February 2051

In breaking news, Global Command has today named former President of the United States, Ezeudo Ezenwa, the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Highly regarded for his capability in overseeing the timely completion of Global Command's Alpha and Omega cities in 2048, and the selection and migration of its fifty million residents into its safe harbour, former President Ezenwa is deemed more than capable of ensuring the society we now inhabit continues to thrive and—

'Hey I was watching that!' I say, turning around, indignant, to see who turned off the wall screen. A view of the Canadian tundra replaces the news, layers of smooth undulating rock coats the furred, marshy flatlands. In the distance, a lake glistens in the pristine sunrise, from its shore several herons take flight. Orange-pink light filters through the window, bathing the living room in a soft, warm glow.

'You already know all this,' my father smiles as he moves around the sofa to join me. 'I told you last night at dinner.'

'Yes, but,' I shrug, and glance back at the wall screen longingly, 'I like to see it. It makes me proud, you know, to be your son. I mean,' I continue, racing to get the words out quick before my father stops me, 'you were our first real African-American president, the son of Nigerian immigrants, and were voted in twice, and now you get to be the Secretary-General of the UN. It just goes to show—'

'It goes to show what?' my father asks, soft, a hint of rebuke in his dark eyes. 'We are all the same, in here,' he touches his fingertips to his head, then over his heart, 'and here. It just happened to take a very long time for a certain group of people to understand what the rest of us have known all along.'

'Yeah,' I roll my eyes, 'and then they left you their mess to clean up.'

My father smiles again, placid, literally nothing fazes him. He's—what's the word I learned at school just the other day? Oh yeah. Indomitable. I wish I were more like him, but I'm not. According to my father, I take after my mother: full of ideals, powerful emotions, driven by a deep sense of justice. I wish for the billionth time I could have known her. She would have understood me, and not just smiled, like my father. She would have let me watch the news, I'm sure of it.

My father checks his watch. He's wearing his vintage Rolex, the Zephyr Oyster Perpetual 6582 that's going to be one hundred years old in four years' time. I eye it, admiring the creamy surface of the watch's face, with just gold dots to mark the hours. It's elegant, just like my father. Even the way he moves is graceful and relaxing to watch - like the water that flows along the pebbled brook in the school's cafeteria. I know I'm not elegant and probably never will be. I would rather play sports and run around outside than sit in school and learn stuff. But I try cause it makes Dad happy.

The Rolex was a wedding gift from my mother. It had belonged to her father, and then his father before him. Dad told me he intends to give it to me on my twenty-fifth birthday. I sigh, desolate. Fourteen more years to go. It feels like forever. Why does it have to take so long to grow up?

'Aren't you going to be late for school?' my father asks. 'It's just gone seven-thirty. The monorail won't wait for you.' He stands and holds out his hand. 'I have a little time before my first meeting, let's walk together and you can tell me all about your favorite subject.'

'The only thing that matters is soccer,' I say. I'm not kidding. It's true.

'Ah,' my fathers nods, 'that is without question an important pursuit, but tell me son, I'm curious what have you been taught about regarding recent history. You were too young to remember any of the things that led up to us living here, so what is your teacher telling you?' He opens the door. I follow him out into the warm February sunshine. Even this early in the morning, it's already warm. I decide to leave my jacket behind and follow my father down the pavement past the other homes towards the monorail stop.

'Well,' I begin, screwing up one eye, looking up, idly searching for the blue shimmers which occasionally ripple across the massive, clear dome over Alpha VI—the most I have seen in one day was five, I would love to break my record. 'Ms Banjupantham said something about how, a really long time ago, like, I dunno, twenty-five years ago?' I look up, feeling uncertain, realising way too late, distracted by trying to break my shimmer record I've swum into dangerous waters. But my father nods, soft, and urges me to continue.

'Well,' I go on, cautious, dropping my attention to my sneakers, where there are no distractions, 'there was this president, and he made bad choices which made the problems in the world worse, right? And somehow even though he was bad at his job—not like you—he still got to be the president twice . . . so things got even worse, like for the animals, and the trees, and like, even here,' I wave my arm around encompassing the neat cul-de-sac with its garden and lily pond, 'where it's supposed to be frozen, like totally, miles deep according to Ms Banjupantham. So like, the polar bears died cause the ice melted, and there were no rain forests left cause people wanted to make money, and anyway he said what the scientists said about the polar bears dying cause of what the people were doing to the trees was a lie. He said people could do whatever they wanted to the planet, and it would be ok, and—oh look!'

A pair of jewelled dragonflies no more than an arms' length away hover before me, just watching me with their big eyes. I can't help myself, I lift my hand, hoping one will land on it, but no luck. They dart off to the garden to hover over a tiger lily, then shoot away, quick as anything into the depths of the gardens surrounding the pond.

