‘Ouch.’
That’s all I can think by the time I start coming around. My last recollections of pain had been a distant thing, re-lived previously through my memories. Those faded quickly.
This time not so much. It felt like someone had taken a meat grinder to my head. Then dunked my head into a boiling vat of oil before lighting it on fire. While also doing terrible things to the rest of my body. A body a rightfully shouldn’t have at this point in time.
Yet it really is my body that hurts. Or rather all of me does. Dull aching pains, sharp shooting pains, twisting knotted pains. Shit, I have it all. I’ll sell them at bargain-brand prices!
Ugh. Morbid humor aside, I really do fucking hurt. Like a full-body hangover after a fifty mile run kind of hurt. All I want to do is curl up and curse until my tongue falls off.
Not to mention my damned head is shrouded in a fog thicker than the chromosphere of the sun. It makes thinking coherent thoughts really difficult. Much less trying to make sense of what I’m seeing.
In fact, what the hell am I seeing? It sure doesn’t look like anything I’d ever see with my eyes. Yet it also looks oddly familiar.
Then it’s there, as if I knew the answer all along: ‘Hypersonic Sensor Array overlay.’ I, of course, have seen such overlapping images before. During maintenance of the AI Pod and its sub-systems. I helped build the sensor array unit, in fact.
Just thinking about it brings up a whole slew of new information into my mind. Power input and output, magnetic inversion radiation algorithms, radiation induction amplifier, ultrasonic imaging glyph algorithm… The list goes on and on. It was as if I knew every little detail.
Digging deeper, images of the components appear to replace the previous information. Structural integrity charts, variable setting options, optimal range finding software… Just the Hypersonic Sensor Array itself has some three hundred plus components to it, each built with its own internal sensors and feedback systems. Part of this I already knew, given that I helped build it, but now it’s like I know every detail like the back of my hand. Including the scientific mumbo-jumbo I never cared for before.
Pulling back from all the information, my view expands once more. Now I can ‘see’ not just outside, but inside as well. Outside to the barren rocky valley. And inside into the mechanical and electronic inner workings of myself. Which is definitely not a human body.
The revelation almost causes me to have a problem. Still standing upon the dust-covered Drop Pad’s launch pedestal, my sudden outburst of surprise causes it to flare the micro-engines within it. There’s no fuel, thankfully, but it definitely rocks the boat in a way I do not like. My internal stabilizers have to spike in order to keep my ‘body’ steady.
Yeah, that would be ‘my body’. For some reason I’m inside the AI Pod. And not just inside of it like when I was in its memory. I truly mean I have become the AI itself. Just the thought creeps me the fuck out. On the bright side though I no longer feel so much pain. Yeah, let’s just hold onto that nice thought right there.
And it turns out I really can. Holding onto that thought, I mean. Like some 70+ percent of my focus zeroes in on that thought and everything else fades to the background. For several moments, nothing else exists without my mind at all but that thought that grows and grows until it makes my metaphorical ears ring.
Forced to pull back from the thought, I instantly know that my CPUs and memory have been fixated on that mental thought for some three minutes or so. A hyper-focused state, which is really a trip as it makes me want to shake my head. No human can do that.
[User has learned the Hyperfocus I ability.]
Then something new slips into my mind. Blessedly it didn’t come from myself, but at the same time I can’t seem to grasp where it is coming from. Sweeping out with my newly learned ability to use the sensors, I try to find where it came from both inside and out. Yet there’s nothing new.
Even checking back in the sensor memory logs shows that nothing has happened in the past thirty minutes I’ve been sitting here. In fact, I didn’t even realize I’ve been awake for thirty minutes. Almost as if time itself has very little meaning to me. Fuck, that’s annoying.
I’ve always been kind of bad when it comes to time to begin with. Reading or working, I’d just get sucked in and not notice the outside world at all. It has made me late on more than one occasion, but I also got promoted because of it. That sort of focus is a great thing when it comes to being an engineer on a tight deadline. Even though that often precludes any sort of social life.
Back to the task at hand however. Since nothing physical has caused such a thing, I turn my focus elsewhere. Recalling what that intrusion into my mind had actually said. It had appeared as kind of both text and a voice, yet my audio sensors didn’t pick up anything besides the wind outside.
[User has learned the Hyperfocus I ability.]
