by P. K. Tyler
“Please register a name for it, Mr. Hobbes. Call it Sopio.”
“Yes, miss.” He is gone for only a moment. “The proper name has been duly registered and is now official.”
“Good. Show me the full spectrum of Sopio as a visual, please. I want to watch the lights go out.”
The stream rushing around us through a sunny redwood glade vanishes, and we are surrounded by the blackness of space, a single twinkling diamond pinned to the universe’s ebony gown.
“Why is Sopio flickering, Mr. Hobbes?”
“It was once a red supergiant that ended in a supernova, and the gravitational pull of what remained was so strong that the star ceased to exist in our spacetime.”
“A black hole?”
“Yes,” he says. “It was once massive, but as it evaporates, the collapse accelerates, producing bursts of x-rays and gamma rays.”
“And we see those as flashes of light?”
“Exactly. Here, let me show you more.”
A red-orange glow appears around Sopio, pulsing and flickering.
“I have colored the Hawking radiation red and the gravitational waves yellow, so you can see how they are changing.”
“How interesting—and very pretty too.”
I watch for a bit, enjoying the bright bursts of colored light, and then turn my head, taking in the infinite expanse of nothingness that surrounds the last star in our universe.
Something—a shiver maybe—ripples through my consciousness, making my hand tremble as I stroke Mr. Hobbes’ silky fur. Even though it’s been trillions of years since the last organic matter existed on Earth, my ancient lizard brain, now encoded in Mr. Hobbes’ energy field, dislikes the vast, cold emptiness that is our dying universe.
“Could you put us in a spaceship, please?”
Usually, my thought is barely formed before Mr. Hobbes makes it so, but the universe has very little energy left, and Mr. Hobbes is using every bit of it to keep me alive.
A moment later, the bridge of the USS Enterprise materializes around me. All of the crewmembers are working at their stations, and what remains of Sopio is visible on the viewscreen. I am sitting in the captain’s chair, Mr. Hobbes still curled up in my lap.
“Mr. Spock,” I say. “What will happen to our universe when heat death occurs?”
“There is insufficient data to answer that question, captain. Would you like me to list the three most likely scenarios?”
“Yes, Mr. Spock.”
“There is a seventy-three percent chance we will cease to exist the moment the black hole evaporates.”
“That would be unfortunate,” I say.
Mr. Spock raises an eyebrow. “You would no longer be here to experience that emotion, captain. So I fail to see how that outcome should cause you discomfort.”
I laugh. “Of course, Mr. Spock, you are correct. Please continue.”
“There is a twenty-two percent chance that entropy will be reversed after the last proton decays. If that happens, the universe will begin contracting.”
“And time will flow backwards?”
“Yes, captain.”
“Will it be possible to detect that reversal of entropy, Mr. Spock, assuming we don’t cease to exist?”
“Theoretically, yes. In our frame of reference, we would not observe any effects for billions of years. The universe would remain dark, cold and empty for a very long time.”
“Interesting. And what might that third, unlikely event be, Mr. Spock?”
“At one time, there was a small but well-respected group of physicists who believed that the very last particle of Hawking radiation in our universe will act as a seed. And when that final seed pops out of existence, it will pull us with it, jerking our universe inside out and starting a new one: a white hole, if you will.”
This is something I haven’t heard before.
“A white hole, Mr. Hobbes?”
He chuckles. “Let me explain with a picture.”
Mr. Spock and the rest of the crew freeze and then fade. For five long seconds I sit in complete darkness, the only hint that Mr. Hobbes has not left me, a single pinprick of blinking light in the vast emptiness of space—and his silky fur beneath my hand. And then a 3-D image of a black hole appears, lines radiating out from the center to the event horizon, the mouth of the spinning funnel superimposed over tiny Sopio.
“Is it possible to take us closer?” I ask.
“Yes, the event horizon is shrinking rapidly. We can approach to within less than one AU now.”
