Incredible was insufficient to describe what she had just heard and seen. Behind her, she could tell that Theo was aggressively pacing back and forth. Between the building shakes and what he just saw, his own hold on reality was starting to breakdown.
“No, none of this is possible.”
Yun could only point at the two individuals, one of whom was clearly not completely human. “How do you explain her?”
His face seemed to express something she didn’t expect to ever see from him, fear. “AI generation.”
It was a weak response of a fear addled mind, she reminded him, “There’s no AI in the secure quantum links, by design.”
“They could have interfaced one!”
Another aftershock caused the two of them to brace once more. This one was far smaller than before, but still unpleasant. Outside Yun's office, the digital displays changed for the first time in years. Displaying what could best be described as the News or at least the late 21st century version of it. They were too busy to pay attention to it.
“Are you two, ok?” Orion saw them bracing much like he had done more than once on the station.
“Yeah, just dealing with earthquakes here. We’re not used to it.”
The human fox's ears twitched. It was clear she realized something, “When did they start?”
“I think earlier today." Yun responded hoping to get something in response, beyond the fox nibbling on her own fingers in agitation.
“I felt one earlier in the week. It was subtle though.” Theo interjected.
“Our station has been shaking a lot. I think it’s stress from the singularity. Maybe…"
Theo shook his head violently “No, even if it was spinning the frame dragging wouldn’t have had that much of an effect. It has to be something else…” Theo trailed off, lost in thought. For a moment, the tree rat and the fox seemed to share a bewildered expression, as if chewing on an unpleasant slice of bad tofu.
“Ok, I… I don’t know what to do at this point. I was hoping to get more data and make a case or find some kind of pattern, but this. I just don’t know what to do with it.”
Theo generally pushed Yun out of the frame a bit, much to her annoyance. She said nothing though, waiting for him to speak, “Orion, that paper you mentioned, it was by Dr. Drugger?”
“Yeah, ‘Entropy entanglement over-‘”
“I’m aware of the paper, it wasn’t well received.” Theo's tone grew ever more forceful, on the surface it seemed to radiate confidence. Underneath it though, Yun could see the fear.
Orion shrug, “Well, I don’t really know about that. But Asher didn’t want Tanya reading it for some reason.”
Pausing, one could almost see the progress bar running through the man's mind. “Tanya… You mean Ezra.” He just couldn't or wouldn't let himself understand that point, so he did the only thing he could, lash out as something irrelevant.
Thus, pissing off the fox, and seemingly aggravating the human on the station who still didn't stand up to defend her. “Please don’t call me that.” Half way between begging and demanding.
Now it was Yun's turn to be angry. “Theo! What the hell is wrong with you. If you don’t stop I’m going to give you to the damn machines.”
Around and around the anger seemed to spread as the group ran in a circle, going no where.
“Sorry, I just… having a hard time with all this, I...”
Yun took a deep breath, bring them back to main point, “What’s so special about this paper?”
“It was nonsense. In short, it argued you could create or capture a wormhole in a spinning black hole and use it. That idea wasn’t new or novel, thought it was thought disproven. Dr. Drugger argued you could use them in, ways that didn’t make physical sense.”
“Like what?”
“So we know there’s a limit to the amount of information a black hole can hold, and likewise that can in theory, pass through a wormhole. His argument was, that limit doesn’t really exist. You can anchor the topological defect, basically the throat of the wormhole, inside the singularity and basically expand the space inside it without making the external throat bigger, effectively making it as big as you wanted. You could…”
Tanya finished his statement for him, “You could suck an entire planet through it.”
“…If you believed his conclusion, yeah sure.” No, Theo thought, it wasn't just that, “He also discussed the idea of something called ‘matter synthesis’, basically baryogenesis or condensation from raw energy. It was magic masquerading as science.”
Next to him, Yun chided his vapid dismissal, “You do know there’s a quote about that?”
Theo didn’t look amused by the point but said nothing in response.
“Ok, lets just say this is happening, what the end goal. I don’t think this AI is benevolent?”
The fox shrug and shook her head, “I don’t know what Asher’s planning. It never told me. But, I did get hints.” She shook ever so slightly as she paused, “It never said this, but I don’t think Asher is from our universe at all. I couldn’t explain it till I read that paper, but it said things on occasion that were just, strange. I thought it was insane, I met a few insane AI when I was first created, so it wasn't unreasonable. But it… I can’t explain. I don’t think Asher is evil, it doesn’t want to kill people. It just, wants to control them for some reason. Even the crew he didn't want to die, just, out of the way and compliant.”
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“But why? I mean, that doesn’t really make sense.”
“One time it talked about the ones who created it. I think, it wants to be like them, somehow, it sees everything it’s doing leading up to that.”
“So it’s like a child, a child?”
“No, maybe… I don’t know, I’m sorry.” Untrue to her mythos, Tanya didn't possess the wisdom needed to solve this problem.
“So that’s it’s underlying desire and motive. But what is actually doing with everything? So, he has some connected worm holes, how is he going to actually expand it?”
“I think… it might want to link the singularity processors together, the event horizon could merge- No, no. This is Non-sense! This has to be non-sense!” Theo almost sounded like he was laughing.
“Theo stop!”
“No, Yun! You don’t get it. I did this. Asher brought these ideas to me, linking the processors altogether, the computational increases, or what he claimed were increases. They all went through me and I… I approved it all.”
The four sat in silence, while they considered what could be done. Shaking her head, Yun seemed to have some semblance of a plan.
"I think we can stop it here. The singularity processors are all linked up and share the same code base. They were built so quick, most of the safety systems are software based. I think I can get the particle beam to impact the housing."