There it is. It took me only (seemingly) a few moments to bring it back to the fore, cause it to repeat. This time I keep my focus on it, and after only a second or two something changes.
[User has learned the Hyperfocus I ability.]
The text and voice didn’t change, and yet I can clearly feel and/or see that the context has. Now two parts of it are selectable. Perhaps they always were. I just don’t know why or how. Ugh. It really makes me want to pull my hair out. If I still had hair, at any rate.
[Ability: Hyperfocus, level I. Hyperfocus allows the user to focus upon a single subject matter with intense, unbreakable focus. Perception of time slows down. Uses 1pu per second. Higher ability levels take less energy and provide more benefits to perception.]
Then there it is. Having changed my focus to the ability, an explanation actually appears within my mind. It seems straightforward enough, if oddly game-like. Which couldn’t be real, right? Okay, shit. I can’t rule it out. After all, I do know that I’m in a parallel universe trapped inside an AI. Or having had become the AI. Whatever. Just thinking about it makes me want to fry my brain cells. Or computer chips. Ugh!
I quickly turn my focus back to the other possible route.
[User Profile - Name: Unknown. - Age: Unknown. - Race: Ascended Artificial Intelligence. - Racial Rank: D. - External Statistics: 7.3/10 Structural Integrity (Constitution + Armor); 0.1 Movement Speed (Agility + Dexterity). - Internal Statistics: 12/100 Focus (Intelligence + Wisdom); 13/500 Power Units (Power Reactor + Battery Storage); 214/1000 Fuel Load (Fuel Storage); 0/1000 Internal Capacity (Raw + Refined Storage); 1 / 4 Drones (Drone Bay Capacity).
[Feats: All-Seeing (limited); Ascended; Expandable; Eternal; Accelerated Thought; Crafting Meister; Learned; Otherworlder.
[Abilities: Hyperfocus I.]
Ugh. I could almost feel my eyes rolling backward with that jumble of crap that had been pushed into my mind. Part of it was statistics and numbers, but the rest of it seemed to be notes. Bloody notes that I don’t get.
Constitution? Agility? Intelligence? Sound like some shit from a game to me. Then there’s the feats and abilities. Hyperfocus I get, if only because I’d already received an explanation for it. The rest? Not a damned clue.
They sound pretty cool though… But I’d never admit it. Growing up a bookworm was already bad enough when compared to my social endeavours. I tried not to be thought of as a nerd as well. Then again, everyone gamed a little. So it isn’t as if I’m unfamiliar with the terms.
Still, the way the ‘voice’ jumbled it up really ticks me off for some reason. Just reading it made me want to pull my eyes out and wax them. Maybe it’s because I have a computer for a brain now, but I want things to be orderly, damnit!
As if hearing my thoughts, the whole thing starts to change in front of my eyes. Or rather, the way it is presented to me changes into a much more reader-friendly style. And feeling all funky at the same time.
[User Profile:
Name: Unknown.
Age: Unknown.
Race: (AAI) Ascended Artificial Intelligence.
Racial Rank: D.
External Stats:
Structural Integrity (HP) - 7.3/10. (Accumulated impact, shrapnel, and weathering damage.)
Movement Speed (Spd) - 0.1. (Immobile.)
Internal Stats:
Focus (CPU) - 12/100. (No problem.)
Power Units (pu) - 15/500. (Low power warning.)
Fuel Load - 212/100. (Low fuel warning.)
Storage Capacity - 0/1000. (Nothing stored.)
Drones (1 of 4) - 1 Hover Scout Drone (M). (No problem.)
Feats List:
All-Seeing (limited); Ascended; Expandable; Eternal; Accelerated Thought; Crafting Meister; Learned; Otherworlder.
Abilities List:
Hyperfocus I.]
Damn… Whatever that outside influence is, it just scoured through my mind in order to reorganize that user profile for me. Ugh. I really want to shudder. You try imagining slim, oily-slick and cold fingers running through your memories and see how you like it.
Whatever that influence is though, it really catches on quickly. All of that compact information is gone, and I can finally see the information I really want. Along with the alerts to the side, which is handy. I do imagine that things are quite a bit different for others though. For one thing, I’m missing the standard Hit Points and MP that comes to mind when thinking about games.
