David Simpson - Post-Human Trilogy

“He will,” Jim replied, trying to sound reassuring, though he was truly unsure.

“Five seconds,” James said. The light from the sun was now too much for even his new eyes to filter out, and the heat was beginning to cause his skin to glow red as it threatened to liquefy.

“Done!” he finally shouted as he let the missile continue on its trajectory without him; he retreated as quickly as he could. “It’s away!”

Only a handful of seconds later, the anti-matter missile ignited.

James had made just enough distance between himself and point zero that he was able to turn and, through his mental connection, give those back on Earth a view that was unlike anything any human had ever looked upon before. The sun began to grow dim, flickering like a candle in the final moments before it succumbs, all the while eerily silent.

“It’s happening,” James whispered. “I’m too close. I’m not going to make it!”

“Try, James!” Katherine shouted in desperation.

James turned and began to streak away from the collapsing sun, opening wormholes one after another so he could cheat the speed of light, desperately trying to make it as far away from the birth of this manmade black hole. The collapsing solar system nipped at his heels, bending the rules of the universe as the fabric of space and time was sucked into the blackness of the black hole.

He didn’t know why he was fleeing. He knew the plan meant he would, in all likelihood, be caught in the wake of the black hole, that he would be sucked in, past the event horizon, and have to face the unknowable fate within. Yet he raced away from it as fast as he could, terrified as though he were drowning—fighting for his life.

Back in the mainframe, the A.I. spoke to him, his words calm and even. “It will be all right. You will survive this, my son. Do not be afraid.” He placed his hand on James’s shoulder.

The calming words of the A.I. brought James back to his senses. He suddenly stopped.

“ Embrace it ,” advised the A.I.

James turned and gazed upon the coming blackness. Space was being pulled toward point zero, and James was about to become a part of it. He suddenly realized that this would be the greatest moment of his life. “Embrace it,” he whispered.

The trinity watched the event horizon approach from the mainframe.

“He must be terrified,” Katherine said, mortified.

“Indeed, I am sure he is,” replied the A.I. as he watched the dazzling spectrum of colors from the rim of Hawking radiation as it approached James. “I envy him.”

When the event horizon reached James, he held his arms up to the coming wave and watched them begin to distort, first lengthening as the gravity pulled them toward it, then shortening as the gravity compressed them.

“There’s no pain,” James related with awe.

In the next moment, the screen went completely dark, and James’s form vanished in the mainframe.

“Is that it?” Katherine asked, horrified. “Is he…gone?”

“Yes,” the A.I. replied.

The golden beams of information that were ubiquitous within the operator’s position were magnified now to such an extent that Katherine and Jim had to cover their eyes as the A.I. grappled with an influx of information that tested even his extraordinary capacity. His stare remained fixed on the incoming information as he stood perfectly still, like a statue.

“What happens now?” Katherine asked.

“Trans-Human has successfully been initiated,” the A.I. explained, “so it now falls to us to ask it to reverse itself.”

“What if ‘it’ refuses?” Katherine worried. “Aren’t you asking it to destroy itself just as you gave birth to it?”

“Yes,” the A.I. replied, “but part of its programming is an understanding that it must protect and respect humanity.”

“Let’s hope it’s as altruistic as you think,” Katherine said gravely.

The A.I.’s expression and tone suddenly changed from one of intense concentration to one of awe. “It has already begun,” the A.I. whispered.

“Katherine!” Jim shouted as he expanded a view screen so they could watch the events unfolding in space. The black hole that had grown so large that it had swallowed the space around it all the way to Mercury was now receding—an astronomical wave of blackness withdrawing, the Hawking radiation rings shrinking like a pricked balloon.

“For the first time in history, the physical universe is exhibiting intelligence,” Jim said in awe.

Katherine watched with horror as the black hole withdrew and as the darkness shrank away at a greater and greater speed. Right in front of her eyes, the sun suddenly burst back to life, gleaming as bright as ever. “I don’t understand,” Katherine admitted. “If the black hole has completely vanished, then how is the solar system still reversing itself? The Trans-Human program only existed from the moment that the sun was extinguished, right?”

“Think of it like a child’s swing, my dear,” the A.I. explained as he simultaneously continued the sophisticated dance with the incoming information from the Trans-Human program. “If the child pulls back and lets herself go, the momentum will carry her past the starting position and right through the swinging motion. Our Trans-Human program has done the same thing.”

“The informational capacity was so large that its momentum is allowing the A.I. to run the solar system back in time, even before the program was initiated,” Jim further explained.

“That’s what the A.I. meant about it being a paradox?” she asked.

“Indeed it is, my dear,” the A.I. answered “However, even a computer this magnificent has its limitations. The informational capacity required to reverse the solar system will only let us turn time back twenty-two hours and thirty-one minutes.”

Katherine and Jim marveled as they watched the past come back like a slingshot, their reality playing out in front of them as though someone were reversing a filmstrip. The sun crossed the sky in a matter of minutes, rising in the west and setting in the east, whilst the horrors of people being pulled up from the surface reversed themselves. The cloud of androids abandoned the planet while the dead post-humans returned to life, calmly moving about their business—albeit in reverse.

“It’s working,” Katherine said softly. Tears welled into her eyes.

“The firewall held,” Jim commented. “It looks like we’re going to be okay!”

“We are not, as the saying goes, out of the woods just yet,” the A.I. quickly cautioned. “We have given ourselves a second chance, but what we do with that chance is yet to be written.”

At that very moment, James Keats hovered just above the waterfall he’d been considering naming after his dead wife. A voice whispered in his ear.

“ Welcome back, my son. ”

“Welcome back?” James responded with a confused grin painted across his lips. He turned to Old-timer. “What do you mean?”

Old-timer was at a loss. He hovered only two meters away from his young friend, the mist making him appear almost like a dream. “Say what?”

“You said, ‘welcome back,’ didn’t you?”

Old-timer knitted his brow. He shook his head. “I’m afraid not.”

James’s embarrassed grin melted into a look of concern. He was sure he’d heard a voice.

“ It is me, James, ” the A.I. spoke.

James’s heart jumped at the sound of the kindly, elderly voice. He heard it, but he couldn’t believe it. “No.”

“ Stand by for upload, ” said the A.I. “ You may need to brace yourself. This will feel strange. ”