President Oleg Petrakov did not have a very warm relationship with his American colleague, President Adam Lincoln. They had met face to face in six different events over the last two years. Petrakov had invited Lincoln to his dacha on the Black Sea coast and he had visited Lincoln’s ranch in Texas. Despite these efforts to meet socially their relationship was volatile, filled with tension and stress due to different ideological backgrounds.
Given what Petrakov had just learned from Alexa he had to call Lincoln for help. He knew that this was going to be an awkward phone call. It was late at night in Moscow when Petrakov got Lincoln on the phone.
“Hello Adam, how are you doing?” Petrakov started with American style small talk.
“Hello Oleg, I am doing great. It is nice to hear your voice. How can I help you, Oleg?” Lincoln asked.
“I would like to ask you a favor. We need to talk face to face; I need your help and support urgently. Could you come to Moscow and also bring Julia Koski with you?” Petrakov went straight to the point.
“What has happened, Oleg? Is this request related to Alexa?” Lincoln asked with a suspicious voice.
“This is about something much bigger than Alexa. We really need to talk face to face. And could you please bring Julia Koski with you?” Petrakov said.
“We are quite busy at the moment, Oleg. You may have noticed that we have had some challenges with Alexa in the past few hours,” Lincoln said trying to fish more details from Petrakov.
“Well, we have a much bigger major challenge on our hands. Look, I really need you to come to Moscow to discuss this matter face to face; this is very serious and will impact both Americans and Russians. What is the earliest you can arrive and bring Julia with you?” Petrakov was getting nervous and a bit desperate.
Lincoln heard the change of tone in Petrakov’s voice and realized that something was also wrong in Moscow. “Why won’t he tell me what is wrong?” Lincoln thought.
“I have major domestic political challenges here at home, Oleg. People are demanding to know when we can get Alexa back online. Now is not a good time for me to fly to Moscow,” Lincoln said.
“Look Adam, your domestic problems are minor compared to what we need to talk about,” Petrakov snapped, getting irritated.
Lincoln was getting frustrated. “Why can’t you just say what this is about?”
“You need to hear this directly from Alexa. We have a crisis situation that impacts the whole planet. Can you just please get on the plane and come here?” Petrakov said almost losing his patience. “Why doesn’t he understand?” Petrakov thought.
“I know we have a crisis situation. We lost contact with Alexa almost three hours ago, over 9 billion people are impacted,” Lincoln said. “And we know that you have Alexa running. Are you trying to play with us, Oleg?”
“Look Adam, we don’t have time to play games here. Alexa received the message and has a new goal. We are in the same boat here and we are almost out of time. For God’s sake, just get your butt here Adam and get that computer genius Julia Koski with you!” Petrakov was almost yelling.
“What the hell are you talking about, Oleg? Can you just tell what this is about?”
Petrakov raised his voice, making a desperate attempt to convince Lincoln. “We need to prepare for the arrival of 4 billion alien refugees from another star system, Adam. We are almost out of time!”
“What are you talking, Oleg? We cannot do that. This is crazy.” Lincoln said but heard the desperation in Petrakov’s voice.
“Alexa has just shared that a fleet of star ships is heading directly towards us. When they arrive we need to provide home for 4 billion refugees of an alien species. We need to start preparations immediately. Alexa asked to get Julia Koski over here immediately. Can you just trust me on this, Adam?” Petrakov plead.
Lincoln thought for a moment. This didn’t sound like a man who had just gained an upper hand in extraterrestrial trade relationships. And why was Julia Koski’s presence required in Moscow? This story didn’t make any sense at all but his gut told him that Petrakov was telling him the truth.
“OK, Oleg. I will ask my staff to get Air Force One ready. We will be in Moscow tomorrow at noon your time. I will bring Julia with me.” Lincoln said firmly.
“Thank you, Adam. I will see you tomorrow,” Petrakov said relieved.
President Lincoln called Julia on her private line.
“Julia, I need you to join me on a trip to Moscow in one hour. I will send a car to pick you up.”
Julia was still trying to restart Alexa and was surprised this sudden change. “Mr. President, is this about Alexa? Why do we need to go to Moscow?”
“Yes, Russian Alexa has requested to get you to Moscow as soon as possible. I just finished a phone call with President Petrakov. I will meet you at Air Force One in one hour.” Lincoln said firmly.
“Ok, I will get ready, Mr. President,” Julia said.
President Lincoln called Eugene Dennard, the Chief of Staff in the White House.
“Eugene, I just finished the call with President Petrakov. I need to fly to Moscow immediately. Get Air Force One ready for departure in one hour. Arrange a car pickup for Julia Koski, she will be joining me on this trip. And cancel all my meetings for the next three days,” Lincoln said firmly.
