Singularity

Singularity

By Mordecai J Banda

It's the promise that keeps them going, keeps them attempting to send them in again and again and again.

As of now, one hundred and fourteen attempts have been made. Meaning that that many scientific groups and military entourages have been lost. Even more civilians.

Death toll: 20000. Maybe more.

The singularity has taken much more meaning than just a 'black hole'. Its a 'singularity' in the sense that its the only object that we have our sights on. We, the dying race of humans. The singularity came into existence two months ago. We have evacuated earth, and nothing remains on that dead planet but dust and cold, smooth magma rock. The volcanoes and craters did a good job of vomiting the products of the earth's core onto the surface. It obliterated everything. I lost more friends than I can count. I long ago gave into depression. I gave up, and resigned my self to The Watch. The select few humans who are locked up in the main bridge of The Justice Space Station to oversee everything, and if 'everything' finally worked, we would still remain and watch over our dead planet.

The singularity, I drifted off it, didn't I? Its partly man made, mostly phenomenal and supernatural. Though most scientists have found convincing theories about its existence.

In any case, after a lot of blasting from a certain Null Intensifier, the ultimate machine of the 22nd Century, the brains behind the project steadily increased the mass of the fabric of space. They used some dark matter clumped within a cylinder, and blasted it for a whole damn year. Results were evident, the mass got beyond the comprehensible amounts and into black hole territory, and finally it bored into space, and then the singularity appeared.

Why would we desperate to make such a thing? Well, in simple cold facts, our oxygen was limited. Not food, not water, our oxygen.

The fleet that left earth in order to save the world's remaining occupants left with plenty of food and water, and floating in space, the calculations were made. It was possible to make other stuff using basic compounds, Carbon Dioxide, Methane, Hydrogen, and the planets that fit this bill had plenty of those.
The first idea before humans bored a black hole into space was that we could simply convert poisonous elements and other into oxygen, nitrogen, water, and other necessities. Colonize a planet.

Only one catch, the process would take a little over three hundred years, and we couldn't last that long, constantly using preciously few resources. Staying in orbit around the planets to collect the resources was not an option, and waiting for earth to live again was absurd. It was now turning into an obsidian planet, caked by layers of a ridiculous amount of volcanic activity. And its atmosphere was already flaking and hot.

So back to the singularity. We know there are other universes out there. There are alternate dimensions, and maybe if not, something better than here. There were ideas of new planets and e.t.c, but the hopes were on an alternate universe, same earth. Everyone wanted that especially.

The first rocket was sent through, they thought it would be as simple as going through. It was supposed to be simple, apart from the fact that this hole was a funnel; A 3.5 mile cone that spun and spun and spun. To add more problems, it varied in direction of the spin, and the crushing gravity bent light, allowing for misinterpreted positions of the entry itself. The worst major problem: there was a bend at the end to the hole. The rocket was stretched and bloated thousands of meters across before disintegrating into many fiery pieces.
Pieces which stretched as well and pulled apart into smaller pieces and even their own atoms were torn apart, releasing a considerable amount of radiation, in theory.

Time is running out, and me in my silent brooding is getting impatient. I'm losing courage, and don't feel like dying so much. You see, the plague of hope that is the singularity is getting to me, and I can see potential. I have no brains at all, so I just have to wait for the best idea to come through the scientists and hop on along. I keep constant contact with the other fleets, praising their courage, making jokes, and trying to keep the morale up. It occurs to me that I may have inherited the position as commander for the remainder of the human race, though that is a bit of a push. I'm just one of the remaining men who can talk to everyone alive. The others are too busy operating the machines that were the last tether to life for us.

The idea comes to me when I'm playing golf, well, something like that. I'm flicking small circles of paper into two holes I bored into my hardcover notebook, the one which I use to record some of this. It's good to feel antique.

The small wad of paper roles to the hole in the hard cover. It teases for a while, circling the hole, then spinning like crazy, grazing the rims of the goal, it dropped in, and then it was like an 'Aha!' moment for me. The lightbub popped, my eyes widened.

It occurred to me: no matter how fast the ships are, they are always pulled into one side of the singularity. Wouldn't it be possible to go in, surfing the rim? Going along with the spin? So far the longest distance reached into the hole was 2.9 miles, with a basic craft. A result that the scientists hadn't managed to replicate.

With my improved version of entry, it could work.

I didn't communicate the idea to anyone, and I think I'm suffering some form of madness, because I don't even think of it. Just jump into a pod, a fast one, a very fast one, and go over there yonder to that singularity. The one that's been taking up everyone's minds. The pod has no radio. There is no commander shouting violations of this-and-that-fleet code-that-and-that. Its a silent adventure, and its a damn good thing I've learnt to fly these things during my time aboard The Justice. I know that, behind me, people were watching this suicide. They knew it wouldn't work, yet they kept looking to see if I'd make it. To some extent, I know they feel that I can do it.

I have no grand thoughts as I inch ever closer to the black thing.

Its black alright, and luckily some space dust had gathered and started spinning along with the black hole's direction, making it a black nothing flecked with a lot of gray and brown and white sand.

I wonder if it'll hurt, to go into the monstrosity and die, and I dismiss the idea.

Here it comes.

I have already changed the angle of entry. I'm going to miss the center and head for the left rim. Currently it was spinning clock-wise. My luck? It didn't make much of a difference, but I enjoyed the consideration.

I floated towards the thing, breathing heavily, increasing speed. The cockpit of these crafts don't allow blindess. Due to the lack of tracking systems, they compensate this by allowing for a huge view of the world around, so I can see the thing. The singularity, clear as day.

I have reached it, I have angled the craft, now I wait for the spin, and it comes, along with a hell of a lot of other sensations.

Blankness. No sound but my own scared heart,and a whine like when a TV is on. Then the... God-Forbid... The stretching. I truly am going to die.

Dizziness, I feel my head turning to the right, but I realize it's just my vision. Even with my eyes shut. I open them.
Everything is moving, twisting, fragmenting into strange and different colors. Insanely turning and twisting and disappearing and appearing in the wrong places. Like a... Like a singularity bending light. That's all I can compare it to. I then notice me as a person am not harmed, and in fact I'm perfectly alive. I pull my hands to my chest, letting go of the controls, knowing that for some reason, I'm still albutamnif.

???

alvaandrsmisk

???

[My sense of MYSELF is dissapearing as well. My actual coherent thoughts are gone, and all I know is twisted, strange feeling. The world outside is a kaledioscope of madness and silence, and all I can do is watch feebly. But I can feel hope: I might make it.]




WORD COUNT: 1,443