No matter though. I’ll take what I can get. On the plus side, having gone through all of this has allowed me time to straighten my shit out. I’m no longer so startled, to say the least. And my pains have all but gone now. A blessing right there if I ever saw one.
The big question is how I ended up in this position in the first place. I’m no neuroscience whiz, but I’ve still heard of how unsuccessful memory transfers into computer memory have been. It’s easy enough to translate neural impulses from a living mind into a computer interface, as even I’ve used Augmentation Goggles before. But live memory back-ups have so far been impossible. Not even alien tech has broken that, as far as I know.
So how the hell did I end up being saved into the AI’s memory, only to then end up becoming the AI itself? Fuck. It’s a set of questions I have no answer to. The only hint is the ‘Ascended’ part of my new race name, and the matching feat. I also remember the ‘Ascension Program’ the AI started that supposedly left me like this.
[Ascended Feat: Neither mortal of flesh nor machine, a consciousness tied to a body that could last eternity. Those who have Ascended have forgone their mortal coil, rather it be willing or not.]
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Well that’s rightfully vague. Not to mention smelling more of religion than I care for. I’ve never been into hocus pocus or the belief of gods or devils. Given that I was raised on the religion of hard work and the almighty credit, anything else is just too much for me.
Then again, here I am. A man trapped inside of a computer chip who then became an AI, in a world where the rules of nature are unknown and a game-like setting has been pushed into my head. Good days, yeah, good bloody days… Damnit. I think my sarcasm circuit just fried.
Okay, let’s pull myself together here. I throw all that game-style stuff to the back of my mind and actually start looking around. Focusing my attention outside expands my awareness as more power is poured into the sensor array. Specialized analysis programs starts running in the background, and vaguely I can feel it in my mind.
What it all comes down to is basically the same thing I’ve seen just about everywhere. Rocks, dirt, air. Some sort of hardy grass in the distance, waving in the wind. Can’t really tell colors though. The spectral graphic analysis doesn’t really help in that regard. A breathable atmosphere, if on the cold side. And by cold I mean about 50 degrees F, or about 10C. Currently it seems to be daytime, with two suns peaking over the surrounding mountains.
One of those stars is a red dwarf, according to the imaging available. Quite far away, at that. The other is a orbiting G-class star. Either a captured rogue, or perhaps a binary pair. I can’t really tell which. Star stuff really isn’t my expertise.
At the same time everything is irradiated. I’ll have to be scrubbed if I want to leave this place. Sadly all the readings I can picked up are tainted with whatever sort of radiation it is. It doesn’t match anything I or my robot brain know of. In fact I’m pretty sure the previous report from the AI had said as much. That doesn’t make it any easier to figure out or understand though.
Putting it off, I turn back to looking at my surroundings. I’m within a long valley between a number of big and small mountains. Big and small being relative, as the valley is some fifty plus miles squared while the tallest mountain peak from my vantage point is probably some forty thousand feet tall. Not uber tall, but also not some rolling hills either.
The valley stretches from magnetic east to west, according to the magnetic compass. The opening is to the west. The rest of it is just plain barren. No sign of trees or any other macro life outside of that grass off in the distance. No sign of any natives, either, which is a good thing at this point.
Hell, I was already feeling pretty insecure earlier, when I was stuck inside that memory space. Now truly out in the open, I’m starting to feel even more apprehensive. Good thing I’m in control then, cause I don’t have to fret over some bugged software messing things up.
Pulling my focus back to my immediate surroundings, I find the scattered sides of the drop pod I came down in opened like a flower on the ground around me. Scattered about are the materials that had been packed inside those sides, as well. The AI had already done an inventory, so that information is right there and waiting for me.
Got copper, tin, iron, aluminum, titanium along with a smattering of ‘trace elements’ and prefabricated silicon wafers and raw silicon packs strown all about. Oh, and rubber. That can be kind of important. All told good starting materials, although with a decided lack of any sort of fuel. Which makes sense, given that fuel materials was supposed to be slotted in last. Combustibles on a ship are a no-no, after all. They tend to make a mess and kill everyone should something catch fire or explode.
Picking up everything isn’t a problem even though I don’t have any arms! Heh. Always wanted to say that… or not. In any case, the drone my pod came with is just right for some light loads. It comes with a manipulator arm for just such a task.
