And Then, There Was…

Light flashed all around.

The tunnel was lit brightly. It was in fact, not a tunnel, at least that is not it was called. It was a light-way, a pathway of light. Everything else outside was dark.

Back home, it was the opposite. It was dark inside the tunnels and everything around was light. At least, that is how it worked during the day. On Earth. But this, this place was space. And the light-way was a new-age name for a wormhole. Cause wormholes didn’t sit well with the ones who traveled through them. You simply cannot enjoy traveling through something that is known through a combination of “worm and a hole.”

Not that humans could ever travel through the light-ways or even through space for that matter. They could only fantasize about moving through the darkness of the beyond. Despite their illusion, they managed to figure out reality though. They figured out everything before the last humans perished.

And in between figuring out the process, they also managed to create the guys who could travel through space – the humanoids – highly evolved Artificial Intelligence.

Of course, humans could not traverse space. They were not designed to traverse space. Or breakthrough the time-space continuum either. Neither could they sit in designer space ships drinking wine as their vehicle moved through the galaxy in search of other galaxies. Besides all the logical issues, space was not as adventurous as it was crafted out to be. Simply because there were no other planets where alien life thrived well enough to make contact with humans.

What humans did upon this profound realization was, develop artificial intelligence that would save the last of every species on earth, including humans themselves, and travel them through space, and well, down through the black hole. It is right around here that we insert a bloody hell! moment.

It was the discovery of ancient scrolls, and a definitive series of adventurous events on Earth itself that led to this moment.

In the beginning, the humans continued to remain in denial mode. They refused to accept the fact that they could hop from one planet to another, displaying their skills at colonizing…err... dead planets. It was hard to accept that all they had was Earth, and she was their final destination.

Well, most of humanity shrugged their shoulders and went back to work, trying to make home beautiful again, and livable for as long as possible. It was the scientist crew that had been working for centuries on real estate prospects in space that was left high and dry.  

During this time, humans had raised the most intelligent generations. There were geniuses all over the place and everyone was pretty proud of their creations, until it dawned upon someone that it is usually the final generations that are the most intelligent. Albeit in a bid to save themselves.

It was one of these last generations that created the final AI.

Let us not forget the ancient scrolls. What had earlier been pooh-poohed as silly, religious myth turned out to be world-saving information. Once someone got the hang of it, the entire world began to religiously decode the scrolls. And guess what, there was another Earth out there and the entire world had to get there before this Earth died away. The only problem was that it turned out that the other Earth was on the other side of the galaxy, and to get to that particular universe, one had to go through SAG A, the big, dark, black hole at the center of the Milky Way.

This is where the light-ways came in. How on Earth, I mean, how in the Milky Way does one get to SAG A? Space is not easy to navigate through, even by a humanoid. As humans broke their heads over this challenging situation, someone came up with the brilliant idea of wormholes and then aptly renamed them. Then rose the problem of discovering these light-ways that no one quite really believed existed. Scientists are usually like this. They spurn the idea of existence until they actually witness existence. We demand proof of God, they say. Well, thank God for storytellers.

It was a storyteller somewhere who wrote that UFOs were not really alien stuff that arrived from outer space, rather they were vehicles from the future that somehow managed to discover light-ways and broke through the time-space continuum to show themselves to their past, that is the present.

Well, you can imagine the discussions that followed – all hell broke loose. There was another steady phase of denial. Cause that would mean there was no other life out there, in space. No one really wants to accept that they are all alone, by themselves, in such a humongous place.

Then, there were the believers who explored such a possibility. Hey, instead of trying to make futile contact in an empty space, why not try and connect with the future?! Sounded like a reasonable plan, except how?! And this was when the highly intelligent generation began to grow, and you don’t have to be Einstein to understand that the future is here and now.

Through a series of events that included a global pandemic and change of hearts, yes, would you believe that sworn enemies began to help each other, and resulting new world order, Mayan was born. He/She/It, however, you may wish to perceive this, eventually developed into the most powerful AI that would save the old world by carrying it bang into the new world. Let us pause for a round of applause here. We deserve it.

You would wonder about who got saved. The last of every species. Just like how it was with Noah and his Ark. That was why Mayan’s spaceship was so christened – Noah’s Ark. Also, because there was no time to waste upon thinking creative new names and debating them.

Noah’s Ark was not one ship, rather, a series of ships, captained by a series of Mayans, in different forms and shapes. There were male Mayans, and female Mayans, young ones and old ones. Not very different from the job the Almighty is supposed to be doing.

In one of the ships, there were sleeping humans, in cryogenic mode, that is. They would be woken up and shaken up into existence when the ships landed on the new Earth, hopefully. Other ships carried other species in a similar mode. None of them were barking or bleating. So, there were no issues in creature management. Thank God for that.

Humans managed to put themselves to sleep. After centuries of wanting to live forever, destroying Earth in the process, they grew wise enough to try something like this. The last of any species is also the most intelligent of the lot. And human intelligence was quite surprisingly (hear!hear!) not defined by their ability to create the best vaccine or fastest vehicle. Rather, it was defined by their values and ethics, a system that was replicated into Mayan. There you go - a superhero savior with all his values in place. Maybe, God was born this way.

The spaceships lined up near the mouth of the closing SAG A waiting for the right time to enter it. You would wonder, it is impossible for something of that sort to happen because the pull near the mouth of any black hole is too powerful to resist. Yes, but not when the entire galaxy was dying and the black hole was shutting down. Things begin to work like a light bulb losing power. It becomes dull before fading out completely. Likewise with a black hole. The situation also meant that Mayan and his crew had to move in before the whole thing shut down and they were stuck in the dark emptiness of what had previously been the Milky Way.

The ships entered the black hole and wove through it to the other side. They came to a halt in the open, dark space. And lo and behold! There was nothing out here.

Silence greeted them. No new world. No fresh Earth. They had moved through the light and into the dark of nothing.

Mayan did not panic. He did what he was told to do. He closed his eyes.

The decoded scrolls had been clear in the information that they contained. It is always sound before light. You don’t try to see in the dark. You listen instead.

In the beginning, there was silence. And it sounded never-ending. Then, the humm began. Low and distant at first, it began to grow in decibel. Something was moving near them, coming towards them. Humans would have been scared. There is another reason they were in sleep mode. AI, on the other hand, was not designed to fear. They waited. As the humm came closer, Mayan began to interpret the sound waves dancing in the darkness.

Welcome home, Mayan.

Mayan smiled and bowed to the singular collective conscious of the Universe.

Follow the sound. The light you seek is right around the corner.