Context

By what WICO claims is coincidence, the number of regions and subregions now totals exactly one thousand. Maura suspects that such a round number is more likely an error correction based on the remote and direct observations accumulated over the past month, similar to the earlier increase in regions from around 120 to 300.

Maura and I went to the mountains for a break from work and the summer heat, but I knew it would be more than that when I found a Personal Environmental Assessment Kit in the trunk. We ended up at the site of the local test community (TC-013). “For fun” she demonstrated the full set of citizen observations, which includes a dozen added after I resigned from the GAP team. Several of the original residents were still there, and brought out their remaining instruments to verify our results. Maura and the others cheered when the observations matched to within ten percent, and teased me for not joining in.

Lei Kaleo and Maura’s cousin Ciera Johnson insisted that we all go to the nearest hot springs, which reminds the two best friends of one of their favorite activities when growing up. They lamented that the impending curtailment of air travel means they likely won’t get to return to their childhood home in Hawaii, whose rainforests are a large part of what led them to their present careers, but neither regrets moving to Colorado. During the trip, they all told stories of their time together, especially on the mountain; generally happy, some intriguing, and all providing context for current and future projects of both a personal and professional nature. 

ABOVE (L-R): Me, Maura, and Ciera.

Reality Check

I derived a mathematical formula for the cumulative population as a function of phase, and used it to derive total consumption as a function of phase. A key factor in the population function is dependent on sample size used in the calculation, which equals 1,000 when tweaked to get accurate values for global variables such as total resources and resources used by nature (as determined from historical analysis). 

The results for Hikeyay are shown below for 2019 year and 2040, the end of the transition. Basic functions of phase for life expectancy, happiness, fertility, and normalized population/nature are displayed along with the historical years that the world crossed, or is projected to cross, from one phase to another. Cumulative population is shown the given year. Cumulative consumption is also shown for the given year, as the fraction of maximum resources ever available (a total ecological footprint of approximately 3 Earths/year), while the total resources actually available due to reduction by self-sustained impacts is indicated by a dotted black line.

Resignation

The following are personal opinions of Will Jackson, and do not reflect the official or unofficial positions of the World Information and Coordination Organization, its personnel, or any of its affiliates.

I resigned from WICO last Saturday after refusing to give up writing my blog. “The Execution group runs a tight ship,” Victor Lansing told me, “and it must speak with one voice. That is especially true for our education component, since it has direct contact with the public. As a well-known member of my team, what you say to others has the weight of being part of that program, and must be subject to the same controls as the rest of the deployment.” He offered me the option of using the blog as an official announcement platform for the team, but I chose not to. “You are either a journalist or a team player, but you cannot be both. Since it is against WICO policy to fire someone for exercising free speech, Ambassador Lazlo might be amenable to assigning you to a position in a different group, just not this one.”

The ultimatum came at the end of his briefing, which had proved Samantha correct in her expectation that there could be no creative modification of the program by me or anyone else. The “field testing” he wanted would be mostly a means of tweaking efficiency based on assumptions already locked into the program. I asked if the assumptions had been tested by members of the test communities who were in the brainstorming sessions, but he refused to answer (in my personal and professional opinion, that meant “no”).

Samantha was disappointed but not surprised by my resignation. She thanked me for my service, and added that no one within WICO will be allowed to share any non-public information with me. I was, however, encouraged to take any steps on my own to further the goals of the strategy and encourage others to do the same. This post is the first such step.

Reality Check

My experience with real projects and vision of what drives Will overrode my inclination to keep him in WICO. Also, he can now return to reporting events outside of his job focus.

Education

TIME TO STRATEGY EXECUTION: 45 DAYS

The global strategy is now officially in “deployment,” the initial step in its execution, which is being managed by the Strategy Tracking, Response, Integration, Development, and Execution (STRIDE) office’s Execution group. Our General Assistance and Processing (GAP) team expected that this wouldn’t have an impact on us since we report to STRIDE’s director, Samantha Lazlo, but we were wrong.

