Chapter 1 - "HOW IT ALL BEGUN"

Samina had personally known Elisabet Sobeck for over a decade, ever since the red-haired scientist attended Dr. Ebadji's conference about the repercussions of the Great Die-Off on the mentality of modern society.

After the conference, Elisabet approached her to congratulate her on her speech and they started discussing the opportunity of co-writing of an essay on the impact of green technologies in restoring the world's natural biosphere following the Great Die-Off during the 2030s.

Of course, Dr. Ebadji had heard of the great Dr. Elisabet Sobeck the moment the woman had become the Chief Scientist of Faro Automated Solutions after only two years working for the company. Samina was surprised to find that, contrary to her initial scepticism towards the world-renowned scientist, Dr. Sobeck was not only a truly brilliant and talented scientist, but also a cultured woman with a deep altruistic concern for the world and its inhabitants.

By the time Samina and Elisabet's co-written essay had been published, the two women had become good friends, and regardless of their busy work schedules they agreed to always find the time to review their respective publications and to meet in the USA or in New Tehran for lunch at least one a year.

It was towards the end of 2064 that two men rang Samina Ebadji's doorbell one morning while she was getting ready to go to work: as soon she opened the door, the two strangers pushed her back inside the house and entered, closing the door behind them. Just as Samina was considering her options - trying to escape inside one of the rooms, putting up a fight, screaming for help,… - she noticed the men were holding semi-automatic guns in their hands, guns which now were pointed directly at her.

Before the academic could even be able to elaborate any hypothesis on what was happening, one of the men took a step forward: "Dr. Ebadji, Elisabet Sobeck has requested your immediate extraction to the United States to assist her on a project of the utmost importance. Please follow us without resisting, and we will not require to use force."

Samina considered the situation for a second, and opted for following the two armed men without opposing resistance: there was no logic to putting up a fight against two armed men who looked like they belonged to an army, or a private militia, and the curiosity was starting to grow in Samina's mind about what this project the two men mentioned could be.

If what they said is true, this promises to be interesting… Thought the woman as she entered a black SUV with tinted windows. She looked out the car window as the city passed her by and she felt a strong sense of melancholy, as if she was about to leave the New Tehran she knew so well behind forever. I really need to stop being so dramatic… She thought trying to shake off that thought.

After half an hour, the SUV finally came to a stop, and Samina's passenger door opened. Her and the two men were in a private hangar of the New Tehran International Airport, where a Citation XLS+ private jet was ready to take off, the engines already rolling.

Dr. Ebadji knew that it would be quite the flight from New Tehran all the way to the US, so she sat down in the comfortable leather seat of the luxury jet and let her mind wander, unsure of what the day would bring.

Finally, the jet hit the landing strip. Samina felt like she had been in the air for days, but a quick look at her watch informed her she departed from New Tehran just eighteen hours prior.

The two men that had come to extract her from her home got out of the plane with her and accompanied her to a second black SUV. This time Samina, who always had a very good eye for details, noticed that the SUV displayed a US government plate.

It took another one-and-a-half-hour drive before Dr. Ebadji and the two men reached their destination: what looked like a decommissioned Orbital Launch Base in the middle of nowhere.

As soon as the three entered the facility, Samina noticed that eight other people were present in the large reception area, as well as several armed guards. She could recognise a few notable figures in the crowd, Dr. Patrick Brochard-Klein, one of the authors of the 2048 Raleigh Accords, and Dr. Margo Shĕn, ex-FAS employee and world-class expert in robotics. Samina recalled Elisabet speaking very highly of Dr. Shĕn, defining her "a woman with an unwavering work ethic, along with a deep enthusiasm for her field".

Samina deduced she was the last person the group was waiting for, because shortly after her arrival all of the people gathered in the room were informed by the guards that they were about to enter a conference room where they would have a meeting with Dr. Sobeck and General Herres of the Joint Chiefs of Staff concerning the much-rumoured Project: Zero Dawn.

The conference room itself was a spacious, minimalistic room with only a large round table at the centre and a dozen chairs around it. Two of the chairs were already occupied by Elisabeth Sobeck and a man who Samina imagined to be General Herres. She had seen the military man several times in interviews on tv, but the man sitting in that room seemed much older than she would have expected, as if the past few weeks had a deep impact on him. Elisabeth herself didn't look too healthy herself, noticed Samina, dark circles under her eyes now more evident than ever.

As all nine guests reluctantly took a seat at the table, Elisabet Sobeck stood up from her chair: "Thank you ladies and gentleman for your presence at such short notice. You must be wondering the reason for which you have been conducted here in such a hurry. I am sure you have all heard of the swarm of Faro robots gone rogue in Australia. Unfortunately, over the past few weeks this issue has proven to be more serious than originally anticipated, and has forced us to prepare an action plan to counter it: Project: Zero Dawn. I will leave now word to General Herres, who will illustrate the plan in more detail."

As Elisabeth took a seat once again, General Herres stood up from his chair and placed his hands behind his back solemnly: "Thank you Dr. Sobeck. Welcome everybody to Project: Zero Dawn. I'm sure you've heard the rumours: that Zero Dawn is a top-secret super-weapons program, the technological miracle that will save us from the Faro Plague- if Operation: Enduring Victory can hold off the robots long enough. The reason I'm sure you've heard the rumours is that I'm the one who spread them, and they are all lies: Zero Dawn is not a super-weapons program, and it will not save us. Nothing can. By the time a glitch was noticed in the Australian swarm, it was already too late: nothing can be done to stop the Faro Plague, the robots will continue to replicate and devour the biosphere, exterminating life on Earth. This is the horrible truth behind the lies of Operation: Enduring Victory - my lies - lies designed to inspire millions of innocents to sacrifice themselves in battle. Why? For one reason only: to buy time for you and the work you will do here. Zero Day - the day that life on Earth ceases to exist - is coming fast, and it cannot be stopped. The hope of Zero Dawn is that something new might come after."