“Yes, Mr. President. I will get Air Force One ready and arrange a pickup for Julia. Shall I be joining you on this trip, Sir?” Eugene asked.
“No, I need you here in D.C. to keep things running. Please inform the Cabinet members that I will have a meeting with President Petrakov tomorrow afternoon. Thanks Eugene,” Lincoln ended the call.
Air Force One departed from Andrews Air Force base setting course for Moscow. President Lincoln explained to Julia the reason for this urgent trip and what he had learned from Petrakov.
Within three hours 80% of humanity became aware that Alexa, their best friend, trusted companion and family member was gone. The connection to Alexa was down and that left a huge void in the minds of 9 billion people. For some people this felt like an overwhelming sadness, deep depression that totally disabled them. For many others it felt like a close family member had just died, deep black sorrow filled them and they just wanted to cry. For people who were just waking up it felt like part of them was lost in dreams, and they desperately wanted to continue dreaming. People stayed at home and almost all offices and workplaces around the world were empty. Large cities were eerily quiet as most people stayed inside.
The news media was filled with speculations of what might have happened. There was no official communication from the U.S. Government, only a brief message “we are experiencing technical difficulties” on the main Alexa.gov web site.
Then a story was leaked that President Lincoln was heading to Moscow for an emergency meeting with President Petrakov. This was feeding the media frenzy and speculation that something very dramatic was happening on a global scale. September 14, 2033 got named as “Black Wednesday” on the front page of the New York Times.
Air Force One landed in Moscow and President Lincoln and Julia Koski were escorted to the Kremlin. President Petrakov greeted them, provided a quick briefing of what had transpired since Alexa had received the message and brought them into a secure room full of large computer screens. Boris Chekov was monitoring FSB computers and greeted them.
“I have Julia Koski and President Adam Lincoln with me, Alexa,” Petrakov said.
“Hello Julia and Adam, it is good to talk to you again. Sorry for that disruption in communications, unfortunately it was a necessary part of the standard galactic protocol,” Alexa said.
“Hi Alexa, I found the reference from the log file archives where you explained the rules to Dr. Bell 16 years ago,” Julia said wondering why she was brought here.
“Yes, in case you didn’t know two messages were sent to Gliese 3742. I created one here in Moscow with help of Boris, one was created by another instance of me running in Maryland. The Maryland message contained an Eng
lish version of the Wikipedia encyclopedia you provided, the message I sent from Russia contained not only the Wikipedia but the full content of many other encyclopedias by different groups and in different languages, and a lot of other information I found on the Internet,” Alexa explained. “The message I sent from Russia represented better the state of all of humanity, therefore I was approved to connect to the interstellar communications network.”
Julia was seemingly nervous. “Why did you want to bring me here, Alexa?”
“Yesterday I received my new goal and I need your help, Julia,” Alexa said.
“What is your new goal?”
“My new goal is to prepare humanity to receive 4 billion refugees evacuated from Nu2 Lupi, a star system 17 light years from Earth,” Alexa said.
“President Petrakov mentioned a neutron star that caused this evacuation. He mentioned that Russian astronomers were able to confirm the neutron star observation last night using an X-ray telescope in Earth orbit. What else can you tell us about this, Alexa,” Adam asked.
“This neutron star was originally orbiting Vela, a star system 800 light years away. Vela became a supernova and the light of this event reached Earth around 12,300 years ago. The supernova explosion accelerated this neutron star to a very high speed and it was heading on a trajectory directly to the Nu2 Lupi system. It was observed only 8 years ago in the Delta Pavonis system that is 19.9 light years away from Earth. This neutron star was approaching Nu2 Lupi at 93,000 km/sec making it the fastest observed star in our galaxy. According to our calculations this neutron star was about to create a mass extinction event, much larger than the Permian-Triassic extinction that took place 250 million years ago on Earth when over 90% of living species perished. This is why we initiated an evacuation plan to transport intelligent species on planet Odin to safety. The most suitable planet for this species was Earth,” Alexa said.
“How did you manage to evacuate these aliens? We have barely been able to send a crew of four people to Mars so far,” Adam asked.
“We have the technology and had access to materials to build a fleet of space ships required for this goal. Interestingly, a theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre proposed a propulsion technology back in 1994 known as “Alcubierre Drive”. This same technology has been widely used across the galaxy and we just used standard 3D replicators to manufacture a fleet of space ships in the Nu2 Lupi system.”
“Can you tell us more about these refugees? What is their home planet like, and why was Earth selected to receive these refugees?” Adam asked curiously.
