Extinction (novel)

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Extinction ( "extinction") is a science fiction - Thriller -novel the Japanese writer Kazuaki Takano , in a second translation from English of 2015 Rainer Schmidt has appeared. The Japanese original version was published under the title Genocide ( Japanese ジ ェ ノ サ イ ド , Jenosaido ) on March 30, 2011 by Kadokawa Shoten , in the United States it was published in 2013 as Genocide of One .

construction

The novel is divided into a prologue , three main sections and an epilogue . The entire act takes place in about a month. The beginning of part 2 begins earlier than part 1. The story essentially takes place in three locations: in the USA in the White House, in the Congo and in Tokyo. The connection between the individual passages only becomes apparent as the story progresses. In addition to the actual plot, sections on the subjects of pharmacy, medicine, evolution, war psychology and politics are added, some of which are very detailed and extensive. Texts from phone calls or emails that have a special meaning are repeated as quotations in different places.

action

prolog

In the late summer of 2004, US President Burns, several American security chiefs and scientists meet to discuss a report on a newly emerged form of life in Africa. This new form of life could potentially be capable of threatening and destroying all of humanity. Such a scenario was already described by the Heisman Report in 1975. Watkins reports that the Schneider Institute has already been tasked with creating an action plan on how to eliminate this threat.

Part 1: The Heisman Report

Kento Koga buries his father and then discovers an email from him. In this e-mail, Koga learns that he is supposed to open the "book you dropped your popsicle on" in his parents' house. In the book he finds another message and an account card with 5,000,000 yen . Koga takes a (black) laptop hidden from him, but it only shows a blue screen. His father sent him to an unfamiliar apartment in Machida, where he found a small chemistry and test laboratory. In another message, his father asks him to continue the research he has started and draws his attention to a (white) laptop that is required for this.

Doi and Koga discover that the white laptop contains a program called GIFT , which can be used to develop drugs. Yuri Sakai confronts Koga and demands that he hand over the laptop, which he does not. The night after Jeong-hoon had carefully inspected Lee and Koga GIFT , Koga received a call asking him to leave his apartment. Shortly afterwards, Detective Inspector Kadota appears at his door and claims that Koga's father stole data from the USA and that the laptop is therefore to be confiscated. Koga then escapes from his balcony by jumping.

Yeager and the three other mercenaries are being prepared for Operation Guardian in the Congo at a Zeta Security training camp in South Africa . Here they learn that they are supposed to destroy a tribe of Kanga pygmies to wipe out a virus that is a threat to humanity. In addition, an unknown creature is said to be killed, which the mercenaries "have never seen". As a precaution against the virus, everyone is given a capsule to take after their order. After the flight from South Africa to Uganda, the four mercenaries are brought to the Congo by a driver, from where they pass through the jungle to the pygmy tribe. On the way, they see a group of chimpanzees deliberately killing a baby animal from another group of chimpanzees, which the mercenaries interpret as an act similar to war.

In the White House, Gardner reports on the situation of Operation Nemesis , which controls the organization for the extermination of the pygmies. According to information from the NSA , there is a problem in Japan where Koga is trying to access the operation. The CIA hired an agent to investigate the situation.

Koga, who fled the police to the laboratory in Machida, learns that both his mother and his university supervisor Sonoda have been visited by the FBI and the police, respectively. Through the newspaper reporter Sugai, Koga learns about the Heisman reports, which deal with the potential extermination of mankind. In the National Parliamentary Library , Koga finds the Heisman Report in a magazine. In a section on human evolution it is described that a new generation of people will develop who will have an enlarged neocortex and "understand complex issues in their entirety". In addition, they would have "mental abilities that are incomprehensible to us". This new species will destroy Homo sapiens, just as the Peking man and the Neanderthals disappeared before .

