The Extinction Switch

By Andrew Broderick

Young Kassandra Nishimura is an heiress to trillions of dollars. While she is relaxing with friends, six billion people are instantly exterminated on the other side of the planet. Seung Yi, a despot thought to be long dead, is back. Through the use of a self-replicating artificial virus called the extinction switch, he will wipe out all life on Earth unless humanity cedes the entire planet Mars, with all its cities, to him within six months. Kassandra’s grandfather Kato, Seung Yi's arch rival, must successfully launch a counterattack before the clock runs out. This will require a weapon of unprecedented size. Meanwhile, society disintegrates around Kassandra and friends, who are now trapped on Earth. Kassandra falls from the very top of society to being a starving refugee. She and her friends take refuge deep beneath a city. Even that becomes a bloody battle for survival, as the remnants of humanity start fighting each other. But, something awakens in Kasssandra's soul. She was always meant to be more than a rich party girl. Can Kassandra find her true calling, and can Seung Yi be stopped before it's too late?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Andrew Broderick
• Release date: Dec 10, 2016
• ISBN: 9781540102164

Book preview

The Extinction Switch

Copyright 2016,

Andrew C. Broderick

Dedicated to Theresa Broderick

Props go to every author I’ve ever read, for

feeding the idea soup in my mind.

CHAPTER ONE

The Hammer Blow

----

Kassandra Sana Nishimura was sipping cocktails in the casino of a Monte Carlo hotel as the last seconds of civilization ticked away. The eighteen-year-old’s long, straight black hair, an artifact of her part-Japanese heritage, was tucked over the front of the right shoulder of her white jewel-studded half-jacket. One wall, opposite Kassandra and her two friends, became a video display. A situation almost beyond words is developing, the frightened-looking male newscaster said. The continent of South America appears to have suffered an unimaginable catastrophe. Pictures and videos from surveillance cameras from Argentina to Ecuador show people convulsing and spitting up blood. Many have already died, and those who are sick will follow within minutes. The deaths already number in the billions… At that, he broke down. Tears flowed freely, soaking his white shirt.

The camera switched to a brunette female anchor, with a glazed expression. She snapped to. Uhh… our affiliate stations in South America are offline. Attempts to contact anybody on that continent are failing… She appeared to space out again, and said no more. The display switched to a black screen with white words: TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES. PLEASE STAND BY.

What the…? Kassandra said, wide-eyed.

Slightly pudgier blonde Annabelle, sitting to Zara’s left on the long leather bench seat, was ghost-white. She turned to Kassandra and opened her mouth, but no words came out. Eventually, she managed, What if it happens here? What could cause this to happen?

Tall, Italian Antonio shook his head. I’ve never heard of such a thing! I’m too young and healthy to be affected anyway, probably…

The girls looked at him in utter disbelief. How the hell do you even know what it is?! Annabelle said. I bet a lot of the people who are dying are young as well!

Um…possibly… Antonio looked down and became silent.

The newscaster resumed. Some people are still alive in South America, but their numbers are dwindling rapidly… The blackjack dealer, a Spanish woman, fainted. The stunned silence among the other patrons suddenly broke. They grabbed their belongings and rushed for the door in a panicked babble of confusion. A small table tipped over, sending some drinks crashing to the floor.

I’m a universal citizen, Kassandra said, firmly. So, I’m not sticking around.

Uh...yeah, I need to get back to Paris, Annabelle said. My mother and sister are there.

My granddad’s company has ships and facilities all over the Solar System, and beyond, Kassandra said. Anywhere is better than Earth now. The shuttle I came in is at Lyon, and my charter plane’s at Nice. You guys are welcome to come too, of course. It may be the only way to survive.

I’m going home, I think, Antonio said, All three of us need to get to Nice airport though, whatever we’re doing. The girls grabbed their purses, and headed out into the hallway. A mob of agitated people stood around the small elevator doors.

Oh, my God!

This is the end!

Why’s this thing taking so long?

This is ridiculous! they said.