"Would that be enough to do anything?"
"The beam has a couple thousand joules of energy in a tight beam. Yeah, I think it be enough to blow a hole in the chamber and kill the vacuum. No vacuum, no singularity. But, that's only kills the local problem. If you allow Asher to keep the wormhole open on Lerna, he could just find something else."
Orion nodded. "Understood. We'll think of something. I thing the plasma pipes are over loaded we could-"
Tanya grabbed at the young man's shoulder pulling him from the station, "Orion she's here, turn it off. Turn it-"
What was on the screen for a brief moment, didn't look human. It had a vague resemblance to the one crew member, but so far as Yun knew, she didn't have wings.
"Are they dead?" Was all Theo could eek out.
"I don't know. But there's nothing we can do from down here." Yun stood and was about to leave the office only to be stopped by Theo's hand.
"Where are you going?"
"To kill the singularity processors."
"Yun, you can't do that. You'll kill the simulation think of-"
"What the fuck is wrong with you? Snap the fuck out of it Theo! You saw what I did! Everything around us makes no sense. But this, this does." The vacant and fearful expressions meant she wasn't getting through to him, "Then you can stay up here."
"No Yun, I can't. You can't!"
In the time idling and arguing amongst each other, it happened. Like the song said, it starts with an earth quake, only no one was fine. This one, far larger than either had felt so far. Large than most would have ever felt in the area. It has only been a 5.0, but it was enough to kill power to most of the block. At least the two thought it was the earth quake, until they saw it outside the window.
It was hard to tell if the shaking was still on-going or if it was her own body.
Opening the door to her office, they could see outside the windows was what could best be described as an event horizon, floating in the sky. Light wrapped and warped around it in impossible configurations. Space itself was being ripped apart, and then, it started to expand. It was slow, barely perceptible at first, but it was clearly growing.
Parts of the city began to disappear behind it. Others seemed to get pulled into it.
“Now do you believe, Theo? I'm going…”
She didn’t wait for his answer as Yun bolted for the elevator.
"…how…" He whispered.
She knew what that event horizon meant, it was already far to late for this city, but maybe, just maybe she could interrupt the process here. Perhaps there were others to save. The machines were waiting just around her office's corner, she wasn't prepared for their attack and grab.
Perhaps then, it was a good thing that Theo was able to pull himself away from his own self-pity. He jumped around the corner and pushed the robot down, freeing Yun, but trapping himself.
Neither said anything, barely exchanging a glance. But in that glance, was a lifetime of memories and regrets. A mountain of sorrows, and maybe, a tiny spoon full of 'thank you'.
Bolting for the door, Yun could only yell the command to the building's AI,"Greg, basement, now!"
"Yun, you don't-"
"Greg, the city, the planet and all it's inhabitants will die if you don't. Come on, you can see what's going on outside.".
The elevator paused for a moment, not doing anything, just thinking. "There's a moderate probably you are correct, but no other conjecture fits-" Outside the elevator a robot speed towards them, intent on grabbing her too.
"Greg! If you don't…"
"…Understood, Yun. Heading to the basement."
The basement was unusually loud. Every server, every processor was in use. The building had a few singularity processors, but only one would be running whatever this program was. She just needed to find it.
The thrumming sound of the magnetic system channeling tuned plasma gave her a hint at which were running softer, and harder. The one machine that seemed to have a constant, high-pitched ring would be her target. With it, came a small group of robotics just like what was on the upper floors. "Shit." Was all Yun could whisper.
One of the robots began a patrol sequence, or maybe it just heard her. She didn't have time to consider what to do, as the elevator stopped not far from her position. Out of it, the shaky body of a robot pushed out. Behind it, was Theo, slightly bloody but alive and willing to do something stupid as he yelled towards the machines.
It was just enough time for Yun to begin reprogramming the singularity processors. The task was quite quick. Just, push the beam outside of its targeting parameter, and then, send the code to the rest around the world. Before she could hit enter, a draft began to blow around her, as the building slowly started to dissolve.
Wasting no more time, Yun hit the commit key, and in a micro second, the damage was done.
Without a target to lock onto, the particle accelerator slammed into the side of the computer’s housing. It wasn’t a lot of energy in the grand scheme of things, but more than enough to cut a hole in the high vacuumed space. The sound of the seal rupturing could be heard, right before the whole panel blew off.
Alarms rang though the basements, the singularity was suddenly cut off from it's power source. Pulling in the diffuse gas in the atmosphere just wasn't enough, and it began to collapse on itself, flashing out in a burst of hawking radiation. At its center, the wormhole began to contract, but compared to the singularity, it would not be quick.
All over the world, each system ran the same program. It was too late for this place, and so many others. The worm hole was already open and engulfing the city. Even as the singularity disappeared, the worm hole would remain stable for over a minute. At the rate the event horizon was moving it would take most of the city with, maybe even all of it. But others would survive! Other cities and countries. Even those that had started to dissolve would stop soon enough.
Theo stammered next to her, afraid as he saw the building disappearing in front of them. Outside, they could both see event horizon of the worm hole coming closer to them. "We… I didn't know…" was all the tree rat could squeak out.
Yun knew the truth though, "It doesn't matter. We still did this." With a sigh she watched the wave front tearing at the buildings blocks away, carving a hole in the city. It was hard to tell, but maybe even replacing parts of it with something else.
A bitter smile crept over her face as it approached, “I didn't think my week would end like this. But at least we saved half the world.” It was the last thing Yun said, before she was engulfed. A single thought before she disappeared, ‘I wonder what will happen to Bob and my sister?’