The mercenaries in the jungle reach the camp of the Kanga pygmies and watch it from a distance. Pierce, who can be clearly identified, steps out of a tent and calls out the names of the mercenaries and that he knows they can hear him. He claims Operation Guardian was a hoax as there was no deadly virus. Garrett's disloyal behavior would have been exposed and the mercenaries would be killed on the orders of the White House. In addition, Yeager's son Justin's disease is curable. In a one-on-one conversation, Garrett explains to Yeager that he is not a marine, but a CIA agent. In the US, he is considered a traitor for collecting evidence of torture in order to bring the US president to an international war crimes tribunal. Yeager's new plan is to stop killing anyone and instead capture and question Pierce. During the night, Yeager enters Pierce's tent and sees him with a human-like creature in his arms, who he immediately knows is the creature he is supposed to kill.

Part 2: Nemesis

Arthur Rubens is confronted with the Heisman Report and an intercepted email from Pierce at the White House. The email indicates that an Mbuti couple gave birth to a child with a different head, belonging to a "new human species." The now three-year-old child is highly intelligent and shows an excellent understanding of mathematics and can factor prime numbers, which can be used to decipher messages. Rubens worked out several hypotheses as to how the child could evolve and presented a plan to capture it. However, this is immediately discarded and it is decided that the entire pygmy tribe, including Pierce, should be eliminated. Rubens then designs Operation Guardian , which aims to save humanity by killing the entire Pygmy tribe and Pierce. He calls the three-year-old child Nous , after the concept of the noosphere . He names the comprehensive operation to murder the child and the mercenaries Nemesis .

Rubens learns that Seiji Koga searched the Internet for the term Heisman Report in Japan . Koga was with the Mbuti in Zaire in 1996 and had carried out an epidemiological investigation into viral infections. At the same time, Pierce was also with the Pygmies so they would know each other. With the help of the NSA, encrypted e-mail communications between the Congo and Japan are intercepted, although the sender and recipient are unclear. After Koga's death, communications continued and Kento Koga was suspected of being involved in the emails. In order to be able to decipher the messages, the laptop is said to be confiscated by the local police in Tokyo, but this fails because Koga has been warned by a call from New York. Rubens continues to plan to change the strategy of the operation in Africa to prevent the killing of more people besides Nous. He presents Eldridge with a manipulated article by Seiji Koga on the virus infections of the Pygmy tribe, according to which not all Mbuti are affected by a genetic mutation, only Nous and Nous' father. Eldridge agrees that the uninvolved Mbuti should not be killed, but insists that Pierce and the four mercenaries should also be eliminated.

Yeager enters Pierce's tent and sees him with Akili in his arms. Pierce claims the Pentagon wants to get rid of the mercenaries. Kashiwabara also enters the tent and points his gun at Pierce. Yeager knocks the gun away and a shot goes off that hits a tree. Pierce explains that Akili can decrypt encrypted Echelon communications and proves to the mercenaries that their capsules against the virus contain deadly cyanide and thus that the real enemy is the USA. Everyone decides to leave Africa together.

Koga studies the Heisman Report and considers whether the GIFT program was written by a more sophisticated species. Since GIFT cannot be human designed, successful drug development would indirectly prove the existence of this species. Koga turns to Jeong-hoon Lee for his help in continuing his father's research. Koga receives a call from Poppy, who informs him about the current threat from the police and confirms that the scenario from the Heisman reports has occurred. Lee and Koga experiment with GIFT but have no success and do not yet understand the program.

Rubens realizes more and more that the communication of their operation is intercepted and Nous has all the information in hand. He finds out that the warning call to Koga was made by Gardner. Thereupon Gardner is summoned to Burns and confronted with suspicion of treason. Gardner can use a trick to put Burns under pressure and save his head. However, Gardner Burns suggests that Operation Nemesis and the ordering of Nous's killing was a mistake.

The mercenaries, Pierce and Akili are led out of the jungle by Esimo and witness how a village is attacked by militias. They are then followed by the militias themselves. With Poppy's help, Koga gets the black laptop running and can use it to follow the escape of the Congo group live. Koga can lead the group away from the militias via direct communication and up-to-date satellite images. Koga and Lee discuss the lack of results from GIFT's calculations and come to the conclusion that they should develop an allosteric agent.

In Fort Meade , Rubens learns that the NSA was able to reconstruct parts of Gardner's computer and thus decipher future communication between the Congo and Japan. In addition, it is arranged that the jungle is to be searched extensively for missing groups around Yeager.

