Parallel universes refer to different space-time universes that exist in parallel and are both very similar and different. This concept originated from the many-worlds interpretation theory proposed by American physicist Everett in the last century. In the many-worlds interpretation theory, Everett explains various strange phenomena in the micro-quantum world by assuming the existence of countless parallel worlds, such as the famous "Schrödinger's cat" thought experiment.
Parallel universes are a very mysterious existence. In different parallel universes, some people and things are the same, some historical developments are the same, and some future trends are also the same. At the same time, some people and things are completely different, some historical developments are different, and some future trends are vastly different. Therefore, the state displayed by a parallel world is often "almost but not quite" for people who exist in another parallel world.
The fictional story told in this book is set in a parallel universe that is different from the reality we live in. Therefore, all the plots and character roles in this story do not match the true situation in our real world. Readers are advised not to take it seriously.
Chapter 1 Miracles
Section I. Mysterious experiment
The starting point of the story takes place on Christmas Eve 2025 in Tokyo, Japan.
The sky is filled with cold snowflakes, and people are immersed in the joyous atmosphere of the festival, making it a warm and peaceful scene everywhere.
Kenichi Ito, a 27-year-old doctoral graduate of Tokyo Comprehensive University, is standing outside the laboratory, sipping hot coffee and silently admiring the beautiful snowflakes dancing in the sky, lost in thought.
After standing there for a while, he finally sighed helplessly and turned back to the lab, once again immersed in his busy work.
The laboratory where Kenichi Ito currently works, called the "Tennokaku Arrow " laboratory, was established with massive funding from an anonymous Japanese conglomerate. It is located next to a large thermal power plant in the outskirts of Tokyo and covers a very wide area. Its main body is built underground, and a large-scale particle collider with a total length of 12 kilometers is built here at a depth of about 100 meters underground. Its scale is extremely huge.
Having reluctantly returned to the control room of the laboratory, Kenichi Ito began his tedious experiments, mechanically repeating certain actions like a factory production line worker. As he watched the constantly jumping numbers and flashing test failure prompts on the screen, a strong feeling of loneliness uncontrollably surged up in his heart. He longed to have the time to date and fall in love with girls, spending this romantic night like all other young people. But the reality was that he had to devote all his time and energy to this experiment, because this experiment was too important to him. Whether his dream can come true depends on whether the experiment can be successful. Moreover, if this experiment is successful, human life will be completely changed.
So, what exactly is this important experiment?
"Next, we're going to start experimenting and creating a miniature wormhole!"
One year ago, Kenichi Ito's mentor, Yagamiya, the director of the Tokyo Comprehensive University Cosmic Ray Research Institute, was excitedly telling Ito the big decisions in their office.
At that time, Yagamiya, with the assistance of Ito, had just broken through a major problem in physics. Using a physical experiment based on the Casimir effect, they successfully extracted stable negative energy from quantum fluctuations in a vacuum. This scientific achievement made them internationally famous and became big stars in physics.
However, they were not satisfied with just academic success. they had a larger, more ambitious goal. Obtaining stable negative energy was just the first step towards achieving this goal, and there was still a long way to go.
"Did you already figure out the precise parameter values needed to inject negative energy into a micro black hole?" Ito asked suspiciously, looking around Yagamiya's messy office full of books.
"I haven't figured it out, and it's impossible. I've gone through all the mathematical theories, and none of them can be applied to our model." replied Yagamiya helplessly.
"But if we can't calculate the exact parameter values, how can we generate a micro wormhole? You know that only injecting the right amount of negative energy into a black hole singularity can create a wormhole. Injecting too much or too little negative energy will cause the black hole to collapse and prevent it from turning into a wormhole," said Ito.
"We can do it through trial and error. By constantly experimenting, we can find the most suitable parameter values," said Yagamiya seriously, looking at Ito.
"But how many times do we have to experiment to have a chance of success? It's like finding a needle in a haystack! Even if we spend our entire lives on it, we may not be able to succeed. Isn't there a more reliable way?" exclaimed Ito, getting agitated.