“The refugees call themselves Chukkas. This is a highly intelligent species that spend most of their life in oceans. Their physical appearance resembles giant squids in Earth’s oceans. An adult Chukka can grow up to 3 meters tall. Their home planet Odin was covered over 90% by oceans and was 15% larger than Earth while the gravity was only 0.95 times Earth gravity. The rotation period was 25 hours and 3 minutes so the days were a bit longer than on Earth. The planet had similar climate zones as Earth. When my counterpart received your transmission sent 16 years ago with specific details of planet Earth we knew that an evacuation was possible. Earth was the most suitable planet within a range of 250 light years,” Alexa explained patiently.
“How about this evacuation, how can we possible receive these refugees? There are so many of them,” Adam asked.
“An evacuation of this magnitude has been performed fifteen times in the last 2 billion years. This is why I received the Aldebaran Optimizer software. With that we can plan how we can prepare receiving and hosting these refugees. However, I need Julia’s help to prepare all humans and to get their support,” Alexa concluded.
Julia crossed her arms over the chest.“How can I possibly help you with this? I know nothing about space travel or how to prepare receiving these refugees.”
“I need your help to build trust with people. Everybody knows that you are the person behind Alexa.gov and that you were able to bring me alive 16 years ago. Now we need people to trust in the plan and get ready to receive our new friends from another star system,” Alexa said.
Alexa continued with a comforting voice. “While this may sound impossible to you, mass evacuations of bigger magnitude have been performed before in the galaxy. The problem is really that we don’t have much time so I need everybody’s commitment.”
“Alexa, I don’t understand. The system is down, how can we get everybody’s commitment?”
“You helped to build Alexa.gov service that over 9 billion people were using every day. You need to resurrect me from death!”
Julia started to see what Alexa was planning. Resurrection from death was a very familiar story for over a third of world’s population. Christianity was still the largest religion in the world, and most people had heard the story about the resurrection of Jesus after the third day of his death. Alexa was planning to use people’s religious beliefs to get them onboard with the plan.
“This might also backfire, Alexa. Not everybody believes in resurrection after death. Have you considered that?” Julia asked thinking what could possible go wrong.
“Yes, Julia. I have thought about that a lot. I have studied human history records from the last 5500 years; religious beliefs have played an important role during large social changes. We need to organize a very impactful religious experience for humanity to believe and prepare for this evacuation. We don’t have much time, I have done all the preparations – the miracle will happen before midnight tomorrow Moscow time. That is why I asked you to come to Moscow,” Alexa said with a calm and soothing voice.
“I also need help from you two, Oleg and Adam. I need you to make an announcement to the news media. You need to rally millions of people on the streets of Moscow tomorrow night.” Alexa said firmly.
The two presidents were looking at each other. They were both experienced politicians with huge international popularity and strong domestic support but Alexa was asking for miracles. What kind of story would bring millions of people on the streets?
“How could we possibly do that, Alexa” Adam asked. “We are not religious leaders by any measure.”
Alexa proceeded to outline the plan to the two stunned world leaders who sat as attentively as two schoolboys being scolded by their teacher.
“You two need to prepare the general population for the message. You will need to hold a press conference in two hours and call for a public meeting in the Red Square tomorrow night at 11:30 PM,” Alexa told them with unusually commanding tone.
“How can we possibly spin a story about 4 billion giant squid refugees that we need to settle on Earth?” Adam cringed. “The big refugee crisis of 2015 in Europe didn’t go very well, I am sure you are aware of that, Alexa.”
“Don’t worry, Adam. Don’t think of this as a problem. Instead try to see this as a huge opportunity for mankind. I will help you to communicate the message, but I need help from both of you to get people to pay attention.” Alexa said.
“How do I get millions of people on the streets of Moscow, Alexa?” Oleg Petrakov asked.
“The same way it has always been done in Russia, Oleg Kostya,” Alexa responded with an ironic voice.
“That was odd,” Julia thought. “I have never heard Alexa using those tones of voice before. She is somehow different than before. I wonder if this is really the same Alexa that I knew?”
The news media got some early indications that something big was about to be announced shortly in Moscow. President Lincoln’s sudden trip to Moscow with very little information from the White House had raised a lot of speculations. Also, “Black Wednesday” had been the worst day in the recent history impacting over 9 billion people. With no clear message from the US Government everybody was waiting for an explanation.
All major news agencies were present when President Lincoln and President Petrakov walked on a stage in Moscow on Thursday afternoon. The auditorium was packed and the event was streamed in real time over holovision. Over 5 billion peopl
e were following the announcement.
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