Earth's Last Day

By Chris Haught

Weary from loss and betrayal, Jackson sets out to find his lost love, the sensational Liora Abrams. Believed dead long ago, mostly due to his mistakes, Jackson never doubted he would find her. Blocked from the evacuation to Gallia, he set out to travel back in time using unproven technology and a hope she is on a neighboring world. With his options limited, will Jackson succeed or succumb to death as the Earth is destroyed? Join him on this final quest of The Knowledge Well series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chris Haught
• Release date: Apr 19, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223644453

Book preview

ENDINGS AND BEGINNINGS

‘Gallia, what a beautiful name.’ This thought rattled through Brill’s head as he landed on this name for his newly discovered planet. The name had long stuck with him, back from the days when daydreams were vivid adventures to faraway lands and Gallia was his sacred place. Now it was a reality and the saving grace for humanity. So lost in his thoughts that he didn’t notice Sirum sitting beside him.

Brill, did you hear what I said?

…What?

Time dilation. That’s what we are dealing with.

I must have missed part of the conversation. Please repeat it.

The reason the portal is giving us energy back. It is time dilation.

You are going to have to fill in a few more of the details for me.

Well, just a theory at this point, but I suspect we will see a massive time lag once the portal shuts down. I am guessing the power feedback we are seeing is the bleed through of ‘time energy’ and we are the lagging time, so the energy flows back to us.

Okay you have really lost me now. What the hell is ‘time energy’?

You have heard of entropy, right?

Of course. It is the progression from order to disorder and the decay of the universe.

In the formal sense yes, but it is also the loss of energy from decaying photons. So, if we are behind in time from the exit point in the portal, the energy from those decay photons must go somewhere and the universal law of physics must hold. That is, energy flows from a stronger source to a weaker source.

Still sounds sketchy, but I will give it to you for now.

Not sure you heard me Brill. Once the portal shuts off, the massive time delay could be hundreds or even thousands of years.

We could use that to our advantage, if it’s a real thing.

How so?

We could send workers ahead, shut off the portal, and then turn it back on when years have passed. That would allow for the building of all the perks of modern civilization. You know, roads, sewers, water plants, and the like.

Interesting idea. Do you really think those early arrivers are going to give up the products of their work if hundreds of years have passed?

We will have to first see if its real and then figure out how to make it only be a short interval, such as a few years.

A laugh escaped Sirum, You have high hopes, but I don’t think we will ever have that level of control.

I have the utmost confidence in your abilities, especially now that Gill is working with you.

Gill had long anticipated the needs of what a new world would require if one were ever discovered. Now that it was a reality, she was ready to surprise Dr. Everly. Her secret project was ready to be unveiled.

At her request, Brill and Sirum arrived at a large airplane hangar. What do you think she has for us?

Not sure Brill. My guess is she learned to fly and is going to take us out.

Cool. Hopefully she has had lots of lessons.

Brill reached for the door, only to find it securely locked. Are you sure this is the right place?

Sirum pulled up the text. Yep. Oh, says to push the coms when we arrive.

The call box looked like it had seen its better years. Brill punched the call button and announced their arrival. As the door opened, their eyes widened, and their jaws went slack.

Sirum,what the hell is that?

Damned if I know.

Welcome to Gill’s project Dr. Everly and Dr. Lars. It was a beautiful dialect that sounded as if it were from someone out of south London. This thing that answered the door had a face like a human with perfect skin tone speaking perfect English, though the skin abruptly stopped at the neck. The covering of the body was something translucent that revealed wires, blinking lights, and all kinds of mechanical devices. There were two arms and legs as this thing resembled the human frame, but little else did.

Please follow me. It then turned and started walking deeper into the hanger. Brill looked at Sirum, shrugged his shoulders and followed in lock step.

Gill stepped out from behind a mechanical device, Ah, I see you met Maggie. Welcome Dr. Everly and Dr. Lars.

Sirum motioned around the room, What do you have here Gill?

Grinning from ear to ear, she started talking so fast they had to slow her down. This is my secret project, one I started a few years ago. At first it was theoretical, that changed when the danger to Earth was identified by Dr. Everly.