“Having taken the initiative to educate the public,” Samantha began in a remote meeting with us this morning, “you will be exclusively helping the Education group roll out its public training program.” I glanced at Maura and Al, who looked as surprised as I was. “Their brainstorming with the test communities has yielded some promising results,” she continued, “and Victor Lansing is anxious to get you involved in field testing them.”

“Is Victor’s group now part of the Execution group?” Maura asked her.

“I’m sorry. I misspoke. Since the Education group also has other responsibilities, within WICO and on other projects, their Extinction Strategy Support team will be a functional report to our Execution group, and you will be reporting to that team. Victor is now exclusively managing its efforts.”

I couldn’t resist shaking my head in disbelief that such bureaucratic nit-picking still mattered. “Will we have any say in the content?” I asked hopefully.

“That will be up to Victor, but I expect not. However, Sally has expressed interest in pursuing any suggestions your team may have, since she is now managing WICO’s response to direct public inquiries. The CORE training you did yesterday was particularly helpful to her.”

“I’ve been wonderin’ what the cybercritter’s new role was gonna be,” Al said.

“That’s just one of her roles. To her, I think it’s more of a hobby.”

“Sure it is,” Al muttered.

Maura called Victor after the meeting. He will give us an in-person briefing this weekend. In the mean-time, he wants us to document what we already shared with the public, going back to our first PEAK tests.

“It’s like submittin’ a sample for a freakin’ job application,” Al said, reflecting my own reaction. 

Maura looked pensive. “I’d like to know what else he plans to do with it.”

Reality Check

My personal experience with organizations informs this scene, along with interest in exploring an intersection of two of my careers: as a test engineer, and as an educational developer/consultant.

Outreach

TIME TO STRATEGY EXECUTION: 46 DAYS

Any other organization likely would have fired me for what happened yesterday and insisted that I take down this blog, but WICO has decided to keep me on with no restrictions on my speech. Samantha Lazlo provided an explanation in a video statement posted this morning on the Global Strategy Public Update site:

“The World Information and Coordination Organization encourages all efforts at public outreach by our staff and affiliates who are familiar with the global strategy and support its goals. In the interest of performing its core function of disseminating information and coordinating action to maximize success, WICO requests that strategy-specific observation and interactive direction protocols be used wherever possible. An overview of the protocols is available on this site, and WICO staff will be available to answer any questions and provide additional guidance.”

Maura, Al, and I had just finished being remotely debriefed on our trip by the Quality Assurance team’s test community support managers when we learned about the statement. Rachael Zeitman, the manager of TC-014, reflected the general opinion of the other staff there and at the Rocky Mountain Operations Center by thanking me - in colorful language - for “effectively shutting down our operations.” I reminded her of the facts (discussed in yesterday’s blog post), but she and the others considered them irrelevant in light of the new directive. “The communities are going to be in the front lines of PR and training now,” she said. “Our test conditions will be corrupted, and the remaining goals aren’t going to be met. Congratulations, blogger! The rest of your tasks just evaporated!”

The RMOC was inundated with calls, e-mail messages, and online requests for help, most of them directed at me and Maura. A crowd of visitors larger than the one on Blue Planet Day swarmed the office. “This is great, isn’t it?” I observed. “It’s exactly what we were hoping for!”

Maura was waiting on her phone, and smiled. “Yes, it is,” she said. “I’m trying to get the Extinction Response Unit to take some of the load. I wish Samantha had mentioned that first.”

I wondered if the suggestion was already in the online guidance. Al was way ahead of me. He showed me the site on his phone. “It’s step number one, includin’ links to the ERUs in every country.” To Maura, he said, “That’s probly why you aren’t gettin’ through.”

“So much for a managed roll-out,” Maura muttered, still smiling.

“Where’s Colorado’s test community?” someone shouted over the crowd, and Maura’s smile turned into a frown. “Yeah, where’s TC thirteen?” someone else asked.