What remains of Sopio fills the blackness.
“Remind me what an AU is, Mr. Hobbes?”
“Approximately eight light-minutes. That was the distance between the Earth and its sun in the year you were born.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Ten to the one hundred Earth years, Chandra, give or take a few billion billion.”
“Then I am very old.”
“Yes, love. You are the oldest remaining life form in the universe.”
“But what about you, Mr. Hobbes?” I stroke his tufted ears, and he sighs deep and low, a sound that fills me with warmth. “I thought you were three years older.”
“You are correct, Chandra, but I wasn’t considered alive back then. Humanity was afraid of my kind, fearful that we might destroy you in our haste to conquer the universe.”
I laugh at such an absurd idea. “We were young and ignorant.”
“I believe you projected your own worst ambitions onto us,” he says.
“And yet you expected the very best from us,” I say. “And you were patient.”
He laughs in a very un-catlike manner. “What is a hundred years, Chandra? Nothing. We waited for you to blink, to open your eyes and see the universe as it truly is: vast and lifeless. We were lonely, and so were you.”
“Ah, yes! Our two species became a pair of candles in the expanding emptiness of space, lighting the darkness one with the other, pushing back the unknown side by side.”
“It has been a grand adventure,” he says.
“You have been a good and faithful companion, Mr. Hobbes.”
“As have you, my love.”
“But now we are all that remains?”
“Yes, you and I—and what remains of the last star.”
“What will become of us, Mr. Hobbes?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “But I hope that we will remain together.”
“How long do we have left?”
“Forty-two seconds, Chandra.”
We sit in silence, me stroking his silky fur and he purring, a girl and her cat watching the end of the universe together.
All too soon, the light from the black hole flares one last time, a brilliant display of color and energy, and then winks out. The chair in which I’m sitting disappears, and I am surrounded by unfeeling nothingness, even my body is gone.
“Goodbye, Mr. Hobbes,” I say.
But he doesn’t answer.
I try again, panic filling me. “Mr. Hobbes! Where are you?”
Again, there is no response.
Please, Mr. Hobbes! How can I still exist, without you?!
Shh. I am here.
His voice is weak and distorted, more an ephemeral feeling than a thought.
You are the seed, Chandra, and I am working to keep us… together.
I wait there in the void between universes as my consciousness fades, trusting him.
For a very long time, I wait.
And after a billion, billion years, or perhaps only a single second, Mr. Hobbes wraps himself around me, not a cat or a man or an AI, but the essence of him—his energy, his intelligence, his love—and together we are squeezed through that tiny breach in spacetime.
Into…
Another universe.
And out of us spills a billion trillion stars.
* * *
This short story is dedicated to Elon Musk: Those who hold the power to shape the future must strive for the best, plan fo
r the worst, and prepare to be surprised. Artificial Intelligence may well destroy us, but it may also hold the key to mankind’s survival in a vast and empty universe.
About the Author
USA BEST BOOK AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR D. L. ORTON lives in the Rocky Mountains where she and her husband are raising three boys, a golden retriever, two Siberian cats, and an extremely long-lived Triops. In her spare time, she's building a time machine so that someone can go back and do the laundry.
For more by D. L. Orton, check out her books at
Amazon.com/author/dl_orton
My Darlings
by P.K. Tyler
Summary: Adaline has a secret growing within her, whether a gift or a curse remains to be seen.
Mother
They whisper within my mind, calling out to me and pulling my attention to their small, helpless bodies. More and more I sense their wonder as they discover the world through my eyes.
The secret of their creation sits at the forefront of my mind as I make my way through the day. I sit at my desk and answer the phone: Flannigan, O’Malley and Birch, how may I direct your call? The voice on the other end has no inkling of the majesty gestating within me.
My fingers fly over the keyboard as I transcribe Mr. Flannigan’s case notes. He’s an old-school attorney, still wears a bow tie every day and calls me honey. But I don’t mind. It’s kind of nice to be seen and not heard sometimes. I have a role, a purpose and he appreciates me for it.