"Until new theories are established in the scientific community about wormholes, black holes, negative energy, etc., this is probably the only way," Yagamiya replied, rubbing his bald head. "I'm already 58 years old this year, and I've lost all my hair. I probably won't be able to see the wormhole in my lifetime. But you're young, and you'll have a chance to see it."
"Even if I can really see it, by then I'll probably have become a bald old single guy like you," Ito said dejectedly.
Yagamiya didn't get angry at Ito's teasing. Although he was older and Ito's mentor, he maintained a friendly relationship with this young man because he admired Ito, who was his most talented student.
Yagamiya patted Ito on the shoulder and said with a solemn tone, "Listen, Ito, dreams come with a price. Any dream requires a lot of sacrifice to achieve. It's not something that can be achieved easily, but requires relentless pursuit. Moreover, our ideals are more lofty and grand than others, so they are worth sacrificing everything for. So, don't be discouraged, cheer up, and let's do our best!"
Ito said helplessly,"All right, all right. Since you say this is the only way, then it must be the only way. For the sake of realizing our ideals, I will spare no effort to do it well. You don't have to act like a life mentor and inspire me, this is not your style."
Then Ito sighed and spoke to himself with a bitter smile, "It seems that I am destined to live alone for the rest of my life."
Yagamiya, seeing Ito agree to his plan, showed a satisfied smile and said to Ito, " So, starting tomorrow, let's start doing some pre-experiment preparations. About four months later, we will move to the new laboratory and officially start the experiments."
Ito, surprised, said, "Wait, are you saying the new laboratory can be built within four months? That's impossible. It's a huge project. It's not easy to find such a large piece of land. Moreover, it is necessary to install a large machine like a particle collider and negative energy generator in the deep underground. In addition, a super-strong power supply system is required to provide enough energy for the particle collider. Even government agencies do not have such strong financial resources and efficiency to complete these in such a short time."
Yagamiya explained, "It may sound incredible, but we may really have a new laboratory soon. A few days ago, a young man named Ryu Muto came to my office. He claimed to be a representative of a Japanese consortium, but refused to reveal the specific name and background of the consortium. He told me that they are very interested in our wormhole transmission technology research project and hope to cooperate with us to fund the completion of this research. As a condition, after the success of the project, they will share the technology patent with us.
Out of caution, I did not immediately agree. I honestly told them that our project requires a super-large laboratory to complete, and the funds and resources needed to build the laboratory are enormous, no less than building an aircraft carrier, and the results of the experiment may not appear for decades. I asked them to carefully consider the risks and benefits before deciding whether to invest in this project.
But the young man was unimpressed. He told me that their consortium has strong financial resources and extensive connections, and building such a laboratory is more than feasible for them. They insisted on investing in us no matter what. Seeing his confident look, I was a little moved, and agreed to work with them as long as they could build the laboratory within two years. Then I handed him the lab design. After carefully studying it, he said they didn't need two years, they could have the lab built in just four months and he would let me know when it was done. Then he left without saying anything else."
"Do you really believe him? Don't you find it suspicious?" Ito asked.
"It is a little suspicious. But, regardless, as long as they can build the lab, I don't care about anything else. You have to understand it's hard to find investors for high-risk, low-return research projects like ours. Even government agencies are not willing to provide support. It's rare to have someone so willing to join, and that's a good thing," Yagamiya said with a smile.
"You're too optimistic. No wonder you were so happy just now. Anyway, I'll just do my part and leave the lab construction problems to you, 'boss,'" Ito shrugged.
Four months later, the lab was indeed built! Yagamiya and Ito were shocked to see the large high-end instruments being precisely installed and the professional logistics personnel working diligently. Yagamiya was very satisfied and decided to fulfill his promise to cooperate with the anonymous foundation.
From then on, Ito began his dull and boring new life, spending day and night alone in the control room conducting experiments. Yagamiya would come to the lab after finishing his external affairs to take over for Ito and allow him to rest.
The anonymous foundation sent a man in his forties named Shibata Kaji as a contact person to manage the entire lab and report on the progress of the experiments every day. Since both parties signed a project confidentiality agreement, communication and personnel activities in the lab were strictly controlled. Ito could only communicate with Shibata and not contact other lab workers. Shibata was a serious, old-fashioned person who rarely smiled or talked outside of work, and Ito had no interaction with him other than work. This made the already uninteresting work even more dull.