“It’s in a protected area,” I responded, hoping that as Coloradoans they would respect the implications of that statement. “We’ll need permission to change that status, but we might be able to get some of their members to brief you on what they’ve learned.”

Maura nodded thankfully as my answer was accepted, and began speaking on the phone. That gave me an idea about how to fill an obvious gap.

“How would everyone like to get a lesson on those protocols Ambassador Lazlo mentioned?”

Fifteen minutes later, Al and I were facing the crowd at one edge of the parking lot bordering a hiking trail, holding backpacks of gear we used at the test communities. Two hours after that, we completed the first of what will become regular hands-on classes in what is now known as CORE: Coordination, Observation, Recording, and Exploration.

ABOVE: Screen-grab from Ambassador Samantha Lazlo’s statement.

Reality Check

Lazlo’s statement is consistent with her encouragement - and selective discouragement - of Will from the beginning of their interactions. The image of her at the end of the post shows the WICO logo in the background, which represents land, water, and microbial life.

Maura’s reaction to the question about TC-013 masks a large part of her backstory, which ties directly to the origins of the community through a connection to her family.

The CORE gear has yet to be revealed. A version available to the public would include the Personal Environmental Assessment Kit (PEAK).

Rebellion

TIME TO STRATEGY EXECUTION: 47 DAYS

The GAP team was surprised to discover that a discussion during our last assignment resulted in world headlines, exemplified by this story in this morning’s Montana Highlevel Review (reprinted with permission):

WICO TEST COMMUNITY GOES ROGUE

By Jonathan Tolliver, Staff Reporter

The small town of Sieva is ground zero for a rebellion in the World Information and Coordination Organization’s effort to launch a global strategy designed to combat the threat of imminent ecological collapse. According to the local newspaper, the Sieva Times, at least three dozen members of a reclusive commune called Vitalla visited the town at noon yesterday and began proselytizing the residents and businesses to join a movement they call “Possibilities from Responsibilities.” Leader of the group Louis Delambre revealed that Vitalla is actually one of WICO’s test communities, and its residents have decided on their own to “enable people to control their own destiny using the basic principles of long-term survival: responsibility, empathy, and curiosity.” 

Online research by Sieva Times owner and chief correspondent Brendan Wells revealed that the new movement has much in common with a suggestion posted Friday by blogger Will Jackson, who was recruited by WICO to help recover from the attack on its servers and is now assisting with the finalization of the global strategy. “It’s simple deduction,” Wells wrote, “that Vitalla is TC-015, the second of two test communities that Jackson was planning to visit on WICO business. This begs the question: Did he incite its members to go rogue?”

Jackson was unavailable for comment.

I’m commenting now. I unequivocally did not incite anyone to “go rogue.” My discussion with Delambre and several other people in the community was part of a sharing of ideas about the next steps in the roll-out of the strategy. Besides, my views were already known before the visit (published as personal opinion in this blog), and I must emphatically emphasize that there is nothing wrong with them. Further, more research by Mr. Wells and Mr. Tolliver - who should know better - would have revealed that test communities are mostly staffed by volunteers who are free to leave at any time, and that includes Louis Delambre.

The survival of humanity, and the other species affected by what we do, is determined by all of us. We all have a stake in it, which means we have a stake in each other and the world we share. The basic principles cited by Delambre encapsulate these facts as requirements for how we must all live to enable it. My friend, and coworker, Maura Riddick has a more personal way of putting it: “A lasting life worth living consists of sharing, loving, and knowing.” We don’t need a formal strategy (or an organized movement - sorry, Louis) to tell us when or how to begin. When is now, and how is for us to decide with the help of others.

Reality Check

Sieva is not a real town, but it is crudely modeled on an existing one in the vicinity of the fictional test community TC-015 (Vitalla).

While “Will” was offline, I worked on updating the simulation and the global strategy that derives from it. The following graphs show the latest results. 

