The Shareholders
In the late 21st century, the Earth has been ravaged by climate change. With the help of a bioengineered virus, the billionaires of the early 2000s have become immortal, divided the last habitable biospheres on the planet into their personal shares, and moved to Mars. The rest of humanity subsists on bug proteins and printed foods. Ian Gateman, one of Earth's last bureaucrats, soldiers on with the settlement of ecological refugees while he, his wife, Anne, and their son, Alex, look forward to life on Mars. When Anne becomes terminally ill, she decides to upload her consciousness and live forever in Lotus: a corporate owned virtual reality. To keep up with the monthly payments of Anne's residency and stop Lotus from deleting her consciousness, Ian takes on a new assignment. He must travel to the estate of Ernest Trimalchio and petition visiting Shareholders to buy a fledgling colony of ecological refugees. As Ian tries to flog the colony to a brooding class of bored immortal men and women, it becomes clear that the Shareholders have their own plans for the future of humanity.…