Page 210 - TruthAboutLyingFinal

The Truth About Lying
Over the next six hours, they assembled a coalition in an abandoned convention center, the only space large enough to hold everyone. Hundreds of people, representing dozens of countries and disciplines, were all united by the knowledge that they had less than three days to save their species.
But unity was fragile. The room quickly fractured into camps.
Logan arrived with a delegation of pragmatists, economists, military strategists, actuaries. They’d already drawn up preliminary criteria for Extraction: genetic diversity, empathy scores, age distribution, skill sets. It was eugenics dressed in the language of optimization, and it was gaining traction fast.
“We’re not saying it’s ideal,” Logan told the room. “We’re saying it’s survivable. Ten percent of humanity, carefully selected, relocated to a preserve world. We lose everything else, but we don’t lose the species.”
“You lose the soul of the species,” Vincent said, standing up from where he’d been sitting in silent prayer. “You’re proposing to save humanity by abandoning humanity. That’s not salvation. It’s damnation with better optics.”
“And your alternative is what?” Logan shot back. “Faith? Hope? We have seventy-two hours, Father. I need something more concrete than divine intervention.”
“I am not proposing divine intervention. I am proposing that we act like we believe what we say we believe. That every life has value. That we are stronger together than apart.”
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