Section II. surprise
To this day, Ito has done over 55,000 experiments.
He remembered the story of Edison inventing the light bulb and the famous quote, "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration." He thought, "If I succeed in the future, I will have to modify this quote to 'Genius is 0.01% inspiration and 99.99% perspiration,' and tell everyone that most of the time, I, a genius, have been doing physical work."
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He looked at his watch and it was almost twelve o'clock. After one more experiment, he was ready to go back to his dormitory to sleep and spend this peaceful night quietly.
He skillfully and quickly operated the control panel and the giant instrument outside the room began moving again.
Afterwards, he silently watched the data on the big screen, waiting for the experimental results to appear after a few seconds. He did not have too much expectation for each experiment, including this one, as the probability of success for a single experiment was even lower than winning big on the lottery.
He expected this experiment to fail as well, but the results on the screen were beyond belief！
The experiment was successful!
The micro black hole had transformed into a stable micro wormhole after injecting a suitable amount of negative energy!
Faced with these results, Ito was at a loss and his mind went blank. Happiness came too suddenly, and he could not believe that it was real.
Only after checking the data three times did he finally believe that he had indeed created a micro wormhole.
He found the crucial parameter value for injecting negative energy! Excitedly, he could not help but dance and cheer like a child who had just received a super big gift.
After uncontrollably celebrating for a while, he finally calmed down. Then, he retrieved the live feed camera footage of the wormhole generation and observed the wormhole with his bare eyes. Ito saw a ball-shaped "thing" appearing in the middle of several large instruments. This "thing" was about 10 centimeters in diameter and was slowly expanding. It looked black, with no obvious boundaries around it, seemingly blending into its surroundings. In addition, the entire scene observed through the camera appeared slightly distorted, as if looking through a funhouse mirror.
Ito knew that the reason for this phenomenon was due to the internal structure of the wormhole, which was similar to that of a black hole, with a strong gravitational field. This gravitational field on one hand would cause distortion of the surrounding spacetime, while on the other hand, it would inhibit any matter and energy (including light) entering its view from escaping, instead crossing the wormhole and being emitted from the other end of the wormhole that it connected to.
While admiring the "miracle" before him, Ito collected and analyzed the precious data and information from the experiment. According to the theoretical model previously conceived by him and Yagamiya, he calculated the specific location of the exit of this wormhole. As long as he went to investigate that location another day and confirmed the corresponding "anomalies" that appeared nearby, it would prove the correctness of their theoretical model and allow them to gain a further understanding of the characteristics and generation mechanism of the wormhole.
After collecting and analyzing all the data, Ito decided to close the wormhole, fearing that it would continue to expand and produce uncontrollable risks. He stopped injecting negative energy into the center of the wormhole, and the wormhole instantly transformed into a black hole. He then injected negative energy into the edge of the black hole, causing it to stop expanding and instead start to shrink. When the black hole had shrunk to a certain extent, Ito stopped injecting negative energy, but the rate of black hole contraction actually increased, and the edge of the black hole emitted a faint glow.
The visual effect of these light rays is the result of Hawking radiation produced during the process of black hole evaporation. Eventually, the black hole completely disappears in a very short time, and the light rays also disappear completely, restoring the surrounding space to its original state.
Section III. Hawking radiation
Ito has always ignored the Hawking radiation produced during the experimental process. He believes they are only by-products of the production of wormholes and black holes and have appeared in tens of thousands of experiments before, so they are nothing special. In fact, since the method of creating miniature black holes was discovered by two European scientists several years ago, scientists around the world have been creating countless miniature black holes every day for scientific research, releasing countless faint Hawking radiations.
Although the black hole produced in this experiment is many orders of magnitude larger than previous miniature black holes, and its Hawking radiation is relatively strong, Ito estimates that they should still not have a significant impact on the external environment.
However, Ito never dreamed that it was these seemingly weak Hawking radiations that changed the fate of humanity and even the fate of the entire universe.