Originally the AI Pod was to be sent to the surface along with its drop pod and payload to start construction of a laboratory and preliminary settlement. Additional materials could be dropped as needed, but the AI Pod is fully equipped to do a full setup all its own. Which I am now definitely going to put to use.
Powering up the drone bay is easy enough, as all it takes is a thought from me. Followed by the activation of the hover scout drone itself. I’m really going to have to work on the naming thing.
Thankfully the drone is nearly completely autonomous, as all I have to do is designate what to pick up and bring back. Pulling up the control software is like stepping into a cockpit though. A nifty HUD is provided. Look at that taxpayer money go~
Okay, so I’m not going to go joyriding with the only piece of movable hardware I have. The damned design took forever to work out as well. Engineering 101: Designing something light, fast, and can carry a payload is bloody hard. And is definitely a game of pay-offs. In this case the drone only carries enough battery life to last about an hour of constant movement. Shorter with heavy loads.
Speaking of battery life, what do I have stored up?
[22pu available.]
Huh, that makes it easy. I was at 15pu the last I recall. And given that I gain a power unit every thirty seconds, I’ve sat here looking and thinking for all of three and a half minutes. Not bad, but I can definitely tell that I’m going to have a problem with the time thing. Not to mention my fuel load is dropping bit by bit in the process.
Eventually I want to get to where I judge actions and energy expenditures in the hours, not the bloody half minutes. I will say this again: I’m an engineer, not a damned mathematician. Working out a consumption/production chart is not on my to-do list.
Okay, focus Alfred… Breath, breath… That shit doesn’t work here any more than it did before, either. Damnit. Maybe I should learn meditation or something.
Okay, back on track. Let’s see, I need three more drones. The first is the excavation drone. Got to dig me a nice little hidey hole somewhere nearby. The last two are rover drones. Nifty multi-purpose buggers. Basically pick-up and movers with limited building capabilities. They can carry far more than the hover scout drone can.
Now then, pulling up the schematic of the excavation drone, I find a list of all the raw materials I need to actually build the thing. Which as it turns out is going to be a hassle. We of course built all the drones and tested them, but that was not in a nano replicator. The replicator can build it, it’s just going to take a while.
Okay, explanation time on the nano-machinery I have in my body. First off the AI Pod is in the shape of a pillar. A 6-foot diameter cylinder that stands at 8.25 foot tall. Flat bottom with a dome top. The bottom four feet are taken up by the Nano Furnace and the Nano Replicator. The center is actually taken up by the fuel storage, reactor, and AI system hardware. The sensor array is at the top, with the drone pods equally spaced around the remaining segment.
The Nano Furnace itself is really a work of art. Throw stuff in, and the pool of nanites inside of it break it down at the atomic level. Really good stuff if you want to recycle. The mess that comes out of it though can be, well, goop. Unrefined materials come apart into their atomic makeup and then comes out in a slurry. Actually its dust, but who cares.
So say I throw a rock in there. That’s probably a whole lot of silicon, carbon, various trapped gasses and maybe a smattering of metals. Like, a couple thousand atoms worth of metals. Heh. A smattering of atoms. Heh heh. Yeah, that’s about right.
Okay, so I really got to find some humor from somewhere. It gets really dull in your own head after a while. Moving on!
Next is the Nano Replicator. Where the Nano Furnace breaks things down, the Nano Replicator does the opposite. It builds shit! Yep, that’s just about right. One piece at a time. Or more, should the pieces be small enough. Built right on top of the Nano Furnace, they share storage space to make for easy access and recycling should something go wrong. And just like the Nano Furnace, it builds things one atom at a time.
Actually, that’s wrong. Each nanite builds at one atom at a time, and there are like a couple billion nanites working at the same time. So the process is actually pretty quick. They’re actually even faster because these are military models. That also means they’ll suck up a whole lot of power for continual usage, which could be a problem. Civilian models are much more limited in nanite numbers and power limitations, by the way.
Still, it’s what I have to work with. The only kicker is that the excavator drone is considered a ‘large’ drone. So it comes in three parts that have to be put together. While each piece isn’t too heavy for the scout drone to lift and move, I’ll need at least one of the rover drones to actually assemble it. Fine motor control is not part of the scout drones’ design. One of those payoff things I mentioned before.
And before you ask, the excavator drone cannot fit into my drone bays. It’ll still take one of the slots though, due to the command-and-control system put in place to keep the drones from being hacked. So I’m not just limited to a total of four due to space limitations, but by software protections.
