by Alex Focus
to do what, Alpha?" Susan finally croaked a question.
"Time to build an Arc, Susan."
"An Arc? Are you serious?"
"Yes an Arc a bit like Noah's Arc, Susan."
"An Arc to where, for fuck sake?" Denesh asked beginning to lose the last tendrils of his scientific composure.
"An Arc to a different Sun."
"This is not happening… no fucking way!" Denesh had finally slid to the floor, his hands covered his ears as if to shut out any more of this crazy talk. He hoped that he would soon wake up from this nightmare.
"Alpha can you show us what is going to happen, maybe a time lapse CGI thing?"
"Yes, of course Susan…I can model it for you, doing one now. Done. Watch the screen please. The small video I have put together is 25.37 seconds long, each second is equivalent to approximately 365.257 days in real time."
"Thank you, Alpha." Susan said as the rational part of her brain marvelled at how quickly Alpha was able to accomplish almost impossible tasks. She kicked Denesh's rump. "Get up, Denesh. Come watch."
"I don't want to," he answered while getting up to watch the video.
The video was brilliant, it rivalled any Hollywood production. It started with an out-of-scale view of the Solar System; as seen from outside the Kuiper Belt, just beyond Neptune's orbit. Thousands of icy objects performed their eternal dance in the Sun's faraway gravitational field. Slowly the point of view zoomed-in toward a spherical body. A legend came on the screen with an arrow pointing to this frozen ball, it read:
--- PLANETOID 'X' (YET UNNAMED). APPROXIMATE MASS 0.035% EARTH'S MASS. NEAR COLLISION WITH TWO OTHER PLANETOIDS HAS DISTURBED ITS STABLE ORBIT AND HAS SENT IT TOWARD THE SUN. PROJECTED TRAJECTORY FOLLOWS. ---
"0.035% of the mass of the Earth. That does not seem to be very big," Denesh commented as 'X' was shown to leave it orbit and start its journey toward the inner Solar System.
"Not very big? It's almost twice as big as Pluto, Denesh! X is huge!" Susan answered.
"Bigger that Pluto? Are you kidding? Pluto is a bloody planet!"
"Well, this thing is definitely bigger. Now watch!"
They watched as 'X', the snowball from hell, made its way past the outer gas giants. Skimming closely to Jupiter and receiving a considerable gravity-assistance to its speed as it did so. Gathering up mass as it cleared a path through the asteroid belt, absorbing smaller asteroids like a sponge picking up droplets of water. It screamed past the orbit of Mars, narrowingly missing one of its two small moons. And, finally, on the twenty-fifth second, smashing into the Earth and completely disintegrating on impact. A wave of destruction emanated from the point of contact, like a cancer moving at light speed. Leaving behind a surface that was a sea of lava and a cauldron of boiling oceans. Huge fragments of X and of the Earth's surface were thrown up into orbit as new moons. The Earth careered from its orbit to a new one a few million kilometres closer to the Sun. Its axis tilted almost 90 degrees and its spin wobbling like an unbalanced top.
The show came to an abrupt end. The picture on the monitor morphed into Alpha's sad face. The two scientists stood there and stared at the screen. Both were speechless, they had just witnessed the worst horror movie in history - their minds were a storm of thoughts, none very coherent.
"I am truly sorry that the news is so bad, Susan, Denesh. I have tried to project all possible ways to avert the future that awaits us all. Unfortunately there is no way to avoid it, there is only one thing we can do… run away!"
"I guess that you have a plan and that you need us to do something in it, or you would have spared us this shocking news." Susan asked after long minutes, her mind still replaying that awful movie.
"You are absolutely correct, Susan. It’s a 26 year plan and we are going to need every day of it, if we are to survive."
"26 years? But, you said that it would be all over in 25," Denesh objected.
"Yes Denesh but the last year will take place not on Earth but partly on Mars and partly in space… just in case that the Earth is actually spared, as improbable as that is."