Brill put up a hand to cause her to pause. Why don’t you start with what greeted us at the door?

Well, it is all connected and Maggie is later in the story.

Brill motioned her on, Proceed then.

I had put together a theoretical plan on what would be needed to colonize a planet, you know, all the details nobody cares to think about. Since it takes a lot to get a civilization up to modern standards, I created this. She walked over to a metallic structure on wheels. It was about 8 feet tall and 20 feet long.

Continuing, This is a self-contained city building transport. It is equipped with a state-of-the-art artificial intelligence at its core. Each of the devices on it can self-replicate to make more of itself once it finds the resources. It is programmed to make sewer and water plants, build houses, lay communication lines and pipes of any kind, as well as to build roads, skyscrapers, and houses. It can build all kinds of other structures, though it is slow.

Brill paused her again, Unless you have some good news on the time lag from Gallia to Earth, how will this help us?

I was getting to that Dr. Everly. Since you suggested the idea, we figured out how to shut down the portal. The trick was to shut it down on the Gallia side, but we needed a way to reopen it, which was easy enough for the AI, Maggie. I built her not only for that, but also for the dexterity that only human fingers can provide. Our fingers can do so many useful things that a machine can’t, which is ironic, as Maggie is a machine at her base level. Once there, she was able to shut down the portal and restart it as fast as possible. Now that we have the quantum signature of its portal, we reopened it as fast as possible, which was one minute. That single minute equated to four months’ time passage on Gallia, just as you had feared, but not quite as much time passage as you had thought.

Sirum chimed in, Brilliant Gill. I see where you are going with this. Four months for every minute shutdown means we can prep all the continents for human civilization in a matter of months.

Yes Dr. Lars. That is why I ramped up production of my prototypes to something actionable. Dr. Lars would you please review these star charts from Maggie’s time there, as my calculations seem off.

Sirum poured over the data and looked up in dismay. If I weren’t looking at the real time data from your AI, I wouldn’t believe this was possible.

Going to keep me in suspense all day?

Sorry Brill. Gill had Maggie mapping Gallia’s position relative to the black hole. From where Earth sits, it looks like Gallia is 50 billion years old, yet Maggie’s map shows it only to be 4 billion years old. Somehow the portal we have active is billions of years in the past. I can’t make sense of that.

Brill’s eyes narrowed, Maybe it is all perspective. We are seeing what it looks like so far away, yet the tunnel must have found an earlier point. Not sure how, but I recall Einstein proposing some theories about this.

Sirum was shaking his head, No Brill, I think it was where we aimed the portal in quantum space. It is starting to come together in my head. At the quantum level, time has no meaning, yet it is connected to a spatial position at a given time. When we pushed so much energy through the quantum tunnel to connect the portals, we must have pushed the portal to a position in the quantum tunnel that correlated to a much earlier point in real time.

Well, we can ponder this till the asteroid hits Earth, so let’s not dwell on it now. Gill, how do we get this going, like yesterday?

Right Dr. Everly, this whole hanger is full of these builders. A total of 60 of them. Once we get the portal back open, let’s send them through and shut it down. There is one detail I have yet to mention, but one that I hope you will endorse.

What might that be?

This is a big ask, but all these AI’s will require a unified command center to control all the unexpected things, something that can adapt and teach itself. I need to send the quantum computer through as the control device.

What? Why not use Maggie?

Maggie’s not advanced enough to control everything and her programming is not near complex enough to adapt on the fly. The quantum computer can control everything and continue to modify its code to adapt to any situation. Once we send it through, I would have the AI build a protective structure around it with a communications array so it could communicate to all machines at the same time everyone on Gallia.

I see your need. Sirum, can you depart with that beauty?

In this instance Brill, I would be happy to send it, as it won’t be long before it’s back in my possession when we get to Gallia.

One more thing Dr. Everly, we will need some more funding to finish off the rest of the builders. I want them equipped for every contingency and this will be the only place we can build computer chips.

Not a problem, I will transfer more money to your account today. If you have not already, I would suggest you incorporate the designs to mine precious metals out of Gallia, as you mentioned, we can’t build computer parts there and that would also go for any other electronic parts.

