The Last Enemy: Part 4 Volume 1 - 2055-2070

By Luca Luchesini

“The last enemy to be destroyed shall be death”, wrote St. Paul in his letters. But what if someone has already managed to defeat it? Thirty-four years have gone by since an ingenious biochemist, named Louis Picard, invented the ultimate anti-aging drug in 1981, that is known as Telomerax. Louis was obliged to form a selected group of technology entrepreneurs, finance mavens, and secret service professionals to help strategically spread knowledge of the drug. The discovery of Telomerax carried obvious dangers with it, eventually leading to the collapse of society and the near-extinction of mankind, in the ruthless war that broke out. Survivors set out to design a new society, specially designed for the half-gods that individuals were becoming. An action-packed and thrilling apocalyptic novel, “The Last Enemy”, brings to light many issues that we face today, from the clash between the power of the state and the right of citizens, to respecting our limits and controlling the human drive to push ourselves beyond those very limits.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Luca Luchesini
• Release date: Aug 7, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370514519

Luca Luchesini

I graduated in Telecom Networks Engineering from Politecnico di Milano in 1994 and have been working in multinational companies ever since. I started self-learning Mimetic theory in 2007 by reading all major works of Rene Girard. In 2011, I published a paper about West and Middle East relationship at the annual Girardian COV&R conference 2011 dedicated to “Order/Disorder in History and Politics”. You can reach me here: [e-mail]

Book preview

The Last Enemy

Part 4 – Volume 1

2055-2070

Luca Luchesini

Edited by Isabel Spinelli

Copyright 2017 by Luca Luchesini

Disclaimer

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, business establishments, events and locations is entirely coincidental.

Part Four

The New Order

Chapter 1

Nicolas Playan took his place in the pilot seat of the Elevator transport module number 41. Next to him, on his right, sat Waddah Al-Mofeez, the polyethylene space expert from the Arabian Union, and on the left there was Albert Goltsmann, the Russian space-drilling guru. They exchanged a greeting, and then Nicolas signaled to the control center they were ready for take off. The two people were the only passengers of that flight, the only other cargo was the usual 20 tons of compressed carbon dioxide to be released in high Earth orbit.

Even though we went through the lift-off briefing procedure for first timers like you, Nicolas said, you will be surprised to see how uneventful going into space has become. Just relax and enjoy the view.

He had barely finished the sentence when a slight bump signaled that the module had been put into motion. After a brisk acceleration, the speed was stabilized at the thirty-miles-per-hour cruise that would take them to the intermediate station, two-hundred miles above sea level. Due to cloudy weather, the rainforest of Equatorial Guinea quickly disappeared from their sight. Half an hour later, the module was entering the stratosphere. The crew started seeing the amazing curvature of the Earth, as the sky turned into a deeper blue.

Are those blinking lights above us the intermediate orbit station or a module on the way back? Albert asked.

It’s a module like ours on the way back, the station is still far away, Nicolas replied with some amusement. He was always getting the same questions, but he enjoyed answering them. "As you know, the Guinea Space Elevator now has thirty-five cables in service, which keep the intermediate station anchored in position while acting as guides for the transport modules like this one. The Elevator manages to send twenty-five shipments a day into outer space. We keep building new cables, just like the sister Elevators in Guyana and Kenya, and the new carbon nanotubes tethers allow bigger payloads.

The Plan calls for a capacity of one million tons per year by 2070, correct? Waddah remarked, That’s what we were told during the briefings.

I think we will do more, Nicolas replied, After the war, the decision was made to build the three facilities along the Equator, under the respective control of the United States and Brazil, the Euro-Russian Federation and China and India. It turns out that each of the powers is constantly increasing the budgets, and China and Japan have recently announced they will build a fourth Space Elevator station in Malaysia.

Have they overcome the challenges of building the Earth station in highly seismic areas? Albert turned away from the Earth’s surface and joined the conversation.

Apparently so, but nobody really knows how they managed. There is still a lot of work for secret services to do, Nicolas laughed. He then noticed that Waddah was looking up where the Mecca was on his smartwatch.

I beg your pardon, it’s prayer time, he said, then stood up and moved toward the rear of the crew module. I will be back soon, he added. Albert and Nicolas interrupted their conversation and waited until Waddah was back. When he returned, he broke the silence first.

I am really glad that the restoration work at the Holy Mosque is progressing well. Next year, the remaining war damages should be repaired, inshallah. Then it will be back to the splendor it was at the beginning of the century.

I am sure your government will make it on time, Albert conceded, After all, it is the most significant project to legitimate your new Union, that is stretching from the Turkish border to Oman. It won’t fail.

One always fails if he goes against God’s will, Waddah rebutted, then he fell silent, as if regretting his tone. Nico chimed in.

Well, it’s a similar situation in Europe, with the development plan of Budapest, the new seat of the Euro-Russian Federation. The city now has four million people and is growing, luring people from all corners of Eurasia. It’s now twice as big as London, or Paris, or my hometown, Madrid. Who would have said that twenty years ago, at the onset of the war?

No one, Albert whispered, looking outside the window. He deactivated his translating earbuds and continued in his very decent English, looking at Waddah. The only thing that did not change in the upheaval is your quarrel with the Jews, which continues the same as before the war, right, Waddah?

Waddah smiled, and switched to English as well. What used to be the State of Israel, is now occupied territory of the Jewish Republic of Cyprus within the Arab Union. And what used to be occupied territory of the State of Israel in the West Bank and Gaza, is now part of the Arab Union. To me, this more proof of the truth of the Holy Koran, which says that things will be settled once and for all only at Judgment Day.

I think we already came too damn close to Judgement Day, Albert snapped back, "and realized just in time we did not like it. My family lived in Moscow for five generations. They survived the Nazi attacks in World War 2, but