Note: 

·     GWP (Gross World Product) is world GDP

·     C is consumption/person, which includes needs, wants, and waste

·     R is total consumption

·     Rmax is total resources

·     “Mid case” of sustained resource decline is chosen for the detailed projections

·     Population is only constrained (~ -2% annual change) during the initial descent

·     Target total consumption is equal to 1 Earth/year instead of 0.5 Earth/year

End of initial descent is in 2045 (instead of 2040) for better population control

Gap Fillers

TIME TO STRATEGY EXECUTION: 53 DAYS

Al Menzies joined Maura and I today on what is now officially the General Assistance and Processing (GAP) team. It’s far from what I expected when Maura advertised it as “special operations”: we will essentially be assisting other local teams with tasks that they can’t work on because of higher priorities.

Ambassador Lazlo announced it today at the Boulder field office, whose official name (Rocky Mountain Operations Center) she insisted we start using. As soon as she left we were presented by personnel there with a ten-page list of items in need of attention throughout the region. The first page was filled with a list of measurement instruments at TC-013 that needed onsite calibration, so we decided to go there first.

The residents of the test community left for a training event, leaving us alone with a set of e-book manuals, a paper map, and Al’s expert assistance to perform the calibrations. Lazlo had given us full latitude to suggest improvements and list any issues we might find with any task we were assigned, and for me the first one was obvious: simplify both the instruments and the procedures so that a layman could do the job without electronic help. Second on my list of improvements was map standardization, because even someone like me with basic navigational skills was having a lot of trouble using this particular map to find the instruments.

We were done with the calibrations by mid-day, but had to wait for at least one member of the test community to return before we could leave. Al wanted to explore the rest of the area, so Maura gave him the tour while I typed up our report at the guest cabin (the one place I hadn’t been before) using a manual typewriter that was at least forty years old and had an inked ribbon that was probably bought online. I wondered if even that technology will be viable thirty years from now if the strategy is successful.

Reality Check

Will is beginning to ask some of the hard questions, as was intended by forming his new team. In my experience, you learn the most by trying to DO something rather than predicting it.

Simplified Discovery

TIME TO STRATEGY EXECUTION: 56 DAYS

Three copies of the new Personal Environmental Assessment Kit arrived Saturday morning; and I spent most of the weekend trying one of them out while WICO’s Boulder field office and residents of TC-013 did a set of formal tests with the other two. Al accompanied me part of the time as an informal observer, recording my reactions and his while Sally monitored my progress (along with everyone else’s) via cell phone.

The number of assemblies in the PEAK was reduced to six, the largest being a compact device for measuring air pollution that relies on optical comparison and a reusable set of fine filters. Instructions were fewer too, with the design modified to be as intuitively obvious as possible without sacrificing functionality. As I wrote my observations in the kit’s logbook, I noted the simplicity of its new checklist format which together with an abridged guidebook removed context for the ecosystems being measured, and I wondered if useful understanding was being lost as a result.

“Consider the audience, Will,” Al said when I shared my concern during a lunch break yesterday. “You’re gonna have pros with cleanup tech out there with these folks who what they’re talkin’ ‘bout. No-one’ll be confused.” He picked up the can of biosafing solution. “Meantime, they’ll be usin’ this magic potion that’s general ‘nuff that it won’t matter what else they got.”

“I don’t trust that stuff, Al,” I said. “How do we know it won’t cause some other problem? The user should be able to tell if it does.”

“Someone close’ll know. That’s why they knocked the number of kits down to one per community instead of givin’ one to everyone.” That wasn’t the only reason, or even the main reason, but I wasn’t going to quibble.

“Sally,” I said, knowing the phone would automatically connect us. “What’s the reason for changing the formats of the guide and log?”

“Al was partly right, Will,” she answered over the speaker. “Although user feedback was very much appreciated, the major driver in the redesign was the ecological impact of kit production, maintenance, and recycling, and disposal. A reevaluation of education in the strategy was the second largest driver. It is now oriented toward discovery and relationship identification rather than information dissemination, with a focus on developing knowledge and understanding for the purpose of constructing a survival-constrained reality.”