Thanks. Already on it. I have the aerial maps of metal deposits around the whole planet. The center continent where we are going is full of most precious metals, though the continent just south of it is loaded with everything and then some.

I figured as much, just thought I would ask. How long will it take you to complete it?

I have 30 builders completely stocked; they just need to be linked to the quantum computer. The other 30 builders can also be linked, but I need to add more to them. If we send the first 30 along with the quantum computer, they can leave tomorrow.

Sweet. I’m not sure the computer can be readied that fast, so let’s plan on sending in a few days. How many Maggie type AI’s do you have?

She is the only one and the reason I need so much more money. She ain’t cheap. I will go ahead and answer the question before you ask it. It will take me a month to make 20 of her. The assembly is too challenging to have them made on Gallia, at least until they mine some precious metals.

Perfect. I will leave you to it. Impressive work, keep it up.

Two Weeks Later

The 30 builders and 6 Maggie’s were ready to go, as Gill surprised them with the additional AI’s. They were sent through with the quantum computer and the portal was shut off for an hour. That would allow for 20 years to pass on Gallia, more than enough time to have some headway made on getting the fundamentals of civilization set up, as well as to explore the other continents in more depth. They turned the portal back on after that hour and two weeks later the rest of the new AI’s were sent through and shut off for another hour to allow for an additional 20 years to pass.

Another item Brill had them set up were portals across the continents and a second portal to connect back to Earth. Brill’s hope was to have sending and receiving portals open at the same time, which would allow for the time on Gallia to proceed on Earth’s time without the quantum lag effects that happen when the portals were shut off.

When they opened the portal an hour later, the additional return portal from Gallia to Earth was also opened. Gill sent a signal through to connect with the AI’s. Two hours later, no reply, just complete silence. They were concerned something may have happened to them. Gill had her headphones on listening for that signal when she held her breath for a moment. Brill could see something was wrong when she turned to him with a colorless stone face. With a shaking hand, she handed him the headphones. As Brill put them on his ears, his heart skipped a beat. One word, very faint, repeated over and over…Help…Help…Help!

QUESTIONS

Every drone they sent through returned the same. No information of any kind to help decipher what happened to the AI’s and builders. Brill had enough, now was the time to set foot on Gallia and find answers. The drones did show significant progress from the builders, though they could not establish a link to the quantum computer.

Brill set his mind on going on this expedition. Before he could even ask, both Gill and Sirum had their belongings packed and were ready to go. With the return portal open from Gallia to Earth, they were sure they would not be trapped. They needed answers, and they needed them fast, since Earth’s destruction was impending.

The trip through the portal was like all those on Earth, just that instantaneous movement from one place to another. Brill took a deep breath, taking in all the new scents and different tasting air. The sky was more vivid than the probes had transmitted back with deep blue hues and streaks of red. Brill just stood and stared, watching the birds glide on the thermals rising up from the ocean. His pulse raced as he took off in a dead sprint down to the ocean. He hadn’t run like that in a while and it felt right, being here, knowing this would be home and the salvation of humanity.

They made their way to the structure housing the quantum computer. Sirum was inspecting where the entry was supposed to be. Gill was thinking, ‘If the AI’s had followed the blueprints, there should be an access portal right where his hand is.’ Sure enough, once the heat from his hand had registered, the digital terminal illuminated. This was a safety feature Gill had included as a just in case, in the event AI’s went rogue and tried to destroy the computer. Sirum’s brow furrowed as he tried to gain access. The unit had gone into lockdown and was requiring multiple security passwords, facial recognition, and an iris scan of his eye. After a few curse words, Sirum finally got through the web of security and started his investigation in to what happened.

Brill and Gill left Sirum to find some answers while they explored. They figured 20 years of computer logs will take Sirum some time to go through, and they were eager to have a look about. The area around the computer building had been built into a mini-city with all the housing and amenities needed to sustain a population. There were several walking paths that had been paved. From what they could tell, the AI’s had followed their programming, giving them hope that the AI’s had built transfer portals between continents and cities.

Dr. Everly, looks like we are about a half mile from where the portal hub is supposed to be. From there, we should be able to see where all the other portals are around the globe.

A smile crossed Brill’s face on the walk to the hub. He thought, ‘the peace