The Future

The heads of the world's three biggest tech companies have disappeared, and the world is sliding into catastrophe. Nobody knows where they have gone or why, and the disorder spreads while the question stays open.

Lai Zhen, a survivalist living in Singapore, is drawn into the mystery. So is Martha Einkorn, who works as an assistant to one of the missing chief executives and keeps a second identity on a survivalist forum.

The three vanished figures are Lenk Sketlish, Zimri Nommik and Ellen Bywater. Each is convinced that personal wealth and private technology will protect them when the collapse arrives, and each has built a plan around that belief.

A satirical dystopian thriller, it plays out against environmental crisis and the power of technology barons, with a darkly funny tone aimed at corporate hubris. Behind the plot sit two questions: whose version of the apocalypse gets heard, and whether anyone can halt the people profiting from the end of the world.