“Are you sure this will work?”
“No, but it's our only hope.”
“There must be something else we can do. We don't even know how long this will take until it's habitable. We may not have enough time.”
“We've done the calculations to one part in ten trillion. We know what we're doing. All it needs is the precise amount of tachyons introduced at the precise moment, and it'll work.”
“What if it goes wrong?”
“It won't.”
“But if it does?”
“If it does, then chances are, instead of creating a traversable black hole into the new universe, it'll explode into our spacetime and annihilate us. At least according to the laws of Universal Evolution.”
“That's a big if.”
“Our universe is dying anyway. This is our only hope.”
“You said that already.”
“Look, if you have nothing good to say, then say nothing.”
“All I'm saying is that if you get this wrong, then we all die.”
“And I'm saying, if I don't do this, then we all die anyway.”
“I know. I'm saying get it right.”
He started up the particle accelerator and watched the stream of electrons rocketing down the three-lightyear-long tunnel. A collision, a flash of light, and a bubble of antimatter wobbled into existence. The computer automatically activated the three, solar system-sized lasers, firing directly into the main chamber. The antimatter began to oscillate back and forth through time, eventually collapsing into a black hole, which immediately devoured the particle accelerator. The computer again automatically activated three tachyon generators, and the black hole began to stabilize.
“It's working. The wormhole is opening. Gamma ray emissions are decreasing. It's beginning to emit visible light. I think it's working. The bubble universe is inverting from our own. We did it. We've made ourselves a new home.”
The black hole began to glow brightly.
“The new universe should be breaking symmetry about now. Activate the matter stream, let's stimulate nucleosynthesis.”
As the stream of protons entered the black hole, its light dimmed.
“Oh no, gamma ray emissions are increasing again.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means, the black hole is undergoing a quantum inversion. Instead of breaking matter-antimatter symmetry in favour of matter, this new universe broke in favour of antimatter. That proton stream we just sent in caused a phase transition.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means that any second now, the black hole is going to start spewing antimatter into our universe at a phenomenal rate.”
“You mean, it'll annihilate us?”
“Precisely.”
As he watched the bubble universe grow inside the particle accelerator, he knew that they never had a chance. There was no way that this would work, trying to create a universe to their exact specifications: there were too many variables, but it was worth a shot. Now, as this new universe was about to destroy all of existence and supplant their spacetime continuum with its own, he suddenly remembered lines of a bad poem he'd read in school:
“Take to your knees, ye gods, and pray,
For the Reign of Man has come today.”
“No, but it's our only hope.”
“There must be something else we can do. We don't even know how long this will take until it's habitable. We may not have enough time.”
“We've done the calculations to one part in ten trillion. We know what we're doing. All it needs is the precise amount of tachyons introduced at the precise moment, and it'll work.”
“What if it goes wrong?”
“It won't.”
“But if it does?”
“If it does, then chances are, instead of creating a traversable black hole into the new universe, it'll explode into our spacetime and annihilate us. At least according to the laws of Universal Evolution.”
“That's a big if.”
“Our universe is dying anyway. This is our only hope.”
“You said that already.”
“Look, if you have nothing good to say, then say nothing.”
“All I'm saying is that if you get this wrong, then we all die.”
“And I'm saying, if I don't do this, then we all die anyway.”
“I know. I'm saying get it right.”
He started up the particle accelerator and watched the stream of electrons rocketing down the three-lightyear-long tunnel. A collision, a flash of light, and a bubble of antimatter wobbled into existence. The computer automatically activated the three, solar system-sized lasers, firing directly into the main chamber. The antimatter began to oscillate back and forth through time, eventually collapsing into a black hole, which immediately devoured the particle accelerator. The computer again automatically activated three tachyon generators, and the black hole began to stabilize.
“It's working. The wormhole is opening. Gamma ray emissions are decreasing. It's beginning to emit visible light. I think it's working. The bubble universe is inverting from our own. We did it. We've made ourselves a new home.”
The black hole began to glow brightly.
“The new universe should be breaking symmetry about now. Activate the matter stream, let's stimulate nucleosynthesis.”
As the stream of protons entered the black hole, its light dimmed.
“Oh no, gamma ray emissions are increasing again.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means, the black hole is undergoing a quantum inversion. Instead of breaking matter-antimatter symmetry in favour of matter, this new universe broke in favour of antimatter. That proton stream we just sent in caused a phase transition.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means that any second now, the black hole is going to start spewing antimatter into our universe at a phenomenal rate.”
“You mean, it'll annihilate us?”
“Precisely.”
As he watched the bubble universe grow inside the particle accelerator, he knew that they never had a chance. There was no way that this would work, trying to create a universe to their exact specifications: there were too many variables, but it was worth a shot. Now, as this new universe was about to destroy all of existence and supplant their spacetime continuum with its own, he suddenly remembered lines of a bad poem he'd read in school:
“Take to your knees, ye gods, and pray,
For the Reign of Man has come today.”
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