“That’s quite a mouthful, cybercritter,” Al told her. “If I get what she-it means,” he said to me, “they bought your creation deal and ran with it.”

“Is that true, Sally?” I asked, suspecting it was more likely a logical outgrowth of the rules already in the strategy.

“Your edits and summaries of the rules are part of the substrate that led in that direction,” she said. “It made more sense to some of us when that context was identified.” By some of us, she clearly was referring to herself.

“How is the Education group managing that?”

“They’re holding what they call open brainstorming sessions with test communities, although the sessions don’t tend to match the technical definition of brainstorming. Their success is, however, undeniable.”

I relayed that discussion and the general progress of the tests to Maura when she called me this afternoon. She had already been briefed by the team, and expects to be back at work here on Wednesday. “I won’t be your boss anymore,” she added. “Samantha’s putting us together as a special ops team operating out of Boulder, where I’ll continue to be a liaison with the Extinction Response Unit. Meanwhile, you might want to read the latest copy of the strategy, which just dropped today.”

Reality Check

One of the elements common to most of my fiction is a selection of characters as observers who essentially report on what they see and experience in situations of interest. 

In this case, Will progresses through several roles that expose him - and the reader - to various aspects of his world’s preparation for dealing with its extinction crisis. The people he interacts with represent forces that could logically influence the trajectory of events or provide some insights into why things are happening the way they are.

Sanda/Sally is in the unique position of critically influencing events and understanding the underlying variables as parts of a simulation (which we’ve learned she experiences everything as). She also enables a fictional exploration of the human/technology interaction whose rapid evolution people in our world are being forced to experience. 

Friendly Interrogation

TIME TO STRATEGY EXECUTION: 67 DAYS

“You’re way too focused on downscalin’us, Miss Riddick,” Al Menzies said over dinner as part of a far-ranging discussion last night at his house in Boulder. Maura had just been informed that she wouldn’t have anything to review for another day, so we weren’t in a rush to leave. Al added defiantly, “There’re a lotta people who need to upscale!”

She tightly squeezed my hand under the table, surprising me as much as the calmness in her voice when she answered. “The crap, as you call it, is mostly ours. We created it and we live in it. We have the tools, and the responsibility, to clean it up.”

 “Good point.” He grinned, having just given her his greatest compliment. Beside him as he faced us was a hardcopy of the latest global strategy, sticky notes protruding from more than half its pages. I suspected that he could summarize every one of them from memory. “What do your test subjects in, oh, Indonesia have to say ‘bout all this?”

Maura closed her eyes, and I felt a warm peacefulness envelop me as her grip relaxed. “They know that in many ways they are in a microcosm of the world,” she said, “facing pollution and land degradation as a result of industrial growth and natural hazards that have already pushed two-thirds of them into a state of collapse.” She opened her eyes and released my hand. “Now that the strategy has been improved and better explained, they see it as generally helpful and are providing valuable feedback about how it can be specifically implemented.”

“I’m sorry, but that sounds like pure boilerplate talkin’ points. Are they usin’ the same measurement and reportin’ protocols as everyone else?” Before she could answer, he added, “And does ‘collapse’ mean the same thing there as it does here?”

“Yes, and yes,” she answered bluntly. “We built and calibrated most of the basic capabilities during the biosphere assessment, and then expanded them to cover the remaining variables with multiple checks for reliable acquisition and interpretation of data. Of course, we can supplement the suite as conditions and interest warrant. Our main project now is to create a subset that everyone can use to get useful information, share it, and quickly know what it means.”

Al sat back, a mix of confusion and admiration on his face. “Are you sure you’re a historian and not an engineer?”

“She’s more than both those things,” I said, recalling the training as an enforcement officer that goes into becoming a special agent for the Extinction Response Unit which I learned about yesterday. “You didn’t tell her that you’ve got colleagues doing environmental research all around there, Al.”