'Go on,' my father says not looking at the dragonflies. Apart from the muscles of his jaw clenching a couple of times, he looks calm. Indomitable. I wish I were indomitable. I decide not to say the name of the president, even though I know it. The guy who killed Mom had been a supporter of him and didn't like that she used her power as a Supreme Court Justice to punish politicians who stopped everyone from being equal. My heart hurts a little, so I let out a heavy breath, it helps, a bit. But then, at least none of the dead president's children or relatives were chosen to live in the restriction zone. Now they were with all the other people in the exclusion zone, exactly where they belonged—with the people who didn't care about Earth, or the animals; who had called the scientists liars, scientists who, it turned out, had been right all along.

'Well he was wrong about everything,' I say as we approach the stop, several other kids are waiting there, a couple wave at me. I wave back. 'Ms Banjupantham said he was probably one of the most dangerous people in history because right when he had the power to make things better, he didn't. He just wanted to make money for himself and his rich friends, and too bad for Earth and the people. And then,' I can hear myself starting to talk fast again. I try to slow down but I can't cause this part really annoys me, since it's just so unfair. Dad waits, patient and calm like always and lets me have my rant.

'And then—wait till you hear this—he goes to his rich friends and says, 'Oh maybe it seems like the world isn't going be so good to live in after all, at least not here in America. I say we should build a place where we can go when things get really bad, where we will be safe from the heat and storms, and we can eat baby dolphins.' So he gets together with a bunch of rich people and they start to build a place in Greenland where it's all melted and the polar bears are dead—you know a fancy place, just for them. And then, well, and then, because things were so bad all over, the US military went in and took over the building work, and the government seized the billionaires' money and used it to build all the Alpha and Omega cities in Nunavut and Greenland so it wouldn't just be for a few thousand rich people but for fifty million people from all over the world who are smart, and use science and stuff and want to fix this whole big mess guys like him made.' I lean over the barrier to see if the tram is coming yet. It's not. 'And then you became the president, took over the project, picked all the people, created one army from all the armies of the world called the Global Command Force, and then we moved here, and the bad people stayed behind, and now everything is going to get better. The end.'

My father bites back a smile. 'Baby dolphins?' He lifts a brow. 'Really?'

'Okay,' I admit, although I feel no shame as I look back down the tracks, 'Ms. Banjupantham never said that part. I might have added in a little. I just, you know, wanted to make a point. Anyway, there's no way we can know if he didn't say that.'

'Amadi,' my father says, quiet, 'not all the people who were left in the exclusion zone deserve to be there. Millions of worthy people were left behind, and it's a terrible thing to know I am the one responsible for their fate. You must not think it's as simple as the good guys being here and the bad guys being there. Do not do those people such an injustice. You are better than that.'

His rebuke cuts a swathe through my sass. I glance up at him. The haunted look in his eyes makes me feel terrible. Shame fills me. Me and my big mouth. 'I'm sorry. Really, I didn't mean it, sometimes I just talk without thinking. You're right, it's not that simple and I will do everything I can to learn stuff and make myself worthy of being here. I'll make you proud, I promise.

My father nods, his eyes going to the tram as it glides down the rail towards us, white and silent. 'I know you will, son,' he says, soft. 'I know you will.'

The doors open. I step in and turn around to face him. 'I mean it,' I say as he nods and backs away, having seen me off. A beep starts, warning me the doors will soon close. 'I wanna be a soldier when I grow up,' I call out to him. 'The best soldier ever, with medals all over the place.' The door slides shut. Through the glass window I salute my dad. As the tram pulls away he salutes me back. Crisp, perfect. Like a president. But he's not smiling. He just looks sad.

July 2070

I gaze at my reflection in the mirror as I unbutton my uniform's jacket. Halfway through my thirtieth year and already a major—promoted for discovering a serious fault in the design of the barrier wall, saving Global Command billions, and single-handedly driving the project to its end in record time. Once and for all, the raids against the southern A&O cities and industrial parks in Nunavut would end, or at least would now be manageable. The barrier had been designed to be near impossible to breach: sheer, armed, and patrolled by military drones. It would take a lot to get through, organisation, coordination, and a serious amount of explosives. And even if the UFF did manage to attack, we would be waiting for them. No more easy pickings for them, no more running around in circles after an elusive aggressor always one step ahead. Today, along with my promotion, I had been given command of the forces controlling the barrier's nearly eight hundred kilometre length. A huge responsibility. One I would not fail.

'Major Ezenwa', I say and salute my reflection, sharp, precise. The title sounds good in my mouth. I say it again, the Rolex glinting on my wrist as I drape my jacket over my arm. I smile, my even white teeth brilliant against my deep complexion. My smile fades as I recall the request I made to my CO, thinking of Adiana, the neuroscientist I met a year ago, the chemistry between us palpable—the woman I intend to marry no matter how many barriers stand in our path.

I turn away from the mirror, the memory of my CO's reply over a smoky single malt souring my fledgling sense of accomplishment.

