Chapter 2 Yeats (Excerpt)

Gustavus Yeats watched the spinning blue sphere on his monitor turn fire red and then black.

Planet Earth. He coughed and cleared his throat. He adjusted the CO2 and population variables

and spoke to his computer, MUSE:

“Run the protocol again.”

Planet Earth died again. He tweaked the global deforestation variables. He adjusted the population

variable to zero growth.

“Run the protocol again.”

The planet died again.

“Suggest variables that promote bio-stasis.”

MUSE answered with a new protocol. He ran it. The same result. Dark clouds blew into

the stratosphere, and greenhouse gases exploded into space. 

“Again, decrease fossil fuel consumption by 90 percent.”

Muse answered with another protocol. The planet withered and died. 

“It’s like cancer invading a cell,” Yeats thought. “Metastasizing.”

He watched the dying world on the screen turn and burn. His hands shook. His team had developed

over two thousand protocols in an attempt to understand the impact human beings were having on their planet.

None of the protocols turned out well. He stepped back from the monitor and stood up.

He walked to the window.

“How do we stop this from happening?” he said into his headset.

“Deep Core. Muse said, ‘Look at Deep Core.’”

Yeats walked back to the keyboard and typed in the coordinates. He looked at the Deep Core protocol again.

“How?”

“Stop, Deep Core. It is important in many ways.”

Satellite images of the Deep Core site flashed across the drop-down computer screen.

Images of the magma chambers beneath Yellowstone followed, then re-creations of previous eruptions.

Then, a turning, twisting grid map of the fault lines surrounding the Yellowstone Caldera.

The map showed the Deep Core drill casing at a depth of 8,000 feet. The map revealed

a major fault line at 8,500 feet. Mini clips appeared on the screen of a drilling technique called fracking.

Yeats watched the screen.

“Stop, Deep Core,” Muse said. “And you, stop everything.”

Yeats looked out his office window. He could see Lincoln Square. The beltway buzzed around him.

This was the city of freedom and light. But today it seemed very dark.