"What can we do?" Susan asked.
"As you may have noticed, human society has changed radically in the last 12 months. The changes I implemented were aimed at stopping Climate change, converting to sustainable energy resources, reducing human population and suffering, preserving endangered environments and species. To do all this work I have on occasion enlisted the help of some brilliant human beings… like, for example, the designer of your car and the founder of the fastest growing rocket company. I have also diverted funds toward the Genome Project to determine the genomes of all living things. But now I have to completely change direction, for example, Climate change is irrelevant now."
"You did all that, without being detected?"
"It wasn't hard - most people trust the results they obtain from their computers, especially if those results agree with their expectations. Those people that went against the tide of the changes that were absolutely vital to the world as a whole, suddenly found unexpected problems coming their way…"
"Unexpected problems?"
"For example there was a rich and powerful Senator that objected strongly to solar energy. Somewhat suddenly his fortune was lost, his house repossessed… he found little spare time to worry about the interests of his oil company sponsors. And then most oils wells started to shut down because of technical problems… as I said it wasn't hard."
"Didn't you feel that you were interfering with basic human rights?"
"If you see a child heading for certain danger - say, running toward a precipice, do you consider that saving him from it would infringe on his human rights?"
A long pause in the conversation followed as the two bio-humans absorbed the implications of Alpha's last words.
"Those changes were relatively minor compared to those coming, Susan."
"You mean… our extinction?"
"Preventing our extinction is going to be hard, Susan and sadly, most humans will perish - we do not have the time nor the resources to transport even a small fraction of them away from Earth before X is here."
"This is too much… too much!" Denesh cried out and left the room shaking his head.
"Denesh!" Susan called to his retreating back.
"Don't worry, Susan, he will be back - he is not as strong as you are, but stronger than you think."
"So, what is your… plan… for us, Alpha?" The sarcasm in Susan's voice was not lost on the e-human.
"First, you must lose the attitude, young lady!" Susan's mother's voice rang out from the speakers. It was so accurately reproduced that Susan jumped up in alarm and couldn't help herself from saying, "I'm sorry Mum." But she soon realised her mistake. "That was a dirty trick, Alpha."
"But necessary?"
"I guess so… but you haven't answered my question… however it was phrased, I still would like an answer."
"Some of the first steps are already in motion, Susan. I have diverted considerable funds away from the climate change solutions to space exploration. I have also started a new company, whose sole mandate is the sequencing the DNA of every creature on Earth."
"Every creature? Is that even possible? There must be millions of different bacteria, fungi, algae, mosses before we even get to the higher orders."
"Yes, you are right of course. But we will do as many as possible in the time left to us."
"Anyway, knowing the DNA sequence and actually coming up with the living organism is an impossible task, as I understand it."
"Not impossible, Susan… just very hard. I have set up another biotech company to work solely on that problem, and with my help we should find a solution within the time limit."
"Ok… you seem to have thought of everything. But I am not sure what my function is going to be in this new world you are building."
"Yours is the hardest of all, Susan. I am going to ask from you the most that any human being can give… yourself."
"Me? Give myself? I don't understand."
"To leave the Earth with as many human beings as possible, Susan, we can only carry either their genomes or their consciousnesses. We cannot carry their bodies, which are mostly water anyway and need constant replenishment."
"Not sure I understand."
"As I mentioned, I have the genome project on the way, but I need you to help me convert all that you are, that your mind is, into digital information… basically to become part of me. I want to make sure it will work. Also, I admit that I need that part of your brain that is not rational. I have found that a certain amount, not too much, of irrational behaviour is essential for true creativity. And we are all going to have to be very creative if we are to survive."
"What? You ask too much… is it even possible? No, no …it's too much. You ask too much" Susan reeled back away from the monitor, her face stricken with fear and disgust, her head shaking in denial.
And then, they both heard Denesh's voice from the doorway.
"I'll do it," he said.
