‘A truth we all know... but agree not to talk about...’ was how the Clapping Lady from the secretive Consilience Foundation described it to a teenage Methuen Pryce in 2012 as they discussed his Segmented World model.

But it was also a ‘truth’ that Nick O’Grady, ambitious young CEO of the high-tech Allied Answers, had not ‘talked about’ – that was until he invited Methuen to his plush New York office in the summer of ’23.

Against expectations, the bearded academic and slick businessman bonded instantly, with Nick nodding in agreement as Methuen, towards the end of the meeting, asserted: ‘We are quite unprepared for what is about to happen. Most choose to ignore it... or seek comfort in the mistaken idea that somehow technology will bail us out in time.’

Now, in 2050, Nick is travelling south with his wife Lianne through the former USA in a self-drive RV, immersing in virtual scenes from the past forty years and reliving the events that took them, three months earlier, with Methuen, his wife Elizabeth and their daughter Bliss, to the remote Caribbean island of Phillips Cay.

Michael Maloney