Control Natural

It's two hundred years after global warming caused the Great Collapse. Things are getting better, but the world has another five hundred years to go before the planet is back to normal. The global population crashed during the Collapse, with famine, disease, warlordism and cyclone-dominated weather reducing the number of people on the planet by ninety percent.

While many technologies regressed during the Collapse, the recovery has brought with it new anti-aging therapies that extend life. It's too early to have good data, but the prevailing opinion of experts is that people can now live for hundreds of years. The only thing that will kill a treated human is a bad accident.

That's good, and that's bad. Individual humans are healthier than they have ever been, and that's good. On the other hand, a population explosion could result, putting the Earth at risk of global warming and overpopulation all over again.

Can the bad be prevented?

Tansen Smith-Mendoza teaches at a major Canadian university and develops tree mutations that thrive on the mists and fog of the northern Pacific coast.

She lives happily with her wife in Vancouver until she receives a letter from the Global Family Planning Council. That letter will change her life in a totally unexpected way.