As mankind slips closer to extinction, an impoverished English college student becomes an unwitting test subject in a genetic experiment designed to save the planet from impending climate apocalypse.

SYNOPSIS:

Paul is a student at a university in northern England. Orphaned after the family car was struck by a landslide, Paul struggles with his studies and mental issues. Paul has little desire for his current situation, but his fate is about to take him out of his ordinary life. Javier Carrillo, CEO of Biopharm Technologies, and William Leung, wealthy Chinese entrepreneur, head up an international consortium which is committed to ending climate change through biotech advancements (albeit nefarious ones). Paul is the unwitting agent through which their program will manifest. Paul’s journey is supported by Ky, Paul’s fellow student and singular friend, and Maia, a ‘heavenly disciple’ of an order of Pagans which has collaborated with the biotech consortium.

Against a backdrop of continuing climate disasters, Paul struggles with modern life. When he follows a quizzical old man into a food store, he meets Maia. Maia attempts to force eight tins of food onto the anorexic Paul, but he resists. Back home, Paul finds the tins on his doorstep and in time, eats the contents of the first. Ky turns up to check that Paul has ‘started the program’. Ky is involved because his kidnapped parents are being used as leverage. Maia and Ky are now the support team, and the first sense of what’s happening to Paul is when the three meet at a pub. Paul bangs his head on the ceiling and his clothes have ‘shrunk’: he’s getting bigger.

In a BBC radio studio, a whistleblower has called in suggesting the deaths of clinical volunteers is happening at his research site. Carrillo and Leung are satisfied no one is following up on the claims until Carrillo’s fixer, Marin, assassinates the whistleblower and draws unnecessary suspicion onto the program. Leon police inspector, Jorge Alvarez, takes on the investigation.

As Paul gets through the next few tins he changes in accordance with the program. He gets friendlier with Maia, but Ky is struggling with the uncertainty of his parents’ fate. Marin assuages Carrillo’s fears that the authorities will find anything at their global sites; they are ‘clean’, he maintains. When Alvarez shows up at Carrillo’s site in Spain with a team of forensics, it isn’t long before they find incriminating evidence: a missed drop of blood is from a clinical volunteer victim.

Paul is trying to figure Maia out. When he sees an Ankh necklace around her neck, he is reminded of the dreams he has about the car accident. Maia explains the significance of the symbol and Paul realizes his parents were not only part of the Pagan order but that they also instigated the program before their deaths. Maia goes on to describe her life in Morocco and when she suggests that the Agran Tree of Life has kept her alive for over two thousand years, this breaks Paul, and he flees.

Carrillo and Leung are resigned to paying the price for the loss of human life ‘required’ for the program’s success. When Marin fails to assassinate Alvarez in his office, he knows he has Carrillo bang to rights. Carrillo confesses to the crimes around the program, but Alvarez believes the climate solution is a ruse, and that the consortium is involved in terrorism. Meanwhile, Paul meets the old man again who explains the death of Paul’s parents made him the only choice for the task ahead. Paul returns home to continue his transformation.

When Alvarez learns of the connection between the consortium and Paul via an MI5 tip off, the race is on to get to Paul who he believes is in danger. Alvarez arrives in England just as Paul completes his transformation. Unable to stop the inexorable course of events, Alvarez watches as Paul metamorphosizes into Atlas. Paul replaces the old, worn-out man who can’t keep the climate in check anymore. And so, environmental equilibrium is restored to the planet.

ON THE SEVENTH DAY