The day the world ended began, for most people, like any other day. But for Dr Eva Kessler it was going to be the best day of her life, the day she had been waiting for.
“10 — 9 — 8 …”
In the underground chambers at CERN that housed the huge particle accelerator, all people held their collective breath. Through the thick reinforced glass of the observation room they all stared at the massive ellipsoid ship which, in a few seconds, would take Commander Ryan Nash and his team on a journey from which they possibly might never return.
None of the team had even considered the possibility that the mission would cause a catastrophe.
“7 — 6 …”
When the countdown got to five, a great humming began, rising to a roar that made even the reinforced glass vibrate. The exterior of the ship seemed to change shape, to oscillate, crackling and gleaming until the entire contraption was consumed by a blue light.
“3 — 2 — 1 …”
What followed was a vision straight from a surreal dream. The ship appeared to liquefy, losing all form until, as the countdown reached zero, the entire fabric of the vessel appeared to swallow itself up, shrinking in the blink of an eye to an unimaginably tiny point.
The Survivor had vanished, taking Ryan Nash and his team with it. They had quite literally dematerialized, to reappear, hopefully, at another spot on the far side of the universe.
Eva Kessler released the pent-up breath she had hardly been aware she was holding. For ten years she had worked on the development of this project and, given the setbacks that had beset it over time, she could scarcely believe this moment had arrived.
Standing next to her, Dr Peter Kasanov was looking at the readout on the screen. Kasanov was in overall charge of the experiment and — truth be told — it was his genius that had realized mankind’s greatest dream. And even though they had finally arrived at this point, still he couldn’t relax. Over the years they had worked together he had rarely let a smile cross his face. This was his life’s ambition, his great work. His dream.
“Congratulations,” Eva Kessler said excitedly. “It worked! They’re on their way.”
“Yes,” Kasanov said dryly without taking his eyes from the screen. “The key is on its way.”
“Key? What key?” Kessler asked, confused.
He didn’t answer. Instead he gave her a broad smile, the one thing she had never before seen him do.
Before she could repeat the question, an alarm sounded. Kessler glanced down at the screen and caught her breath.
What she was looking at was simply not possible.
The computer seemed to be showing that in the room beyond the glass the energy that had sucked the ship into infinity was now increasing, growing stronger, more powerful with every microsecond.
Kessler felt the hairs on her arms rise, felt the electricity crackling in the air around them. And she smelt ozone.
Suddenly a bolt of lightning crashed through the room beyond the glass and split into a thousand forks. The machinery and measuring instruments glowed with an eldritch light as the energy imploded, sending sparks everywhere. The screens flickered. A few of them went blank. Others showed absurd readings, impossible measurements.
Where the ship had been there was now an impenetrable blackness, a bubble of energy expanding and casting a pure black light that scorched the retinas of their eyes. Black sparks collided off the walls like tiny bullets.
“Antimatter alarm,” Kessler shouted. “The experiment is out of control. My God, we’ve created a black hole!”
The overhead lights went out in the control room and in the room beyond. The flickering monitor screens lit the faces of those standing there enough to show each one of them growing paler by the second. They heard a rumbling growling noise and then a bang like the clap of distant thunder. Two more of the screens failed. The electronic equipment began to emit sparks and flicker with the same unreal light. Everything in the room beyond the glass that was not fastened to the floor was sucked into the black bubble and vanished. Kessler began typing rapidly on her keyboard, trying to stop the inevitable.
“Do something, Peter. For God’s sake, we have to try.”
“The key has been sent,” he replied in an unemotional voice. “Nothing else matters.”
Shocked, Kessler felt like screaming at the lunatic, surely he understood what was at stake here if that really was a black hole on the other side of the reinforced glass. It could swallow the continent, the entire planet…
But Peter Kasanov gave the strange impression of a man perfectly at ease with what was unfolding before him.
Before Kessler could even give it another thought, everything exploded, the black energy bubble rushing towards her. In a split second it spread out in all directions sucking in the entire room around it. It engulfed the reinforced glass, the lights, the tables, all the electronic equipment. And it engulfed the scientists standing next to it. Everything, the entire research laboratory was swallowed up in a fraction of a second.
Dr Peter Kasanov died knowing he had destroyed everything in existence, and everything that had ever existed.
So that it might start all over again.