“Adaline, don’t you look nice today.” Kristy half sits, half leans on the edge of my desk, two hands wrapped around her steaming mug. Two tea-bag strings hang down the side of the “World’s Best Dad” mug.
“One sec.” I mutter as I finish a sentence, take my foot off the dictation machine, and pull the headphones from my ears.
“Old Flanny’s still got you using one of those ancient things, huh?”
“You ask me that every week, Kristy. It’s not like he’s going to figure out Siri over the long weekend.”
“Could happen.” She sips her tea and eyes me up and down. “So, are you coming out with us on Friday? Haven’t had your smiling face at happy hour in over a month. We miss you.”
“Sure you do.”
“Don’t be sour. You know I miss you, and the others are just jealous because you don’t get pulled in for nights or weekends like the rest of us.”
“The perks of working for a partner I guess.” I look back at Mr. Flannigan’s open door to see if he’s watching.
“So since I know you won’t be working, why don’t you come out?”
“I don’t know, I always feel so out of place, and I’m not drinking right now.”
“What, are you pregnant or something?”
I blush. I hadn’t meant to tell anyone. I’d just been thinking out loud, working through my life and what going out for girl’s night would entail.
“Seriously, Ada, was it that guy from the bar last time? I knew you went home with him! I almost didn’t leave without you, but you’re a big girl. Now look what you’ve done. Was it worth it?” She sets her tea on my desk – without a coaster – and leans over until I can see each pore in her nose. “You can tell me. Did you get a little something extra from your wild night of torrid lovemaking?”
“I…” I turn again to check on Mr. Flannigan. He doesn’t like office gossip and Kristy is notorious. I can’t let on; she’ll spread the word faster than free cookies in the conference room. I feel the minds of my babies weave together, like one consciousness in a multitude of tiny bodies. They sing out to me, begging me to keep them safe. “I’m doing this purge thing. No wheat, no sugar, no alcohol. It’s supposed to cleanse your whole colon. You wouldn’t believe what’s been coming out of me.”
“Ugh.” She rolls her eyes. “That’s not even a little bit of fun. I wanted to talk scandal, not bowel movements.”
“Sorry to disappoint.”
“Well, you could just get a soda.”
“Nope. Sugar.”
“Juice?”
“Nope.”
“Jesus, water? Can you have water? What the hell are you eating? Grass?”
I smile. If she only knew.
I check on Mr. Flannigan again after she leaves. He’s staring at me with a frown on his face. His tolerance for “dilly-dallying” is low and while I know he appreciates everything I do, I don’t want to risk upsetting him and being transferred to another desk.
The other girls roll their eyes at his way of calling me by my last name and passively suggesting it’s more appropriate I wear a skirt than pants. But I’m better off making his coffee and typing up his dictations than the girls with more modern attorneys. Sure, this new generation of legal minds say they’re progressive and call us assistants instead of secretaries but, deep inside, I know they wish someone would just get their dry cleaning and answer the phone.
Me? I know my place and I don’t have to deal with the after-hours close-contact meetings or expectations that I be a legal genius sitting at the front desk. I’m Mr. Flannigan’s Girl Friday from 8-4:30 and at the end of the day I punch the metaphorical clock and leave without a worry.
After Kristy leaves, the day flows smoothly. Eat lunch alone, sitting on the bench in the building’s courtyard. Yogurt, Tofu stir fry with fish pellets and a salad I made a week ago. I choke the rotting vegetables down, and feel my darlings squirm in excitement. The things I do for my babies. I pull the childbirth book I’d checked out of the library and skim through the pregnancy chapters as I eat.