Let’s take the stairs, Kassandra said. Heels be damned! She took them off and stuffed the tiny shoes in her purse.

Antonio shrugged. Wingtips will do nicely. His black footwear matched his all-black outfit. They encountered others as they descended the four floors to ground level. The friends pushed their way out of the hotel’s crowded lobby, into the balmy summer evening. The sky to the right showed the last orange glow of sunset. Stars were visible overhead. The small, intimate, palm-fringed garden and frontage of the hotel were rapidly filling with frantic vacationers clutching bags and suitcases by Vuitton and Versace. One woman nearby cried, Maman! Maman!

There’s a long line to get a taxi, Annabelle said, looking towards the road that passed the front of the hotel. Those nearest to it waved madly at any passing vehicle. Expensive cars filed out of the parking garage, to their left, and out of the gate. Most of them turned right, towards France. One automatic taxi came to a halt at the curb. A dozen people rushed for it simultaneously. Angry tones were exchanged, before seven people—three more than it was meant to hold—boarded it. The oval machine bounced with the weight being packed into it. A stream of vee-tols, bean-shaped chrome and glass flying machines that could hold roughly ten people, passed 150 meters above. Their navigation lights shone like bright stars against the dusk. Their signature sound of rushing air could just be heard above the babble. The machines headed west along the coast, away from the tiny, wealthy enclave of Monaco. Their numbers grew even as the friends watched.

Kassandra closed her eyes, and shook her head. Why? Why? she cried. What if this is the end?!

Annabelle hugged her. I don’t know…hard to believe it’s even happening…

Antonio appeared to have been stunned, as he looked ahead, down the hill of ultra-expensive properties and palms to the harbor. It contained yachts of sweeping form, some trimmed in real gold. I’ll go to the vee-tol port and try and get us an air taxi, he said, snapping out of his trance. You two should keep trying to get a ground one. Whoever gets one first picks up the others. With that, he began the 200-meter walk through Monte Carlo’s narrow, ancient streets. Upon arriving, Antonio found a line of anxious people. How long is the wait? Antonio asked a finely-dressed middle aged lady in front of him, who had a fur boa draped around her neck.

There are none to be had, she said shortly, in a German accent, above the hubbub. We’re all trying to call them. Tears glistened in the light of the street lamps. She looked up at the stars. God, please don’t let it happen here! I’ll do everything you wanted me to. I’ll break it off with Bartolo! Just take this away! Someone else opened a display the size of a computer monitor, projected in mid-air from a silver device about the size of a cigar tube. It was showing a news broadcast. The top half, in red with white lettering, read: CATACLYSM. Below that were pictures of corpse-strewn streets and plazas taken from drones, gradually moving as the drone’s position changed. A ticker ran across the bottom with updates. People crowded around to watch.

What on earth could have happened? a woman said in an Austrian accent. Antonio took in the surreal scene. A vee-tol descended towards the landing pad, with a whooshing of air. A name was displayed in glowing red letters on its side: M & M Herbert. As the machine came to rest on the pad, an old man near the front of the crowd shouted: Get back! It’s mine! I am Herbert! His slightly-hunchbacked wife hung onto his left arm. The craft’s gullwing doors opened, revealing the entry steps. People stampeded into the transport, trampling the couple underfoot. It was packed, with faces pressed up against the glass. Its outside display changed to read WEIGHT LIMIT EXCEEDED. Antonio’s eyes widened as he watched the struggle. Get off! someone shouted from within the machine. At that he tried to shove others out. They all clung onto anything they could to stay on board. Fists soon began to fly. Antonio shook his head. Unreal, he muttered. Call Kassandra. His neural implants swung into action.

Any luck? Kassandra said.

No. I take it you didn’t get a taxi yet?

No, there are hardly any coming by. The ones that do are full, she said. People are starting to get angry.

Yeah. A fight just broke out over a vee-tol over here.

Silence reigned for a long moment, and then Annabelle said: If the uber-rich are already behaving like this, there’s no hope for the rest of us.