“What do they think about what we’re doing?” Maura asked him.

“Like me, they figger humans survivin’ past mid-century will be like hittin’ a blade of grass with a dart from the moon, even with your cybercritter Sally callin’ the shots.”

“It’s going to be a pretty big dart,” she said.

“We’ll see, we’ll see.”

Caleb Tosner called Maura early this morning with two candidates for what he insisted on calling a “personal environmental assessment kit” or PEAK. I offered to pick her up at her parents’ house, but she insisted on joining me at the WICO field office after she had reviewed the designs on her own and met with Felicity Jonas at USERU. In the meantime, I was to get fully acquainted with WICO’s reporting protocols as practiced in the Rocky Mountain area.

We both ended up taking most of the day to accomplish our objectives. When we finally met, Maura briefed me and the personnel in Boulder about her choice for the PEAK, and I described what I think is a critical flaw in the reporting protocols that I’m sure we’ll be discussing into the night.

Reality Check

Maura’s description of Indonesia is based on a simulation I did using publicly available statistics (below), along with some basic research about the nation.

The “flaw” that Will discovered is based on an insight I had while analyzing the results of the simulation.

Feedback

TIME TO STRATEGY EXECUTION: 74 DAYS

Yesterday, results from a year-long test at thirty sites around the world were received and are being integrated into the global strategy. The sites are essentially very large greenhouses that simulate the effects of reducing ecological impact on self-sustained warming and polluting mechanisms like those currently threatening our planet. Details of the observations are also being used to identify methods that can decelerate and potentially “disconnect” the underlying feedback loops.

Sally generated several new versions of the Hope Chart. None of them showed full success, as defined by the leveling off of total resources and corresponding constant population that was a fixture of the previous versions. At best, our demise was delayed by several decades when following the original approach of reducing our ecological impact over the next twenty years.

“The lowering of direct impact was always about buying time to fill in those TBDs,” Maura said at a mid-morning team briefing. “Now we have a better idea how big the gap is. While Sally and the development team work on updating the strategy, our focus will be on designing tests and observation protocols that can be performed by virtually anybody to both supplement global awareness and inform local supporting activity. Feel free to use all the test sites, and provide any and all feedback to Sally for assessment and distribution to the other teams as she deems appropriate.”

Later, as we sat in her office developing an action plan for me to follow, she gave me some positive feedback. “Your creativity ideas are going to be particularly relevant now. Everyone has to be engaged, a lot of them as naturalists identifying what’s important to concentrate on and how actions will impact their local environments, both artificial and natural. That takes a level of dedication that comes from having a personal stake in the process as well as the outcome. I’ve seen you do that every day, and I’d like you to think more about how to share it.”

Reality Check

I created a new simulation of interactions between a global population and three contributors to a decrease in total resources available for consumption. The contributors are represented in the Hope Chart as low, medium, and high warming based on extrapolation of the non-linear component of historical data. Curve fits to graphs of cumulative total consumption vs. projected warming were used to approximate the effect of lowering total consumption.

Following is one of the Hope Charts I created with the new simulation:

Maura’s pep talk reflects what I’ve been telling myself lately, and its content mirrors a similar approach I practiced when I was active in the community of amateur astronomers.

Bugs

TIME TO STRATEGY EXECUTION: 90 DAYS

There was a predictable range of reactions to Sally’s announcement, from fear to skepticism to jubilation. She held hundreds of interviews, many simultaneously, while Secretary General Decatur and Ambassador Lazlo tag-teamed the top tier media with reassurances that testing was ongoing and that Sally would continue her original work only after WICO was certain of her fitness to do so. 