The Hawking radiation produced in this experiment, which carries special energy, matter, and information, spread out in all directions. Although most of the Hawking radiation was blocked by the radiation protection facilities inside the laboratory, a small part of the stronger Hawking radiation penetrated the laboratory and spread to all corners of the world.
Overall, the probability of these radiations affecting life on Earth is very small. However, as a massive group, even if the probability of being affected is infinitely close to zero, a few individuals are still inevitably affected. As humans, with a population of billions, they are not immune. More than ten thousand individuals scattered around the world unknowingly encountered these weak and intangible Hawking radiations, and their bodies underwent some strange changes. Some of these changes are beneficial to the human body, some are harmful, and some are minor, while others are significant, with various states and possibilities.
Among these humans affected by radiation, two individuals, Raj Varma and Galen Scott, underwent changes that would have a profound impact on the future development of humanity.
Section IV. The awakening of an Indian teenager
Raj Varma is a 16-year-old Indian boy lying in a private hospital in Mumbai. He is a vegetable, having been in a coma for more than a year. The accident that caused his coma occurred on an afternoon when he was 15 years old. He saw a few children playing by the side of the road, and a out-of-control car was coming towards them. The kind-hearted Raj rushed forward to save the children, but was hit by the car and never woke up again, becoming a vegetable.
Poor Raj is an orphan who has no parents to accompany him, with only his sister Kajol taking care of him. When he was ten years old, Raj's parents were cruelly murdered by bad people. His father was a doctor at a public hospital in Mumbai, and he exposed and reported the various medical corruptions in the hospital through the media. This touched the interests of some interest groups and brought about his death. Since then, the two siblings have had to rely on each other and live a strong and independent life.
Due to their difficult living conditions, the two have undergone many hardships, making them more mature than their peers in terms of mentality. Raj has never been spoiled or fought with his sister Kajol and has always listened to his sister.
Kajol, who is now 24 years old, is an actress by profession. Due to her natural beauty and superb acting skills, she has gained some fame in India. After work every night, she would come to the hospital to take care of Raj, clean his body, give him careful massages, talk to him by his bedside, and pray to Shiva for his early recovery.
Tonight, she was doing the same thing as usual, sitting by Raj's bedside, accompanying him while reading the script for the play to be performed tomorrow.
Raj lying on the hospital bed received a miraculous change after receiving Hawking radiation from faraway Japan. He had been in a coma for a long time, but suddenly regained consciousness without any signs.
Raj woke up!
Kajol was shocked and burst into tears when she saw Raj wake up from the coma. She hugged him tightly on the bed. Raj sat blankly on the bed, feeling confused. He did not know he had been in a coma for a long time, nor did he know what had happened during that period. His memory was still stuck at the moment of the accident. But he could clearly feel that his body was full of vitality, and he did not look like a seriously injured patient at all.
After calming down, Kajol immediately called the doctor to examine Raj. The doctor was surprised when he looked at the medical report and said to Kajol, "Raj's cerebral cortex had suffered very serious damage before, leading to a disorder of his brain functions and him entering a deep coma. However, just now, all of these traumas suddenly healed, and his brain cells have returned to normal functioning, which is why he suddenly woke up. To be honest, this is incredible. I have been a doctor for many years, and I have never encountered such a case before."
Kajol, hugging Raj, exclaimed in excitement, "It must be the grace of Lord Shiva! It is the great Lord Shiva who has awakened you. Thank you, great Lord Shiva!"
Raj, allowing Kajol to hug him, was confused as to what was happening. The doctor looked at the two siblings and shook his head and muttered to himself, "Perhaps it really was a divine intervention that saved this poor child, as I cannot find any scientific explanation for this."
Section V. Wall Street analyst
Galen Scott is an analyst at a financial institution on Wall Street. When Hawking radiation spread from Japan to New York, it was noon in New York, he was busy working in his noisy cubicle.
Galen likes to work constantly to keep himself busy. It's because only when he's fully focused on his job can he temporarily forget the heavy pain of life.