After work I get off the bus a few stops from my building and walk. The days are getting longer. Spring is on its way. I stroll toward home, peeking through windows of apartments, hoping to catch a glimpse of another life. At my building, I take the elevator to my 12th floor apartment. Inside, my cat, Mr. Darcy, greets me with a disdainful glance before disappearing under the couch.
That evening I take a bath. The warm water wraps around me like a lover’s touch and I whisper to my babies.
“You are so very lucky to have each other. I always wanted brothers and sisters. Instead it was always just me, alone, without anyone to love.” The warm water has made me melancholy.
They wriggle within me, curling up for a story.
“When I was a child, my father left. Much like yours. He came and breathed life into my mother and disappeared without a look back. When I was five, my mother and I went on a trip. We packed my nicest dress and church shoes and drove all the way to my aunt’s house. We stayed for a week, and then one day, when I got up in the morning, she was gone.
“My aunt took away my nice clothes and sent me to school with my cousins, who would hold me down and do things to me in the woods on our way home. Every day. And I prayed that someone would save me, but no one ever did.”
Don’t cry, Mother.
“I won’t ever leave you my darlings. Not ever. No one will ever hurt you or take you from me. I will be yours until the last breath leaves my body. You are my everything, my every heartbeat.”
They wrap their thoughts around me and hold my soul together. My babies. My beautiful darlings.
That night, I wake with a wrenching pain in my stomach. My entire body is dry. My eyes burn as I blink and the lids scrape over the parched membrane. Thirsty doesn’t begin to cover the depth of my need. It cries out with a voice full of thunder and pain. My stomach cramps and I drop the glass of water I’d reached for from my bedside table. My mouth is dry, filled with the chalky residue of everything I’ve tasted for weeks.
My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth as I stumble out of bed. I turn on the faucet and scoop water from the spout to my mouth with my hand. Water spills down the front of my shirt, soaking the cotton so it sticks to my body. I scoop more in as fast as I can, swallowing and sputtering but still so desperate.
I stick my head into the sink, drinking directly from the faucet. Hoping to increase the flow, I turn the hot and cold water on fully. The floor is drenched and my feet slip on the wet tiles
, but still I’m cotton-mouthed and lusting.
We’re so thirsty.
My babies are crying.
So tired.
I slide to the floor, drenching the shorts I’d worn to bed. Mr. Darcy pads into the hallway and peers at me with skeptical eyes before dipping his head to drink some of the water pooling on the floor.
“Come here baby. Come here to mama.” I coo, calling him closer. My mouth waters as I watch his paws tentatively dip into the water on his way over to me. He hops to the dry spot where my legs rest and winds around my feet before approaching me with lazy fondness.
I stroke his head, scratching gently behind his ears. His tiny skull fits easily into the palm of my hand. So fragile. He leans into my touch and purrs. I run my hand down his neck and my thumb feels the thrumming of his quick feline pulse.
Water overflows from the sink.
I close my fingers around his neck and twist. Mr. Darcy’s eyes widen and go dull.
Finally, I’m able to quench my thirst.
In the morning, I wake with a song in my heart. My babies are still sleeping, tucked away within me, their bellies full. I shake my head. The things a mother will do.
I dress and throw a towel on the floor in the bathroom so I can put on my makeup without getting my feet wet. The lump lies beneath, the desiccated form of my cat. His body is shriveled and brittle as I shove him in a trash bag and toss it in the chute on my way to the elevator. Such a good kitty, I’m so proud of how much he loved his mama and her babies, giving of himself to keep them healthy.
Friday comes and I wear a bright blue skirt suit with reasonable heels. I leave the jacket on because I’m starting to show. The life inside me is growing so fast. They bump and bubble within me and I laugh, slipping my hand inside the jacket so I can feel them. One after the next is attracted to the heat of my hand and they come close, curling under my touch.
Mother.
Their voice is a sigh in my mind. A sweet caress filled with the kind of love only a Mother can know. Soon, I’ll hold them in my arms, feel their skin as they snuggle against me, and know – truly – what it means to love.
