One of the meteors meant nothing to me; its destination deserved its fate. I focused my will from every corner of the universe on the other meteor as it soared through space. If I could just nudge it to the side, even a few feet….
I could have calculated in an instant if I would be successful, but I did not. If I was going to fail, I didn’t want to know, and I didn’t want to waste even a snippet of my mental energy on anything except saving Mary. I strained with all my mind, stretching the very fabric of the universe to the limit. If I had enough time, I could move mountains, but I did my best work in billions of years, not millions.
The meteor lurched slightly to the side. Would it be enough? I pushed and pushed, praying feverishly to whatever god there might exist beyond me. I could feel the meteor as it continued to veer off course.
It entered the solar system, still nearly on course. Fear permeated the universe as I watched it draw closer and closer…all I can do now is watch.
The first of the two meteors, now the size of a marble after going through the atmosphere at twenty-six miles per second, comes through the roof. As I’d planned ten billion years before, it strikes my other me, seconds before he/I would start the expansion in the singularity in my brain that would have led to the destruction of the Tom Universe. My head splatters in spectacular fashion, with red flowering out in a contrived Fibonacci pattern of great beauty. I’ve saved the Tom Universe and all its occupants from myself, my second goal. Billions of humans and quadrillions of intelligent aliens will now continue to exist. I no longer care.
The second meteor is only a minute behind. I’d fought it for millions of years, straining with every fiber of my being, and yet it is only barely off target…would my efforts be enough? I had been too afraid to calculate in advance. I can now see Mary and Joey in Dr. Wilson’s office, just as in our original universe, their bodies entwined in ways I would not believe possible if I weren’t sensing it with the very matter they use to do it with, their bodies. Joey, my good buddy and friend, is on top, facing Mary, who makes moaning sounds that I’d heard in my simulations a trillion times before.
A second before the meteor arrives, I see my efforts are for naught. The meteor is off target by only a few inches. My piercing scream shoots through the Tom Universe, unheard by anyone as it echoes through my cosmic mind, rattling constellations throughout my universe on the microcosmic scale.
The second meteor slices through Joey’s back and Mary’s stomach, leaving behind matching holes the size of Frisbees in their bodies and a trillion times larger in my heart. Catzilla, who’s been hiding under a nearby table, scurries from the room in fear. My third goal, revenge, has been achieved.
In desperation I let loose a storm of tachyons toward Mary’s head. Since tachyons are essentially massless, I can maneuver them easily. The tachyons flood the singularity in her brain, which begins to expand.
She will live! Embodied in her own universe, just as I am. Just as I had done, she will recreate our universe, and eventually me, and we will be together again…pleasure coarses through my universe.
And then I freeze, my metaphorical jaw dropping. Mary’s expanding singularity is not alone. Tachyons have also flooded Joey’s brain, and his singularity is also expanding.
I make one last use of the quantum computing power of my universe, and see the horrible truth. Joey’s and Mary’s universes, now in their own branes, are too close together. Their branes are on a collision course that will destroy both, leaving me alone in universal misery.
“NO!” I cry as pain explodes through me. Closer and closer the branes move together for their inevitable rendevous.
I react mindlessly, writhing in agony as my metaphorical muscles convulse. This has little effect on matter, but like corks shooting from bottles, tachyons shoot out everywhere, permeating the very fabric of my universe.
Singularities everywhere begin to expand. Not just the billions inside human brains, but also the quadrillions inside intelligent creatures throughout my universe. Quadrillions of new universes emerge and expand, in close proximity to their neighbors, overloading the uncountable branes. The branes, no longer in equilibrium, collide with each other like dominoes throughout the cosmos. One by one they pop like soap bubbles, until there is nothing, there never has been anything, and just as my existence ends, there is no pain.
WILD SEED, by Carmelo Rafalá
When the bough breaks….
Karlyn ano-Kerr grips the interface around her head with heated disgust. Synapses are breaking down, some are shifting their pulse rhythms, others are stuck in flux; millions upon millions of nanos are running around, clueless, as if zapped by a heavy dose of the stupids.
She can’t understand it; the rooting had been flawless, the bio-programmers for Beta habitat integrated without rejection from the aboriginal millifibers and coaxed by their artificial programmers to grow natural habitats, enclosed and self-sufficient. It had been a textbook performance.
Then why is it collapsing, she chides the static-ridden threshold. Why? Why? Why?!
Karlyn writhes in her seat in the control bubble of the landing bug and seethes at the decay of her beloved systems-control ganglia. Her program buoy shudders. Algorithms manifest themselves and scatter past her like so many dead leaves on a Veronian wind burst. The leaves brush past her; the massive tangle of information before her strikes a discordant note.
She doesn’t need this now. Another failure…
From orbit, Cruz des-Manas is running cross-checks on the System Platform’s induction flow and stabilization subroutines. She sees him in the digilandscape distance. He appears as an octopus whose many tentacles flicker about at what looks like a swarm of large black flies. Beta is collapsing in upon itself.
“Systems are shutting down all over,” says Cruz. “Keep your eyes open. I suspect a possible leak over to the remaining ground systems.”
“My program buoy is sinking,” Karlyn whines. Her frustration begins to sting. She had sent out for a pattern trace, but so far no luck. The nanopolice had staggered back, babbling incoherently. She huffs. The surroundings become hazy, as if a sheen of ice has formed over an invisible glass window before her. The effect warps the landscape and things appear milky, distant and unclear.
“Organiform supports are dying,” announces Cruz. “Hold on the final coding sequence for the nodules. Karlyn, rig to reboot.”
“I know!” She sets up the program again. “No dice,” she says. “She’s sinkin’ fast!”
“Recommend we cut contact with Beta. Avoid possible contamination.”
Beta is not the only thing sinking, she thinks, as her stomach hits her lap. Whatever the problem is, she’s sure it’s her fault.
As she prepares to invoke the nanocrobe buffers to coat and isolate the undamaged programmers, a lightning crack ruptures the digisky above. Beta Platform, who’s garbled double speak has dominated most of her interchannels, howls and discharges a static burst.
With quick efficiency, her biolastic suit’s response mode kicks in. A silver screen goes up, catches the burst, amplifies it, and sends it right back at the Platform. There is a shower of blue-white particles, a wrenching noise that threatens to shatter her ears. Suddenly she is thrown clear, and the digivisor on her interface pulls back like melted plastic and withers.
She sits in her organiform chair, head aching, and curses Beta’s bloody haemoglobular flow.
“And that, as they say, is that,” says Cruz. “I’ll check our backups. If this happens again we’re gonna have problems growing the colonists.”