In which we have just a little bit of foreshadowing, which will be redundantly explained in Chapter Fifteen, Part II because, well, word count.
“Do you hear that?” the dark-haired scientist asked his bald companion. “It sounds like it’s coming from inside.”
“Impossible. Probably Jake’s new ringtone. He has a new girl and she’s been calling him non-stop for the last week,” his companion said. “Besides, there can’t be anything inside there. Except particles. Which are set to collide, ready?”
“Ramping up. Looking good. Still, why would he set his ringtone to Y M C A?”
“I don’t… Dammit! Oh no… Alert! Oh crap, what’s… it’s… Shut it down! Shut it down now! No, that can’t be! It’s…”
Eyes wide, the dark-haired scientist grabbed his cell phone and typed in the very last Tweet CERN would ever send.
In which there is an explanation, though it’s fairly obvious what is supposed to have happened. Though what happened in the story may or may not be possible (I mean besides the whole alien bit), the author claims no knowledge of quantum mechanics or the inner workings of the Large Hadron Collider, not that this story is even referencing the Large Hadron Collider, it could be any large-scale scientific experiment capable of producing a black hole.. The author does not mean to imply that, with or without alien interference, that the Large Hadron Collider could or would destroy the world, or that it is even possible for it to happen in this way. The author claims no working knowledge of black holes, other than that they suck.
“Realst! Realst! Where are you? Realst!” Nenipven shouted as he zipped around a very large circuit. He’d be having a lot of fun if he knew what had happened to Realst. He’d never traveled this fast before, and it was rather exciting. Suddenly he heard a noise in the distance, getting louder and louder, then passing him by, narrowly missing him. A moment later it was back, and went zipping by again.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”
“Realst! There you are! You’re going the wrong direction, old chap! Get yourself turned around, we’ll just zip around here a bit until the black hole forms. I think I know where we are! We’ll be at ground zero, back to normal in no time. Realst! Turn around this instant!”
“I can’t!” Realst screamed as he went careening by again.
“Certainly you can!” Nenipven moved to try to intercept him on his next pass, but missed.
“You turn around if it’s so easy,” Realst dodged as Nenipven tried to block his path.
“I’m trying to grab you,” Nenipven said.
“Well don’t! Do you know how much it would hurt, running into each other at this speed?” Realst cringed as two nearby particles collided.
“You do have a point,” Nenipven conceded. “Well then, I suppose we just go around and around and try to avoid smacking into anything. A racetrack obstacle course. How fun!”
“Everything’s fun to you,” Realst grumbled, but Nenipven didn’t hear him as he went screaming by.
“Wheeeeeee!”
“Nenipven, will you…”
“Y M C A ... you'll find it at the Y M C A. Young man, young man, there's no need to feel down. Young man, young man, get yourself off the ground.” Nenipven began to sing as he sailed merrily around. “I love that song!”
“Nenipven!”
“Y M C A ... just go to the Y M C A. Young man, young man, are you listening to me? Young man, young man, what do you wanna be?” Nenipven started bouncing to the music in his head, singing at the top of his lungs (which should have been impossible, since specks of light don’t have lungs, but they’ve been talking this whole time anyway, so).
“NENIPVEN!” Realst screamed.
“What?” Nenipven tried to stop, but the bouncing had caused him to destabilize and he went spinning off-track.
“Nenipven, watch out!” Realst screamed as the two of them headed directly for each other.
Nenipven tried frantically to swerve, but it was too late. He was too wobbly and going way to fast. In a flash, they collided, fused, and spun off a mini black hole. This would have been fine if it had simply dissipated, but due to a tangential but very important story, there was a tiny speck of dust floating nearby. That tiny speck of dust was sucked into the black hole, strengthening it. The slightly stronger black hole was then able to pull in a small piece of hair that shouldn’t have been there, and then a flake of skin, and another speck of dust, and another particle, making it stronger and stronger and stronger and more stable. And so on, and so on, until the black hole was big enough to start pulling the collider apart. At which point it was too late to do much of anything, even if anyone had know what to do.
(Which, incidentally, if you don’t know, is pretty simple. All you need to stop a black hole from expanding is a tube of chapstick, a small pen knife, and an apple seed.)
No comments:
Post a Comment