In the crowd in front of the hotel, a man next to Annabelle was watching a midair display that showed the news. This station and many others received a video moments ago, which appears to be a ransom demand, holding all of Earth hostage, the anchor said. His face shrank into an inset box in the corner of the screen, and the video played. It showed a balding Asian man, wearing an all-black robe, sitting on a glass throne. He began to speak.

"One hundred and five years ago, the world of Entara, belonging to the Yi Dynasty, was destroyed. Tens of millions of lives were lost. However, I, Seung Yi, and one hundred acolytes, lived. It is time to restore to us what was lost. We demand the entire planet Mars, with all its cities and industry left intact. We will then occupy it, and peacefully coexist with the rest of humanity. This is more than you deserve.

Thirty years ago, a nanovirus was delivered to Earth by stealth ships. It then multiplied, completely undetected, billions of times, and has unwittingly been breathed in and ingested by every man, woman and child. It answers only to us. Entara can activate it remotely, at will, in any geographic area we choose. We have already demonstrated its capabilities, as you can see. If necessary, we can activate it planet-wide, and all human life will be wiped out. I call it the Extinction Switch. My finger is on the button. You have six months to completely vacate Mars.

----

Over a billion kilometers from Earth, Saturn’s moon Titan continued its course around the vast planet. High above the satellite’s mottled brown surface, a white spacecraft orbited. She was roughly the size and shape of a large cruise ship. In place of an oceangoing ship’s bridge, however, was a thick circle, 200 meters across. Its exterior was featureless, save for one word in thick black letters: REVENANT. Her owner was Kato Sasake-Robbins, Kassandra’s grandfather. Revenant was his personal ship. However, he regularly took his family and a cadre of rich, prominent guests on tours of the Solar System.

Kassandra’s mother, Zara Nishimura, screamed as she watched Seung Yi’s ransom demand. This can’t be! He’s supposed to be dead! August 17th, 2357! We all saw the explosion, and he was wiped out! There wasn’t a shred left of Ceres, and nobody’s heard a peep from them in a hundred and five years! The long-haired, part-Japanese woman stood with her Japanese husband Akio and her father Kato in the lounge of the first class lounge. The large, opulent area had gently curved walls, which showed a gradually undulating pattern of blue hues——except for one, which showed a news broadcast. Full gravity was available, as the room was mounted in a large centrifuge that occupied the circular section of the ship.

It’s impossible… Kato said. The tan-skinned man shook his head slowly while looking at the news unfolding on the wall display. I mean, how…? They all died, every last one of them! He ran his fingers through his black hair, and exhaled. Umm… right. Well, what to do? Call Hans. Kato’s neural implant connected him with the ship’s captain. Have you seen the news? Kato said, on hearing Hans answer.

No.

Look.

There was silence for a minute, while the other man digested what he was seeing. Oh, my God… he said. We need to head back to Earth immediately.

Agreed. Make a ship-wide announcement, and then get us underway. Vast machines began to spin in the depths of Revenant’s hull. Their great mass generated gravity waves. Once these were in sync with the gravity field surrounding the ship, it promptly disappeared. Titan was once again on its own in the frozen depths of the Solar System.

Revenant re-entered spacetime, after an eight-minute warp flight, in orbit around Earth. She was 110 kilometers from the massive Earth Transport Interchange. The silver spaceport, whose backdrop was the white swirling clouds of the blue planet, had four terminal arms. They formed a two-kilometer-wide cross. Three kilometers away was another identical cross. They were connected by a massive cylindrical backbone. The station’s main function was to allow people and cargo from interplanetary and interstellar ships, which were not equipped for atmospheric entry, to transfer to winged shuttle craft, which were. Five minutes before they were due to dock, a serious voice emanated from a speaker on Revenant’s bridge: "Revenant, you are not, repeat not, authorized to dock. Earth has been placed under quarantine until the threat can be assessed. Nobody gets on or off until further notice."

"What?" Revenant’s Russian pilot said. This is the flagship of the Interstellar Space Industries fleet! We demand to dock!