Yeager and his allies continue to flee through the jungle and are in the meantime shot at by a Predator drone with Hellfire missiles . Esimo leaves the group and returns to his tribe.

Koga learns from old DIA emails that his father and Pierce had known each other since 1996 and had met in Zaire. At the same time, Sakai was also on site in Zaire, who shortly afterwards had a girl named Ema. Pierce introduces Koga Yeager and is warned about Sakai.

Computer game fan Andy Rockwell discovers an advertisement for a new flight simulation, which he tries out immediately. In the supposed game, he controls a Predator drone, with which he performs predetermined maneuvers. At the end of the mission he has to shoot a Hellfire missile at a column of vehicles. In fact, the situation takes place in reality and the missile hits Chamberlain's car who is killed by it. As a result, all drones worldwide will be landed by the USA and are no longer available.

Rubens visits Joseph Heisman at home and tells him that he is being monitored. Back in Washington, Rubens meets Holland and realizes that he is an ally in protecting Nous. He also learns that Garrett wants to try the President before the International Criminal Court and is therefore to be eliminated in the course of the operation. Speaking to Burns, Rubens notes that the hijacked drone could be linked to Nous and that the three-year-old should not be killed. Burns rejects the latter because of his religious worldview. After the meeting, Holland Rubens unofficially calls on Rubens to save Nous.

The mercenaries in Africa are threatened by the LRA forty kilometers north of Butembo . The revenge attack of a UN peacekeeping force on the LRA gives the troops around Yeager the chance to cross the siege of the enemy troops. As a result, they have to hide on the roof of an old church and are attacked by child soldiers from the LRA. Because Yeager can't see how Kashiwabara shoots himself into a bloodlust against the children, he kills him. The attack by the child soldiers is stopped when Akili has the idea to throw notes from the emergency reserve at them. While retreating, Garrett is shot by a surviving child soldier and dies. All survivors are picked up by their driver Sanyu.

Part 3: Departure from Africa

Koga and Lee continue to synthesize the ingredients of the drug and find that they have a tighter schedule than anticipated if the drug has to be brought to Justin Yeager in Lisbon.

Rubens is informed about the incidents at the church via a MONUSCO report . Eldridge and Rubens discuss where Pierce, Akili, and the mercenary's escape could lead. From the resumption of satellite communication with Japan, they conclude that the flight is headed south of Africa.

The fugitives drive south through Africa for days and finally say goodbye to Sanyu in Johannesburg . Pierce informs the others that they will be flying from the Zeta Security airport in Cape Town in a hijacked plane.

Koga and Lee decide that Lee will fly to Portugal so that the drug arrives at Justin Yeager in Lisbon on time. Koga is warned by Sugai that he should disappear from his laboratory, whereupon he drives to the World Medical Rescue Group to learn more about Yuri Sakai. Koga learns from the office manager Ando that he was in Zaire with his father in 1996 and that Sakai, who was also there, was not pregnant. Koga knows that she should officially have a child named Ema shortly after her return to Japan. Back at the house with the laboratory, Koga meets the caretaker, who tells him that there is another resident in the house who is presumably Sakai. Koga breaks into this apartment and finds out that Poppy's calls were made from here.

The communication from Japan to Africa is decrypted by the NSA, whereby the content cannot be interpreted precisely because of the unknown linguistic complexity. Rubens concludes that there must be a second highly intelligent being in Japan. He suspects that Sakai brought this child (Ema) to Japan years ago and adopted him. And he realizes that Nous supports the development of the drug, since Ema and Nous have the same father and - in the case of mutual reproduction - etiological genes should not have a negative effect. Koga gets a call to leave his lab but stays to finish the drug.

Yeager and his colleagues break into the premises of Zeta Security and get equipment. They then hijack a Boeing 737-700 that Meyers flies. The kidnapping and the fact that the flight was going to Recife was registered by the American side a few hours later. They also know that Garrett is dead. The actual route of the aircraft is controlled by Ema and heads north past Recife.

