The Carbon Cathedral

2087: Earth is a ravaged wasteland, choked by pollution and rising tides.  Humanity clings to survival in scattered enclaves, desperate for a glimmer of hope.  From the heart of the ruined American Midwest rises the Carbon Cathedral, a breathtaking edifice of bioluminescent algae and advanced technology, promising salvation and a return to nature’s embrace.  Within its shimmering walls, the charismatic Elias Thorne preaches a gospel of radical environmental asceticism, captivating a world yearning for redemption.
But investigative journalist Anya Sharma sees a darker truth beneath the Cathedral’s dazzling façade. Haunted by the loss of her family to the rising seas, she infiltrates Thorne’s utopia, posing as a penitent pilgrim. The air hums with the scent of orchids and the murmur of hidden machinery. The Faithful, Thorne’s devoted followers, move with a serene devotion that both mesmerizes and unsettles Anya. As she participates in their rituals — meditative chants powered by bio-electric currents, communal meals of lab-grown algae, purification ceremonies bathed in bioluminescent light — her suspicions solidify.  Something sinister lurks beneath the surface of this manufactured tranquility.
Anya’s investigation leads her to a hidden level beneath the Cathedral’s verdant gardens, a clandestine laboratory where the chilling truth is revealed: a radical program of eugenics, masked by Thorne’s rhetoric of environmental purity.  He promises a sustainable future, but his vision is one of genetic manipulation and selective breeding, a horrifying “purification” process to create a new, climate-adapted elite.
With the help of a disillusioned architect, Silas Vance, Anya uncovers evidence of disappearances and whispered rumors of “reintegration with nature” that mask a chilling program of sterilization.  As Thorne’s influence spreads across the globe, captivating politicians and corporations seduced by his promises, Anya faces a devastating choice: expose Thorne and shatter the hope he offers a dying world, or remain silent and condemn humanity to a genetically engineered future.  Can she expose the truth before Thorne’s twisted vision reshapes the fate of our species?