We know who you are, but the FSE has mandated that all Earth-to-space traffic cease. FSE stood for Federated States of Earth, a weakening, but still alive, system of one world government.

Kassie! Zara cried, turning to Akio. Her long hair swished. She’s now stuck on Earth, in the middle of that mess!

Akio closed his eyes and nodded. There are no shuttles to or from the surface anymore. Call Kassandra, he said, as he looked away at the wall.

Connecting, he heard in his ear. A few seconds later: No bandwidth available.

Keep trying until you get through, Akio said.

Kato silently hugged his beloved daughter Zara. It’ll be okay.

I wish I could believe you.

If we can get Kass up here, our family will be safe from it…hopefully… Kato said.

Zara pulled away. Kato sighed. Crewmembers mumbled in the background. We have this crap inside of us, Dad! Zara said. All of us! Everyone who’s been on Earth in the last thirty years has breathed it in. He can throw the switch on any of us, at any time!

Kato closed his eyes. I’m trying not to think about it. This scenario is exactly what was envisioned when nano-weapons were banned in 2060. Something toxic that self-replicates ad infinitum. He paused for a minute. I suppose it makes sense, in a dark kind of way, that Seung Yi’d use nanotech to attack us all. After all, he learned most of the technology from when he worked for me.

CHAPTER TWO

Entara

----

The surface of a rocky world, roughly one third the size of the Moon, appeared before Seung Yi in 3D. This was a simulation of the dwarf planet Ceres. It had been claimed hundreds of years previously by the descendants of Seung Yi as their own world. They knew it as Entara. However, that civilization had ceased to exist 105 years previously, when Ceres was wiped out in a massive, inexplicable explosion.

Seung Yi’s face glowed from the reflected light of the world in front of him. His private chamber had red walls, with ornate gold trim at the edge of the high, white, embossed ceiling. With a two-finger swipe gesture, he touched the globe and zoomed in, and kept zooming until he was standing next to a metallic structure on the surface. It looked like a large factory, with an exterior much like anodized aluminum. There were two short, round chimneys, which ejected waste into space. The spoil, having had its precious iridium ore extracted, never fell back down due to the near absence of gravity. The roof of the facility said, in large Chinese characters, MINE 400A. A cargo ship descended slowly towards a landing pad nearby. Seung Yi dived through the wall of the plant. Men could be seen operating giant spherical smelters. With another flick of his fingers, Seung Yi went underground. Ingots of pure iridium moved along a conduit, propelled by wheels on all sides, to stop them floating away, towards the spaceport. More precious than gold. Than much pure gold. Let’s back up, and turn the globe. Zooming back out to a God’s eye view, more smelters were dotted here and there across the surface. Rotating some more. Ah, here we are. Civilization. A network of large, low domes could be seen. Smaller ones were connected to these. Doors opened in the top of the large ones, allowing spacecraft out, and admitting others.

Let’s go into one of the large structures. It was a spaceport. Lots of people and materials were moving through vertical shafts into Ceres’ interior. Seung Yi went under the surface into the areas beneath. There were large lobbies through which the shafts passed. Eight large passages radiated from each. He followed one. It was full of offices, with people working at 3D displays. Down he went, through hundreds of floors of living quarters. There were regimented clusters of six apartments, in a honeycomb shape. The one in the center of each cluster belonged to an officer. He kept order. Seung Yi went through the door of one family unit. A busy mother tried to corral eight children. There was a large screen on the wall, with text scrolling. Just how many people lived on Entara? Let’s turn the world, clockwise. Move up near the surface, and then down. An uncountable number of living units, going down kilometers beneath the surface. Turn again. The answer: millions and millions. Working and breeding for the common good.