Actually just looking at it makes my eyes want to cross. Ugh. Three hundred and seven million lines of code just to control four drones seems highly excessive to me. Then again that’s how the United Terran Military works. If we can’t use it, no one else can either!
Yes, that’s the unofficial slogan for anyone who has any technical skill in the military. Sad, sad shit there. Even worse for me, because I wasn’t military. Just a civilian contracted employee for Research and Exploration. Several hundred years after the last wars were fought on the surface of the planet, and the military is still trying to get all the geeks and tech-heads they can.
Still better than being a corporate drone, in any case. Pay may not be as good, but the benefits rock. I wonder if they’ll fix this little ‘AI’ problem of mine should I get home… Actually, I realllllllly don’t want to think about it right now.
So, back to what I was doing. The drone schematic provides all the details of what is needed, so I start everything up and get the schematic loaded into the replicator. I’m not going to bother with loading up the storage, so any excess material can just be dumped as little cubes to be reused later.
[Warning - Low nanite levels.]
Shit. Okay, hold on. How many nanites do I have and what do I need to build more? Hmmm. Not too big of a problem, but that’ll take me longer to do. Damnit.
Okay, so the nanite payload that came down with the AI Pod wasn’t to full capacity before the emergency launch. At the level they are right now, they’ll take some 60% longer to go through both the furnace and the replicator. Building more would take time though, and a bit of my already precious available resources.
Once I start digging things should get better though. Using my sensors to see through basic rock is easy enough, so finding a couple of ore veins should be easy peasy. And it doesn’t matter about the ores’ purity either. Tossing it into the furnace will do the trick.
I just hope I can find a coal vein or radioactive materials in the process. Gonna need that fuel fast, regardless. Or maybe some solar panels… Not sure how efficient they’ll be, but beggars can’t be choosers. In fact, this was one of the issues that caused the AI to get stuck before. Without reliable and proven data, it couldn’t come to a decision.
Yeah, those logs are all kinds of messed up. The AI really didn’t like this place. That weird radiation aside, we did not design, build, or program the damned thing to deal with a parallel universe. I on the other hand don’t have that problem. I’ll fix shit as the problems come up! Yay for a sentient mind.
Okay, going off track again. Ahem… Looking at the information, if I start building the excavation drone now, it’ll take seven hours to complete. It’ll also require nearly a quarter ton of various materials and a grand total of 120pu to produce and power.
The power requirements are going to hurt, but there’s no other way for it. The excavator drone is a fairly big machine and heavy all its own. It is also one of only two ‘digging’ designs we set as a template as well. The other one is like four times as large. So I’m not going there right now.
Thankfully the rover drones are smaller. They take lesser materials and less energy to build and produce. For two of them, a total of six hours is needed. So that’s three hours apiece, and only 100pu combined in power requirements. Hell yeah. That’s far better on my figurative wallet.
Let me get started on that right now…
Heh. Watching the scout drone fly is pretty nifty. Watching it buzz around while picking up solid blocks of refined materials off the ground is amusing in its own way. All I have to do is point it toward what I want and it’ll go and grab it. Look mom, no hands!
Okay, yes, I’m dreading the boredom that is to come. Waiting for thirteen hours with hands and feet is bad enough. Waiting thirteen hours without any way to move around, read a book, or watch a couple of movies? Even worse. And I’m not even sure I can take a damned nap.
Actually, it seems I can! So I’m going to set a timer and go into power saver mode for now. Probably the best way to pass the time and conserve power. I’ve already had to hike the reactor up to 2pu per minute in order to power the nano furnace and replicator. I can save about 0.5pu by going to sleep.
So that choice is rather obvious. Night night!
+|+|+
Mundane Universe;
Sol System;
U.T.M. Luna Base: R&E 02;
Saturday 25th, March, 2247;
07:34 UTC.
“Director Fetch, report to Ops immediately! Director Fetch, report to Ops immediately!” The 1CM blares loudly throughout the subsurface lunar base. It really is loud enough to wake the dead.
Which it needs, because almost everyone in the base is either dead on their feet or dead in their sleep. Two days had passed since the ‘Hyperspace Breach’, as it has become known, was caught on the hyperspace telescopes orbiting Jupiter. And during that time every telescope that could peer into the interdimensional space of Hyperspace has been trained in that direction.
