The Extinction Trials Read online

  selected praise for A.G. RIDDLE

  “Reads like a superior collaboration between Dan Brown and Michael Crichton.”

  —The Guardian on Pandemic

  “I finished the book fast because I just couldn’t wait...”

  —WIRED GeekDad on Departure

  “Riddle makes an effort to keep the focus on how his characters react to each other (including to their future selves) rather than to the technological marvels that reshaped their world.”

  —Publisher’s Weekly on Departure

  “Well-constructed and tightly-wound as a fine Swiss watch—Departure has non-stop action, an engaging plot and, of course, wheels within wheels.”

  —Diana Gabaldon, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Outlander on Departure

  “This is apocalyptic sci-fi at its best. Plot and character are masterfully woven together…”

  —The Daily Mail on The Solar War

  also by A.G. RIDDLE

  The Long Winter

  Completed Trilogy (Nov 2019)

  The Origin Mystery

  Completed Trilogy

  The Extinction Files

  Completed Duology

  Departure

  Standalone

  see more books by a.g. riddle at:

  AGRiddle.com

  About The Extinction Trials

  THE END… IS ONLY THE BEGINNING.

  After a mysterious global event known only as “The Change,” six strangers wake up in an underground research facility where they learn that they’re part of The Extinction Trials—a scientific experiment to restart the human race.

  But The Extinction Trials harbors a very big secret.

  And so does the world outside.

  From A.G. Riddle, the Amazon Charts and Wall Street Journal bestselling author with nearly FIVE MILLION COPIES sold worldwide in twenty languages, comes an epic STANDALONE adventure with a surprise ending unlike anything you’ve ever read before.

  AN EXTENDED LOOK AT THE EXTINCTION TRIALS

  Dr. Maya Young is successful, single, and completely unfulfilled. But she’s working on it. Until one morning when everything changes.

  After a strenuous spin class, Maya begins coughing until blood comes up. At the hospital, she discovers that her symptoms are far more complicated than she realized. Her illness may be connected to a far-reaching global conspiracy. And she may hold the key to stopping it.

  Owen Watts is a firefighter who is slowly losing his job. Not because he’s not good at it. And not because he doesn’t show up and work hard. On the contrary, he’s very good at his job—and hard working. His problem is that robots are increasingly doing the work he’s trained his whole life to do.

  The robots aren’t Owen’s only problem. He has a limitation, a condition that has always held him back in life. Because of that, he’s not exactly sure what he’ll do next—when the robots take his job completely.

  But one morning a call comes in that will change his life forever. With his team, Owen responds to a fire alarm at an apartment building. At first, it seems to be a false alarm. But it’s not. It’s the start of a global event known as “The Change”—a new era of human existence that will alter the future forever.

  As The Change sweeps the world, Owen and Maya both end up in the hospital. With their injuries, it looks like the last stop for them. But the next time they wake up, they’re in an underground research facility along with four other strangers. The group is told very little, only that they’re part of The Extinction Trials, a scientific experiment aimed at finding a way for humanity to survive in the world after The Change.

  What they don’t know is that The Extinction Trials hides one very big secret—and a few small ones. And so do several of the other participants.

  With time running out to save the last human survivors, Owen, Maya, and the other participants venture out into the changed world. What they find there is beyond anything they imagined. And the key to their future—and humanity’s survival—is something no one expected.

  Published in North America by Legion Books.

  Published in print in the United Kingdom and commonwealth territories by Head of Zeus.

  Copyright © 2021 by A.G. Riddle

  all rights reserved.

  printed in the united states of america.

  The Extinction Trials is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  978-1-940026-30-5 — hardcover isbn

  978-1-940026-29-9 — paperback isbn

  978-1-940026-31-2 — e-book isbn

  edition 1.0.0

  Discover other great authors and their books at:

  LegionBooks.com

  Contents

  Stay in the Loop

  Prologue

  PART I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  PART II

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  PART III

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  PART IV

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  PART V

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Epilogue

  Thank You

  About the Author

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  To the brave souls who keep going—even when it feels like the world is ending.

  Prologue

  The dinner host tapped his champagne glass with a fork.

  The ding-ding-ding echoed through the vast dining room, drawing the attention of the sixty guests.

  “Tonight, I’d like to pose a simple question: what is the destiny of the human race?”

  He let the words hang in the air for a moment.

  “We all know the answer. At some point, our species will go extinct.”

  He paced the room, all eyes following him.

  “How? What will be our end? Artificial intelligence? Will our undoing come at the hands of an AI project one of your companies is working on? Or maybe another one of your pet projects? Will genetic engineering splinter our species, making some of us obsolete, setting off an unimaginable war between the next humans and the ones left behind?”

  The host turned and paced again, stopping in front of a pair of doors that opened onto a wide stone veranda. Beyond, waves from the ocean crashed upon the rocks, a soft symphony punctuating the speech.

  “Let’s assume, for a moment, that our extinction won’t come at the hands of one of our inventions. After all, we’re not here tonight to point fingers. Tonight, we’re here to find a solution—to whatever awaits us.”

  Murmurs erupted around the room.

  The host pressed on. “Consider how vulnerable we are. A solar flare could destroy our planet in the blink of an eye. A supervolcano could blot out the sun, and starve us and freeze us into extinction. Would we stand a chance against an alien invasion? Perhaps our end will come from an old enemy: a pandemic—maybe a more deadly version of a pathogen we’ve already lived through.”

  A sea breeze swept in through the doors, tugging at the man’s white hair.