The scientists looked at each other, confused by the General's words.

"So, what is really Project: Zero Dawn?" asked Samina, even more perplexed than she was when she stepped foot into the conference room.

Dr. Sobeck forwarded a presentation file to the Focuses of all the scientists: "Zero Dawn is a top-secret project to create an automated terraforming system that will restore life on Earth after it will be eradicated by the Faro Plague. Life on Earth can't be saved, but it might be able to start over in the future, with your help. This is where you come in: each one of you has been carefully selected due to your maximum expertise in your respective fields. As the team of Alpha scientists selected to be the lead designers and implementors of Project Zero Dawn, you will have at your orders a team of Beta and Gamma personnel to help you reach the completion of the project in time for Zero Day, when life on Earth will be eradicated by the Faro Plague."

"But- Perhaps we could work on the decodification of the deactivation codes to shut down the rogue swarm, and try to savage whatever is left of the human population once the decoding has been completed." suggested hesitantly a man with short, blonde hair.

"I'm afraid, Mr. Tate, that attempting to regain control of the swarm would be a waste of time: since their cryptographic protocols use polyphasic entangled waveforms, cracking a code set would take half a century. At best, we have fifteen months." replied General Herres in a resolute tone that left no room for discussion, but the scientist at the opposite end of the conference table didn't seem willing to listen to reason just yet.

"But if the Army upgrades the fleet, maybe we can defeat the rogue swarm! Maybe there is still a chance to fight back!"

At that point, Elisabet Sobeck stood up herself, bothered by that waste of precious time: "Robots will not do the fighting for us this time, Travis! And when it comes to hacking, this rogue swarm is an apex predator: anything automated you throw at it, it will hijack and take over! The enemy we're facing self-replicates faster than we can kill it, and it eats biomass as fuel. Project: Zero Dawn is the only chance we've got."

Silence fell on the congregation of scientists: everyone had heard the projections, and everyone knew that Dr. Sobeck was right. Nonetheless, that didn't make the situation any easier to accept.

Elisabet started walking around the conference table, observing the reactions of her fellow scientists. Stopping besides Samina, she rested a hand on the colleague's shoulder, in an attempt to reassure her friend.
"Unfortunately, there is no effective way of fighting off the rogue swarm, and life on Earth will become eventually extinct on Zero Day. Instead of uselessly attempt to fight back the robots, our plan is to focus on the preservation of the human genome and knowledge, so that humanity can still have a future. In the following fifteen months, we'll be creating an automated terraforming system that will first work on cracking the Faro Plague's deactivation codes, then broadcast them through tower stations located across the globe to shut down the robots, and then finally restore life on the planet, providing the new generations with an archive of human knowledge so that they will be able to repeat our successes and learn from our mistakes."

"So, to summarise, Project Zero Dawn aims to restore life to Earth after its extermination by the Faro Plague, while Operation: Enduring Victory's true purpose would be to delay the advance of the Faro Plague until the project is completed. Is that correct?" asked a man in his 40s with a marked French accent.

Elisabet nodded in agreement: "Essentially yes, Patrick. But Zero Dawn's governing AI will need to rely on a ramified structure of subordinate functions in order for it to work, and this will make building the system a much more complex challenge than any computer engineering project ever attempted. The governing AI will be tasked with running the code-breaking required to deactivate the Faro Swarm and overseeing operations to make the Earth eventually come back to life. In order for her to accomplish this, she will be assisted by nine sub-components, each dedicated to a single, specific task. I know it sounds like an impossible challenge, but with the help of all of you we might be able to accomplish it."

"You people are crazy if you think that I will stay here any longer listening to these absurdities! I'm sorry we wasted each other's time, but I'm ready to leave now." said Travis Tate standing up and heading for the door, only to be stopped by two armed soldiers. Still shocked by the surreal situation, the programmer turned to face General Herres.

"Mr. Tate, I understand that denial is often the first reaction upon learning of a shocking and unpredicted news, but the nine of you are now in possession of information regarding Project: Zero Dawn classified far above top-secret. As such, you cannot be allowed to ever leave this facility. There are three options available to each one of you at this point: please consider the options carefully before choosing: you can choose to participate in the project and help us build Zero Dawn, or you can choose to decline participation, in which case you will be confined indefinitely. We realise that the informations you have just received understandably calls into question the purpose of continuing to live: if you would prefer to end your life at this point, we have made available a pain-free medical euthanasia, should you determine that you no longer want to live in light of current circumstances. Please consider your options carefully, we will require your individual decision by tomorrow morning. You will find the appropriate form in your quarters. Should you decide to collaborate on the project, your shift starts at 7am tomorrow."

And with that, the meeting was over, and all the Alphas were escorted to their private quarters to meditate on what they learnt that day.
Samina recalled a saying her mother used to tell her when she was a kid: "Remember, Samina: knowledge is both a blessing and a curse, for once you know things, you can't unknow them".