Lee informs Koga that the synthesized drug has been successfully tested. Koga tests the drug on mice and sees that the bodies are being successfully supplied with more oxygen. Koga wants to leave the laboratory with the drug, but first has to overpower police officer Kadota.

450 km southeast of Miami, the aircraft with Yeager, Meyers, Pierce and Akili rises from an extremely low flight to a level that is recorded by the radar. The US Air Defense Command NORAD recognizes the aircraft, whereupon four Raptors are launched from Eglin . Although the flight changes course towards Lake Sargasso , Burns decides that the Raptors should continue to pursue the Boeing. Immediately afterwards Burns found out in the command center that there had been several cyber attacks on electricity suppliers in the USA.

Koga brings the drug to the university hospital for Maika Kobayashi, who is ill, but is followed by a police officer. In the intensive care unit, Koga convinces his former classmate Yoshihara to try the drug on Kobayashi. Then Koga hands the remedy for Justin Yeager to Lee and hides in a chamber in the hospital.

As the plane descends again, the cyberattack intensifies and electricity in other US states goes out. Holland suggests calling off Operation Nemesis. Burns gives the order to shoot down the hijacked plane. After the first missile has been launched, it does not find its target, but disappears from the radar. Shortly afterwards, the raptor's tail explodes and falls. The other raptors and their missiles suffer the same fate. Yeager, Meyers, Pierce and Akili eventually parachute off the plane. In the White House, it is believed that their plane must have crashed and Nous was eliminated. The power plants are turned back on and Burns realizes that he cannot win a battle against Nous. Yeager and his colleagues land on a Pierce Shipping cargo ship and are safe.

Lee ends up in Portela , where he is received by Lydia Yeager. He hands her the medicine for Justin Yeager. Koga wakes up in the hospital chamber to see the drug working on Kobayashi.

epilogue

Burns is informed that the cyberattacks were not carried out by China, as initially assumed. There is also no evidence of who is responsible for the killing of Chamberlain. A natural disaster is being considered as causing the raptors to crash, releasing methane hydrates in large quantities on the sea floor. The raptors would have flown through this gas cloud and exploded or crashed as a result.

Rubens visits Heisman in Indiana and tells him that Nous is on his way to Japan and that Nous' half-sister Ema Sakai lives there. Heisman speculates that the extermination of mankind depends on how people behave themselves. With the help of technology, Nous and Ema might be able to reproduce their own species quickly.

The ship with Yeager and the others travels through the Panama Canal towards Yokohama . Yeager learns from his wife that his son Justin is making a recovery and will soon be discharged from the hospital. Pierce announced on the ship that everyone who contributed to the rescue of Akili will be financially supported by the Pierce Foundation.

Arriving at the beach in Japan, Yeager, Meyers, Pierce and Akili are welcomed by Koga, Lee, Sakai and Ema. At the sight of his half-sister, Akili speaks his first word: Ema. Lee learns that the drug development program was written by Ema and that it will self-destruct.

background

  • Africa , which is considered to be the birthplace of man, is also the place in the book for the emergence of the new, highly intelligent human species.
  • The Lord's Resistance Army described in the novel actually uses child soldiers in the Congo and controls large areas of the country. The high level of brutality, including rape, carried out by this army is considered to be proven. The action takes place the following year after the end of the Second Congo War , namely 2004.
  • The crash of the F-22 Raptor air superiority fighters is explained in the epilogue with methane eruptions on the sea floor of the Atlantic Ocean. This is scientifically considered possible and is considered a possible cause in connection with the disappearance of ships and airplanes in the Bermuda Triangle .
  • For the fictional character of US President Gregory S. Burns, President George W. Bush, who was in office in 2004, was probably used as a template. Not only do the names show a similarity, they also have two daughters. Burns is described as a partially simple-minded, naive and pious Christian, which corresponds to the media appearance of Bush.
  • The fictional Vice President Daniel Chamberlain has the same initials as the 2004 incumbent Dick Cheney .