  “And there’s another great question that should haunt us all: why d
o we seem to be alone in the universe? Is that a clue to our true destiny? Tonight, I’d like to propose a simple solution to those twin enigmas that have always haunted us.”

  He held his hands out to the crowd, palms up.

  “We know the truth: we can’t stop what’s coming. We can’t prevent the next extinction event. What we can do… is control what happens after. That is the key to the future.”

  He let his hands drop to his sides.

  “What I’m proposing is a new kind of experiment. A project with one purpose: to restart the human race after the Fall. A project that will witness the rebirth of our species and unravel the deepest secrets of our existence. I’m calling it The Extinction Trials, and I want you to be part of it.”

  PART I

  The Fall

  Chapter One

  Every morning, before work, Owen Watts visited the nursing home.

  The halls were mostly empty. Only a few doors stood open. Residents sat outside their rooms, knitting or reading, glancing up as he passed, most staring at his uniform.

  At his mother’s door, he paused and peered in.

  Owen had a dangerous job, but that moment every morning was easily the most frightening he faced every day. One morning, he knew he would find the room empty. The narrow bed made. His mother’s pictures and belongings gone.

  But not today.

  She sat in a chair by the window, a book in her lap.

  He breathed out as he crossed the threshold, his heavy footfalls drawing his mother’s attention, and instantly, a smile.

  Life had taught Owen the value of time. How precious it was. How quickly things changed.

  His work had left scars on his body. Life had left a few on his soul. They were what made him cling to the time he had left with his mother.

  “Reading anything good?” he asked as he took the seat across from her.

  “Well, I just started. But it looks promising. An original premise. And a likable main character.”

  She studied him a moment. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing.”

  She cocked her head.

  “Work,” he said simply, hoping she would drop it, knowing she wouldn’t.

  “What about work?”

  “Work… is getting weird.”

  “Weird how?”

  “Weird as in I’m slowly being replaced by robots.”

  “It’s safer that way.”

  “True.”

  “You’re worried about what you’ll do next—when the robots have completely replaced your job.”

  Owen smiled. “You can read me like one of those books.”

  “That’s what mothers are for.” She paused. “I know what’s really bothering you.”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “Your limitation.”

  Growing up, Owen’s mother and father never used the word handicap. Limitation—that’s the word they used. Because everyone has limitations.

  “Can I bore you with a piece of advice?” she asked.

  He exhaled and nodded.

  “Life isn’t about your limitations. They matter far less than you think. You make a living doing what you’re good at. That’s what’s important—your strengths, not your limitations.”

  “I’m going to put that on a t-shirt. That’ll be my new job. T-shirt salesman.”

  She smiled. “Always a tough one. But I know you listen too. And I know you’ll land on your feet. You just need a little faith. In yourself, most of all.”

  She reached over to the bookcase and took out a small paperback and handed it to him.

  He read the title: The Birthright. He opened it and flipped to the first page and read it:

  Every human is born with a birthright. That birthright is happiness. Our greatest challenge to achieving happiness is not the obstacles we encounter in our life. The true barrier to happiness lies inside of us—and it’s the one thing we can’t ever escape: our own mind.

  From birth, we are educated on countless aspects of life, from personal hygiene to personal finance, but there is no widely accepted curriculum for understanding and managing our minds. Indeed, almost every human remains the victim of their own mind throughout their entire life, never learning to master it, or manage it, or even understand it. The Birthright was written to change that. This book is an owner’s manual for a human mind. If you read it and do the maintenance it recommends, your mind will run smoothly. It will break down less often, and in the end, it will take you to your birthright. Indeed, a well-tuned mind is the only road to true and lasting happiness.

  Owen closed the book. “It’s not exactly… my type of thing.”

  “Your type of thing?”

  “Self-help books.”

  “It’s not a self-help book—not that there’s anything wrong with them. The Birthright is a book about science and psychology, and most of all, understanding yourself and the world around you.”

  “Wonderful,” he muttered. “By the time I read it, the world will probably be changed again.”

  “The world is always changing. Always will be. The key to success is accepting that the world will keep changing. The ideas in that book transcend worlds and time.”

  Owen’s armband buzzed. The three fast pulses signaled an emergency alert. He activated the band and read the message.

  “Sorry, Mom, my disappearing job needs me.”

  “An alarm?”

  “Probably just a false alarm. See you tomorrow morning.”

  He hugged her and turned to leave, but she called to him, “Owen, don’t forget the book.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Owen was in the front seat of the fire truck, barreling through the city, sirens blaring. The truck wirelessly shut down the traffic lights and crosswalks ahead. Driverless cars pulled to the side and waited as the hulking vehicle rumbled past.

  Owen studied a tablet and called to his two teammates behind him.

  “It’s a kitchen fire. Oasis Park Building. Eleventh floor, unit 1107. Auto fire suppression has already extinguished it.”

  He was about to continue when the pleasant computer voice of the central AI came over the truck’s speakers.

  “The apartment building has fifteen floors and seven hundred and twenty-three registered residents. Scout drones confirm sixty-five infrared signatures currently inside. There is one adult female and one juvenile female in unit 1107. Vital signs normal.”

  Owen set his tablet down, annoyed. The AI didn’t even trust him to give the briefing. What bothered Owen the most was that he had to admit the AI was more efficient at the briefing than him. And, in a raging fire, he was glad to have the robots there. They never panicked. They were built to withstand extreme temperatures. Most of all, they were replaceable. Humans were not.