That left Research and Exploration very busy, because everyone wanted answers and up-to-date information. The United Terran Directorate was only one of those, as well. The Independant Terran States, or I.T.S. also sent a formal request for information. The Colse Elder Council, Xtrik Core, Plitan Republic and the Uthre Supreme all followed suit within hours as well. All of which just added politics to the messed up mix.
Still, using the 1MC to call the base commander is usually a no-no. But in this case things can be forgiven. Especially since Director Fetch’s personal comm has been buzzing for nearly five minutes without him answering.
Then again Director Fetch is as tired as anyone within the base. Maybe even more so. At only a dozen years or so until his three hundredth birthday, he’s one of the oldest humans on Luna, and had already scheduled his next rejuvenation treatment in four months. So that left him even more tired and irritable than normal, even if he doesn’t show it. That military upbringing really helps when it comes to not screaming at impulsive, inquisitive, and forever asking scientists.
Adding the politics into the mix just didn’t help a thing. Director Fetch spent nearly twelve hours inside a hologram booth being ranted at by the Directorate Senate just the day before. The Senate had had a full meeting on Earth, in New York City, to discuss the issue. Or rather more a yelling match, which isn’t so unusual. Having to stand there the entire time while lacking sleep and the gods saving grace to get him out of there left the old man haggard and very put off afterwards.
Sleep managed to elude him for hours afterwards though, and he finally managed to drop into his bunk at only 5AM. Which was a good thing, before he shot himself or someone else. Yet now he’s being drug out again, if the missed messages on his personal comm and the still-screaming 1MC has anything to do about it.
Even coffee won’t help, which is why he doesn’t even bother to put on his uniform as he rushes out the door. He’d left standing orders not to disturb him unless it was important, and everyone knew it. Everyone on the base basically tiptoed past his bedroom door if they had to come down his hall, in fact.
Still, the sleep is mostly gone from his eyes by the time he makes it into the command center at a fast jog. All those aches and pains caused by his advancing age saw to that even more than the alarm going off did. Which is also why he wasn’t paying attention coming through the door and thus hitting the young woman standing in front of it.
It wasn’t just the young woman standing there though. Everyone in the command center was on their feet, staring at the large hologram being projected into the middle of the empty space of the room. And after biting back a curse, Director Fetch was too.
“Mother of God…! What is that?” He cannot help but ask out loud, breaking the tense silence. Several people jump at his loud voice, and the woman he’d knocked to the floor all but breaks out crying.
What the hologram was showing was something out of a nightmare. A thick black tendril extending through the white space of Hyperspace pulsing rhythmically with seemingly unholy black light. One end secured to a rip in the interdimensional wall, while the other has done the same on the other side; flexing as if it were a living thing.
“Sir! That would be the other universe tunnel!” Someone finally snaps out a response, even though his voice is about to break. In fact a lot of the people in the room were about to break down.
Director Fletch couldn’t help but take a deep, shuddering breath at that. The thing appeared ghastly just by looking at it. It reminded Fetch of an old set of horror novels he once read as a child, centuries ago. Written by the venerable H.P. Lovecraft.
“... Okay people! Do we have confirmation where the breach occurred? Any other data at all?” Director Fetch finally pulls himself together enough to start asking for information, which gives the others in the command center something to grasp onto and turn their attention toward.
People start getting busy as Director Fetch makes his way to the commander’s seat, feeling the worn leather against his back. It calmed him down somewhat, being something so familiar after decades there. He takes a moment to soak it in, feeling he’s going to need it.
“Sir, the breach is confirmed some 564.2 light years away from Sol! It swallowed the entire star system in the process! It’s current diameter is 3.5 times the size of the solar system… and we have no way of knowing if the internal size is any different.” One of the women starts to shout out the information she’s managed to pull up before anyone else, although her voice has gotten smaller and softer the more she reads.
On the other side of the room, a man is shaking his head as if in disbelief. The motion catches Director Fetch’s attention, but he waits to see what it is all about. He doesn’t have to wait long.
“The breach is expelling some sort of radiation, sir. It is confirmed via faster-than-light sensor analysis, and it is moving faster than the speed of light. Contact with matter causes it to slow down to sensible levels… Sir, it’s like a giant blast wave. It’ll reach Sol in seven days…”