By Aaron Perry (Ger; MA'02)
(Earth Water Press, 581 pages; 2022)
Earth’s life support systems are destabilizing and human civilization is spinning out of control, careening toward immanent self destruction. The complex and interconnected dangers imperiling modern humanity can only be understood and fixed by an advanced form of intelligence—much more advanced than that of homo sapiens. That is why Brigitte Sophia, a genius mathematician and computer scientist, has dedicated her life to developing advanced Artificial Intelligence for her supercomputer, OTTO. And she has cracked the code—she has discovered the key to unlocking the deep Artificial Intelligence previously only theorized, the key to activating a singularity that will change life on Earth forever.
After a meeting with secretive, high-powered financiers in a Manhattan high-rise, Brigitte Sophia suddenly finds herself on the run, chased through Central Park by a terrifying unit of paramilitary operatives, hell-bent on obtaining the AI code for their own sinister objectives. As her hunters close in, Brigitte Sophia realizes she must ditch her phone, go off-grid, and flee to the Rocky Mountain West. There she meets an unlikely companion, Leo von Übergarten, and her entire reality is upended by a surreal kaleidoscope of unexpected developments and unforeseen encounters.
Thrust into a heroine’s journey of epic proportions, with the survival of our species at stake, she embarks on an urgent mission to restore the life support systems of our shared global home. And, as the story takes a sharp turn from the science fiction of a technology thriller into a visionary statement about our shared destiny in these momentous times, Viriditas presents a critical message directly from Mother Earth to humanity. But the questions remain: will it be enough… and will she discover how to save our planet and civilization before time runs out?