'Right now we need you serving Global Command. Maybe in a few years time. Anyway, it's too soon to be thinking of settling down. You are still young. Plenty of time. Survival first. Family later, eh?''

I let out a disgusted breath. 'Survival first. Family later.' The motto of the restricted zone. Everyone said it, and everyone lived by it, all of us marching to the same beat, even my father. But I am the son of the last, and arguably one of the best presidents of the United States and can't help but chafe at the enforced equality across the A&O cities, at the utter lack of nepotism, of even the merest shred of favouritism. I had heard rumours the newest city, Alpha VII—completed in 2058 and nestled in a bay along Greenland's north coast—where, it was claimed, the most valuable citizens to Global Command resided only by invitation. I had never seen it, and neither had anyone I knew. Once, I tried to look up information about it on the military database, but everything regarding the city, its construction, and its residents lay locked under several forbidding layers of security. I searched for satellite images. Nothing. Old data streamed across my screen of an empty green coastline edged with rocky fjords. Even now, as a major, I still didn't possess Q Clearance—the level used for matters of extreme secrecy, and the one required to open Alpha VII's most mundane files.

I toss my jacket aside. All I know is Alpha VII is being kept isolated from the rest of us for reasons I have yet to learn, reasons I suspect point to a further separation of society. I glance at my jacket, draped over the back of a chair, the bright insignia of my new rank peeking out from between heavy khaki folds. All the more reason to elevate myself, to ensure I am invited into that hallowed, silent, invisible city perched at the top of the world, and not left behind.

I unbutton the top three buttons of my shirt and roll up my sleeves, unable to stop myself from wondering if the privileged citizens of Alpha VII also put survival first and family later. A bitter part of me doubted it. So nepotism did exist, just not for me or my father, relics of a dying world. It wasn't too late yet, despite my awareness the world was getting hotter and drier, even here in northern Nunavut.

At a recent briefing, scientists informed us within the next three decades, A&O's southernmost cities would become uninhabitable, the water table totally depleted. By 2100, the North American continent would be a desert, and only at latitudes above 75 N would we have a chance to continue to survive. To realise after all the effort of building the restriction zone cities and constructing the barrier, we had only bought ourselves a thin margin of time, and unless we rebuilt the majority of our cities in the furthest north, we would end up just like those left out in the exclusion zone.

My father convinced me many good people had been left behind when the separation of society happened in 2048, but I have never heard about any good people. Instead, reports from inside the still-habitable cities of the exclusion zone have made for grim reading. Within what is left of North America and Europe, the UFF are still organised and a formidable opponent to Global Command, but in the cities of South America, Africa, India, and Asia, those who were initially in power have become gangsters, those cities still standing fallen to anarchy. In drone visuals from Rio de Janeiro: images of rampant cannibalism. I shudder, sickened by the end result of what those who came before us have wrought in their relentless pursuit of profit—the legacy they left, the suffering, the destruction, the devastation, and the inescapable spectre of our slow annihilation along with millions of other innocent species.

My gaze roves over my apartment's living room reflected within the mirror, taking in the spartan, orderly cleanliness of it, nothing like the drone images pouring in everyday of derelict, drowning cities left to sizzle in blistering heat. We would be living like that if it wasn't for what was done by the US military in 2039—the year before I was born—when the president before my father signed an executive order to take over a private, luxurious city being built in Greenland for the world's wealthiest barons. But it was the government's seizure of the barons' billions made from pillaging the world's natural resources—its fossil fuels, metals, lumber, and palm oil which had financed the construction of A&O's fourteen cities of Alpha I to VI, and Omega I to VIII. The barons' combined wealth had soared well past hundreds of trillions. By the time the world had been pushed past the point to support human habitation, less than one percent of the world's population possessed enough private wealth for the United Nations was able to build a vast sanctuary for fifty million people, as well as large land and marine arks to house those remaining surviving species of plants, insects, fish, and animals.

But still, the planet continued to warm. The last of the Arctic's deepest permafrost had melted, and with the release of the trapped methane, CO2 levels were already well past 800ppm and escalating fast. The scientists at the briefing had made sure we understood time was short, their quiet urgency unsettling. Plans were made, but we knew it wouldn't be enough—every one of us knew we were fighting a losing battle.

I look at myself again, critical, searching for faults, for reasons I might not be worthy of admission to Alpha VII. I find none. I am educated, healthy, strong, a major within Global Command, and the son of the last president of the United States. My eyes harden. I will not fall with the others, somehow I will escape the net tightening around the last remaining stronghold of the human race. Whatever it would take to reach my goal, I would do it. I would get an invitation to Alpha VII, and permission to make Adiana my wife. I would survive. And thrive. I just needed to prove myself.

The doorbell chimes, a soft tone. I smile, my dark thoughts fleeing, superseded by far more pleasant ones. Adiana. Time to celebrate.