Seung Yi’s eyes narrowed. It was all gone. Forever. Obliterated in a vast explosion. Seung Yi had lived there, but only in hibernation. He had never seen all this with his own eyes. The simulation was his only guide to what life had been like there. A perfect copy of him had been made and hibernated in a backup colony before the explosion. This was the only reason he was alive now, and also explained why he knew so little of something that had been built by his descendants. Let’s get back above the surface and rotate counterclockwise. Zoom. There it was! His pyramid. Two hundred meters high and built from rock. He went inside. The floors here had plush red carpeting. A level of workers, then doctors, then living quarters, meeting rooms, a control room, a hospital. And now… a boardroom! It was the headquarters of MX9, the corporation that handled the transactions between Entara and the rest of humanity. There was wealth beyond counting, as the mined fruits of Entara and other asteroids were sold to the greedy planets that demanded them in ever larger quantities. Now… up. Near the top was a large, plush chamber, with interior stone walls carved as smooth as glass. Not the corporation this time, but the home of the High Council who had run Entara during Seung Yi’s long sleep. They were sitting around the table. Their lips were moving, but no words coming out. And… there were Zan Tang and Tai Zu! The only two who had survived the explosion. Yes, it was definitely them. Seung Yi didn’t recognize the other ten Councilors. Above that was a private medical facility. Now, the very top. Dare he enter? He had to see what it actually looked like. Seung Yi went through the floor into a large, bare stone room, whose ceiling was a pyramid. In the center was a machine the size of a large chest freezer, with a glass lid that opened upwards. Inside: Seung Yi. He looked just like he was asleep. He bent over, and looked into the tranquil face of the original of himself.

Seung Yi zoomed out until he was back outside the pyramid, and looked at its stepped exterior, lit on one side by a weak, faraway Sun. Dots that were distant spacecraft moved slowly by in the background. Call Zan Tang, he said.

Yes, Master?

Come here.

Moments later, the gilded door of Seung Yi’s private quarters opened, and in came one of his trusted Councilors. Seung Yi turned to him. It’s hard to believe, it is not, that this entire, thriving world existed?

Yes it is.

An entire civilization, spanning hundreds of years, and I was there in the middle of it, asleep. Yet it was destroyed, by those who wanted to steal the wealth that we earned from mining. The only reason you and I exist today is because copies of us were made in another location, since our original selves were lost with the rest of Entara. It is almost as though we are ghosts.

You are a copy, Master, but I am the original Zan Tang. I volunteered to be hibernated and placed in the backup colony in case it was ever needed. I never for one second expected to be revived again. It seemed inconceivable that anything could wipe out the original Entara.

Seung Yi nodded, and turned to Tang. And yet… it happened. Wise indeed was the one who foresaw this possibility. So, while we are now reduced to living inside a rock, we will soon have the entire planet Mars to ourselves. The strong, industrious society I envision will be able to take root again. Once we are re-established, we can build interstellar warp ships and expand without limits.

CHAPTER THREE

Breakdown

Boulevards des Moulins, Annabelle said, once Antonio re-joined them at the hotel. Take it right, and the hyperloop’s about fifteen minutes’ walk. Next quickest way to Nice besides flying. The hyperloop was a levitating train that operated in a vacuum tunnel. It could reach immense speeds in the absence of friction.

Let’s go, Kassandra said. They headed off down the lush, palm-lined street. Normally quiet at that time of the evening, it was packed with people and vehicles. While they were still a few hundred meters up the hill from the station, they could see a crowd around it.

Some dejected-looking people were walking back up the street, in their direction. Broken! How can it be broken? At a time like this! came the tirade from a Frenchman with bushy eyebrows, walking towards them. His wife nodded passively.

Oh crap! Don’t say this thing isn’t working either! Annabelle said. A quick inquiry once they reached the edge of the agitated crowd confirmed it.

Kassandra’s jaw clenched, and her eyes narrowed. Dammit! Now what? Antonio shrugged. The three stood in silence for half a minute.

We might have to walk it, Annabelle said, at last.

What? Kassandra said. I’m not dressed for walking anywhere!

There doesn’t seem to be any other way, Antonio said. It’s only twelve kilometers or so.

Twelve kilometers?!

We might just have to suck it up, Annabelle said. "It will be fine once we get there, though. Once we get to your plane we’ll be in Lyon in an hour. You’ll be off Earth and out of danger soon after that, and we’ll be