Locations

The action of the mercenary troop around Yeager takes place predominantly in central Africa ( Uganda , Democratic Republic of the Congo ), with a large part of it taking place in the Ituri rainforest , where Nigel Pierce and Akili live with a tribe of the Mbuti pygmies . The later escape leads via Zambia to South Africa , where the mercenaries were already in a training camp at the beginning of their mission. The last flight of Pierce, Akili and the Mercenaries is from Cape Town towards Recife , Florida and finally Lake Sargasso . The protagonists in Japan act in Atsugi (Kento Koga's parents' house) and the Tokyo prefecture , here in particular in the city of Machida , where Kento Koga's laboratory is located. Operation Nemesis , launched to destroy Nous, is directed from the White House . Rubens is in Maryland at the NSA headquarters, his visit to Prof. Dr. Heisman takes place in Indiana.

characters

In Africa

  • Jonathan "Hawk" Yeager: mercenary and former Green Beret ; his son Justin suffers from pulmonary alveolar epithelial cell sclerosis , for the treatment of which Yeager urgently needs money
  • Scott "Blanket" Meyers: American mercenary and former parachutist with the US Air Force
  • Warren Garrett: American mercenary, allegedly former Marine
  • Mikihiko "Mick" Kashiwabara: Japanese mercenary
  • Akili (Nous): a highly intelligent, 3-year-old child of two pygmies with physical features such as an oversized head and "cat-like" eyes; Americans see this child as a potential threat to humanity and call it Nous , everyone else calls it Akili
  • Nigel Pierce: Professor of Anthropology , owner of a shipping company and living with a pygmy tribe in the Congo for field research
  • Esimo: father of Akili
  • Mike Singleton: Operations Manager at Zeta Security in South Africa
  • Sanyu: Ugandan driver for the mercenaries

In Japan

  • Kento Koga: 24 year old Japanese PhD student in pharmaceutical chemistry; Son of Prof. Seiji Koga
  • Jeong-hoon Lee: South Korean exchange student; he is working with Kento Koga on the development of a new drug.
  • Yuri Sakai (Poppy): gynecologist and former research partner of Seiji Koga; as Poppy, she contacts Kento Koga anonymously.
  • Ema Sakai: half sister of Akili; she is also one of that new, highly intelligent human species.
  • Prof. Sonoda: mentor of Kento Koga and responsible for the development of new drugs against autoimmune diseases
  • Sugai: Scientific newspaper reporter and friend of Kento Koga's father
  • Marina Kawai: English literature student and love affair with Kento Koga
  • Akihiro Doi: friend of Kento Koga who does research in a clinic

In the USA

  • Arthur Rubens: Analyst at the Schneider Institute
  • Gregory S. Burns: President of the USA
  • Daniel Chamberlain: Vice President of the USA
  • Dr. Melvin Gardner: Science and Technology Advisor
  • Robert Holland: Director of the CIA
  • Harry Eldridge: Secretary of State in the Department of Defense and Official Head of Operation Nemesis
  • Geoffrey Lattimer: Secretary of Defense
  • Charles Watkins: Director of National Intelligence
  • Prof. Dr. Joseph R. Heisman: Author of the 1975 Heisman Report, former research group leader at the Schneider Institute
  • Michael Acres: Chief of Staff
  • Andy Rockwell: Sacramento bank clerk; hobby player of flight simulations

Others

  • Lydia Yeager: wife of Jonathan Yeager; She looks after her son Justin in a clinic in Lisbon and later has contact with Kento Koga and Jeong-hoon Lee.

Awards

The book was nominated for the Naoki Prize and won the Yamada Futaro Prize. In 2012, the book also took second place in the Japanese Booksellers Grand Prix .

Book edition

The book was published as a paperback by Bertelsmann-Verlag. The translation from English was carried out by Rainer Schmidt . After its publication, the novel rose to the top 10 of the Spiegel bestseller list in the paperback / fiction category and reached 4th place.

Audio book

The German audio book edition of Extinction appeared parallel to the book in 2015 and is read by Sascha Rotermund . The audio book is available as an MP3 version and has a running time of 19 hours and 31 minutes.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Takano's profile at booksfromjapan.jp
  2. ↑ Web presence for Extinction by Random House Verlag , 2015
  3. ^ Extinction at Buchreport