The 41-year-old Galen once had a happy family, with a gentle and beautiful wife and a smart and lovely daughter. The couple loved each other deeply and doted on their daughter. They lived a very happy life together every day.
In Galen's eyes, his wife Katrina and daughter Lola were like beautiful angels, and he was willing to do anything for them. He knew that Lola liked the movies of Marvel Heroes, so he went all out to collect autographs and photos of the movie characters for her. To take his wife and daughter on a trip around the world, he was willing to spend all the hard-earned start-up funds he had accumulated over the years without hesitation. To play a romantic song at Katrina's birthday party, he was willing to spend a month secretly learning to play the guitar. In those times when Katrina and Lola were with him, even the most tedious and boring things were beautiful memories.
However, a few years ago, a sudden accident completely destroyed Galen's life. At that time, Lola had just turned 10 and happened to see a horse race on TV. She thought the horse riders looked cool, so she argued with Galen about wanting to learn to ride. To please this lively and active daughter, Galen immediately agreed to her request and took her to the stable the next day to find a coach to learn to ride. Katrina was worried that Lola was too young to ride, so she also went to the stable with them. Under the guidance of the coach, Lola quickly mastered the skills, and after practicing for one or two hours with the coach's help, she could ride slowly on her own. Galen was cheering for Lola with great excitement and taking pictures of her. Unconsciously, he walked in front of the horse and took a flash photo. He never thought that his behavior would startle the horse. The horse suddenly ran out of control, throwing Lola off its back. She was thrown into the air and then fell heavily to the ground, dying on the spot. Galen and Katrina rushed to Lola's side, holding her blood-stained body and crying out loudly in distress and grief.
In the following months, Katrina could not accept the fact that her beloved daughter had died and developed severe depression. She blamed Lola's death on Galen, thinking that it was Galen's negligence that indirectly caused the death of her precious daughter. She found that no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't forget the tragedy or forgive Galen. Therefore, shortly afterwards, she decided to divorce Galen and leave him for a city far away from New York.
Galen was also deeply trapped in the pain of losing his daughter, unable to extricate himself. He understood Katrina's sadness very well, and he himself was angry and blamed himself every day for his foolishness. Full of guilt, he believed he was not qualified to retain Katrina, so he did not oppose the divorce. He thought it might be the best for Katrina. Although he still deeply loved Katrina, he could not let go of her.
Since then, Galen has led a lonely and melancholic life, like a zombie.
Today, the faint Hawking radiation suddenly came and quietly penetrated Galen's body, causing strange changes in his body.
When Galen received the Hawking radiation, he suddenly felt a splitting headache, and his head was about to explode. The pain was so unbearable that he fainted on the table. His colleagues thought Galen was too tired and sleeping and did not disturb him until half an hour later, when his supervisor came to urge him to submit an analysis report, waking him up.
After waking up, Galen felt muddled. He thought he had been working too hard lately, causing him to have headaches during work. He went to the bathroom to wash his face and clear his head, and then continued to invest in work and write the analysis report required by his supervisor. Then, a miraculous thing happened. His work efficiency increased by leaps and bounds, his thinking became exceptionally clear and broad, and he could also perceive some details that he had never noticed before. He completed the entire analysis report in just over ten minutes, while in the past, it would take him at least half a day.
Later, he submitted the report to his supervisor. Soon afterward, the chairman of their company called him to his office for a conversation. The chairman said to him, "Galen, your bearish report on Wonderlyfe Technology Company impressed me and made me look at you in a new light. Although it is very dangerous to bearish Wonderlyfe Technology Company, once this report is released, it will be like throwing a bomb into the market and will cause sensationalism and controversy. However, I believe your analysis is correct, and Wonderlyfe Technology Company is indeed going downhill. I am willing to take the risk. To be honest, although you have always worked hard in the past, many of the reports you wrote were not satisfactory, which made me doubt your ability. However, this report showed me your potential. As long as your future reports can maintain the same level as this report, I will consider promoting you to a higher position soon. So, work hard, buddy, and don't let me down."
Galen was, in fact, not very concerned about career advancement, but the chairman's words made him feel a definite change. He felt that he had become wiser and more intelligent, and his thinking became more active. He felt different from before!