’re going to make me cry..

— Have you heard of mummies?

— I don’t think I want to know. They did much the same in Mexico.

— When you think what those facilities were capable of in their heyday…

— Do you have any real food, Tristan? I can’t eat this muck.

— Lucky you’re not staying on, you wouldn’t have a choice. I might have a few pouches tucked away in that cupboard. You should have let me know you were coming.

— How, exactly? The Med network was decommissioned months ago. We had to hand over all of our comms devices so they didn’t turn up in earthworks some time in the future.

— Something’s bound to slip through. We can’t think of everything. How are you getting on with writing longhand?

— Now you’re just winding me up. I can’t deal with it. I haven’t had a connection or any personal tech for the last month. You still seem to have all of yours.

— I needed it. We were able to tweak the tech to fill the libraries, with just a little hand finishing on a few manuscripts. We took it to the wire though. The Overseers start their audit in two weeks.

— Damn them all. None of this should have been necessary, but..

— But we diverged from the programme. You know we ran on way ahead of where we should have been. It’s our fault as much as theirs.

— I still don’t hold with plunging the whole planet into..into a Dark Age!

— The ones we leave behind will come back up the curve. It will just take a few centuries, or maybe millennia.

— Have you spoken to any Remainers, Tristan?

— We have a cohort right here in Oxford. I try to stay well clear. Knowing me, I would just blurt something out. And I can’t bear to see their eager faces, thinking they have been picked for something special.

— I think the Afterplan has been contained pretty well. None of my guys in the Med had a clue. But I don’t know why the Overseers thought it necessary.

— Well, they have access to all of the population growth projections and sustainability data. It’s not like they haven’t done this before.

— But half the population, just like that? Germ warfare? How is that even legal?

— A Reset is a Reset, Bernard. The whys and wherefores are above my pay grade.

— Well, just make sure you are on that transport before the plague fleas get released.

Many thanks for reading!

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