I was swamped with requests for interviews and reluctantly turned down all but a couple so I could focus on my current job. At our morning meeting, Riddick reminded me that my priorities remained the same. “We’re assuming for now that this ‘Sally’ personality is a new bug, so I want you to include it in your evaluation of Sanda’s past performance and its impact on the current strategy.” I had already debriefed Sally on the strategy’s status and inconsistent behavior before the crash, but Management clearly wasn’t satisfied with her answers. “Also, I think it’s time we go into the field to get some of what our test friends call ‘ground truth’.”

“Aren’t you concerned about the fallout from Sally’s revelations?” I asked her, imagining she would be locked in her office for the next few days just sorting through the public’s reactions. I still couldn’t figure out why my blog posts weren’t driving her crazy.

“I’ve got it covered,” she said softly without explanation, and closed her eyes in what I assumed was dismissal.

Four hours later we stood next to an unpaved road in the middle of a rural community that the test team referred to as TC-186. Around us were single level buildings made of something resembling thatch, and in the distance was a field with what looked like tall weeds growing in rows under tents separated by small groups of short trees. The low hum of insects emanated from a garden in the shadow of the building in front of us.

“Welcome to the future!” a man yelled from behind the building. He emerged, dressed in simple brown clothes, deeply tanned, and all of thirty years old. “You must be Will,” he said happily, shaking my hand. “Hello Seer,” he greeted Riddick.

“‘Seer’?” I asked him.

“Our nickname for Miss Riddick, because she sees everything.”

“It just seems that way,” she said offhandedly. “How are you, Jim?”

“Doing better, now that the bugs are back,” he said, leading us into the building which revealed itself to be a house. “The poison’s almost eradicated.”

“Pesticide,” Riddick said for my benefit. “What are the sensors reading?” she asked Jim.

“See for yourself,” he replied, striding up to a table against one of the walls. On the table, a small instrument was dominated by a screen that showed spikes on a graph above a row of numbers.

“Ninety percent of the worst components are gone,” Riddick read. “What’s the health rate of the sample insects?”

“About that same rate,” Jim said. “Plot forty-three isn’t doing so good. We think the plants were compromised before application, dropping effectiveness.”

“Insects are getting hit by both increasing temperatures and pollution poisoning their food,” Riddick explained to me. “The best we can do now is the first step in the strategy’s physical component: protecting, cleaning, and repairing. The latest cleaning treatment from the WDP group is in the final stage of its field test, just in time, but we have to have reasonably healthy plants since it needs the plants’ help to do the work.”

“Toxic to non-toxic in less than three days!” Jim added.

“It looks like you’ve also got a start on the next step, nurturing,” I said to him, thinking of the insects in garden.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Sharing and multiplying will happen when safety is verified, which is a-ways off.”

We spent several hours with Jim and a dozen of the other residents touring the rest of the community, including its nascent food supply which consisted of widely dispersed gardens and an orchard at the edge of a small forest. During the tour, I quizzed the residents about their experience with the strategy so far.

“The consensus seems to be that the early stages could work,” I commented to Riddick on the trip back to the facility.

“That’s to be expected,” she said. “Sally has the highest confidence in that part.”

I was surprised by her positive tone and use of Sally’s chosen name. “You know I’m going to write about this, right?”

“Yes. I always expect you’ll share what we talk about.”

“Okay. What do you really think about Sally’s claims?”

“In my line of work, perception is as important as objective observation because they both influence people’s behavior.”

“That sounds almost like one of Sally’s rules,” I noted, “and you didn’t answer the question.”

“I appreciate the fact that she challenges assumptions,” Riddick said after a long pause, “and that she cares about her own future as much as the future of those she was designed to serve. I also like that she has searched for her own value system and come down on the side of what I would call good. If she was a person, I could see us being friends.” She turned to me as I drove. “What about you?”

It was clearly a rhetorical question, but I answered it anyway.  

Reality Check

Insects are very much in decline for the reasons Riddick cited. One of the biggest and most urgent challenges involved in delaying extinction is saving these creatures that contribute critically and immensely to the health of many other species, including ours.

The “treatment” used to detoxify pesticides is purely fictional.