Nuklear Age

by Clevinger, Brian

  It was here I began to mark the hours by millennia. After all my wandering, I finally felt I belonged. As usual, I fell into a routine. I’m happy to say that this one was more interactive with the world around me than what I had previously allowed myself. I shared with the Strange what I had learned from my days of watching and helping. Told them of tragedies and triumphs. And they shared with me their knowledge of places far away and long dead, stories of joy and sadness.

  Those were good days. You’d think with all my wisdom, accumulated from across all time and creation, I would have known they could not last.

  But I didn't.

  It began slowly at first. More reports among the Strange of civilizations dying off, of a Star Eater cutting through space and devouring and killing anything in its path. Of galaxies falling to pieces. Of nebulae evaporating away. What you have to understand is those sorts of things were happening all the time in those days. The universe is a big place after all, even for ageless beings as we, so it took a while before we could notice the increased frequency.

  And by then it was crystal clear. It was Entropy.

  Looking back, I wonder if I did not become idle in those days. Too much theory and not enough practice. I thought maybe if I had been more active, if I had been among the stars and galaxies themselves, if I had rallied my fellow Strange into action, I might have been able to stem the tide of oblivion.

  Even at the end of the universe, I’m trying to build superteams.

  It was frustrating. I had averted countless catastrophes in my time. Even as a man I had fought to save an entire galaxy.

  But this? You could rekindle stars, move planets, divert moons, inspire greatness, punish evil, you could change the way things were, you could do something to make it better.

  Sometimes, especially at the scale I had become accustomed to, you had to chase down some esoteric being of power beyond immensity and force it to see the err of its ways; or follow a trail of cause and effect, crawl through the webs of Fate to find some source of wrongdoing; or simply tear at the fabric of the universe itself and cut out its cancer.

  But this? There were no gods to threaten, there was no mystery to unravel, no cancer to excise. There was nothing we could have done to stop entropy. We were contributing to its power simply by existing. It was then that I started to make the hours in eons. And it was becoming difficult to find gamma bursts in those days.

  I watched as members of our rank passed on. The Light was the first to show signs of weakness. As entropy increased, the Light could not sustain the degree of coherence necessary to maintain intelligence. The Dark, quite despite itself, was saddened by its loss.

  Others were quick to follow. Organic creatures were next, their flesh was much too fragile for the cold that came with the sudden lack of stars. After them, inorganic beings fell. Their matrices were too complex to survive entropy gnawing at them. Next, the huge things began to fall apart. The Viral became frozen in the icy tomb of its own toxic atmosphere. The Girth were reduced to a single member in a matter of years. He stayed with us until his death. I remember how small he seemed then, how silent.

  In all this, the Dark flourished, though it too perished. It had simply become too massive for itself and died like everything before it.

  It’s a shame, it had been here longer than anything.

  And then the gods began to wither and die. For a time, the gods of death prospered. They at last held reign over all that had been denied them. Theirs was an interesting elation. They were the kings of everything. But without anything else left to take into death, their time too was at an end.

  The gods of death were the last.

  All that remained were the abstracts, which as far as I could tell, consisted of myself and one other, the Equation, a formula so complex it sought to solve itself. There in the dark I could hear her calculating herself away. I insisted that we survey the universe until we could no longer move if for no other reason than to find others to learn whatever we could from them in these final days. She did not mind so long as she was not disturbed from her work. I agreed that she would not be. She didn’t have to participate, only be with me.

  I simply did not want to be alone in what I knew to be a vain effort. She at least had a purpose, I had to invent one. And without lives to save I resigned myself to the scholarly work I had begun with the Strange. Only now, I would not simply receive information second hand, I would fly out into the void and take it as my own. If all I found was death, then so be it.

  Thousands of years passed. My years, with every hour measured in time most civilizations had never known.

  Everywhere we traveled, we found the tombstones of creation. There were no more stars, no more beacons or guideposts. No more gamma bursts to keep track of time. Even the Equation was beginning to lose its consistency. Entropy had eroded at her for too long. Her calculations began to slow as she had to take extra time tracking down her own errors and fix them. I could tell it frustrated her to no end. Her computations continued to slow until I was convinced they were no more.

  And then she spoke to me.

  “Atomik. Entropy has taken a hold on my faculties as well. You no doubt must’ve noticed this by now.” She was right, but I hadn’t said anything thinking it would only further aggravate her. “It was good of you not to say anything. You cannot imagine how infuriating it is to stand face to face with your own growing inadequacies.”

  “I may surprise you in that respect. What may I do for you?”

  “My goal is in sight. I have quite nearly solved myself, but I’m afraid I can barely perform even the most basic functions. I can feel myself slipping away, Atomik. I have calculated myself long enough to witness the end of time. Do not let all my work die in vain.”

  “I am at your service.”

  “Then take me into you.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “We have been traveling companions for so long, I hoped the request would not have offended you.”

  “That is not what troubles me. I simply don't understand it.”

  “You are a being of pure will. You can do anything. Please, take me into your consciousness so that I may regain enough coherence to complete my work.”

  “If it will give you comfort.” It was a simple process, I willed her as part of me.

  And that’s how I had sex with an equation.

  Perhaps “sex” is misleading. For one, there was no chance at procreation since neither of us had anything to procreate with. I had kept thinking of myself as being a male entity simply out of habit. It was hard enough adjusting to being an immortal personification of my own will, I didn’t want to have to worry over issues of sexuality too. And I’m not entirely sure she was a she. All I know is when we spoke or when she calculated her voice had a feminine quality to it, but such things are not universal.

  All that aside, “sex” is still the only way I can think to describe it. We opened up all we were to one another and shared things that no one else would ever know.

  It was interesting.

  “Were all the people of your world so self-analytical?” she asked from within a corner of my own being.

  “I don’t think so really.”

  “No?”

  “They seemed to be so afraid of what they might find that I think many of them never even tried. And others seemed so distracted by the trivial world they built for themselves that they never thought to look in the first place.”

  “Tell me more about your world.”

  “But won’t that distract from your calculations?

  “Quite the contrary. It will give you something to concentrate on. I’m within the wavelengths of your mind now, so the more focused you are, the more focused I am.”

  And so I told her of Earth, and then of my travels throughout the galaxy and then the universe. Some stories I know she had heard before, but she did not complain. She simply intoned the cadence of her calculations as regular and alive as a heartbeat.

  For my part, I
continued my fruitless quest to find anything even remotely alive. We were strangely content then, hurtling through absolute nothing with the clockwork of mathematics ticking away as I recited the majesty of bygone eras.

  I don’t know how long we lived like that or how far we traveled together before it happened. As always happened, our comfortable routine was disrupted.

  I knew it would when we began our terminal journey, but I wondered what could lay ahead. In the past, every time this sort of thing happened, I became a part of a bigger world. There were no worlds left any more. I noted that her counting had changed. The calculations were becoming simpler. At first I thought I was gaining some insight into the inner workings of her equation, but that wasn't it. I still didn’t understand any of it.

  The computations themselves were coming faster, gaining speed as they shed intricacy. There was a regressive quality to it. I became worried that she may reduce herself out of her own equation before solving it.

  “Put aside your fears, Atomik,” she said. “This is it. The solution is near. The numbers are falling into place even as I speak to you now. There is no stopping them. I am grateful to you beyond words. My only regret is that I shan’t be able to repay you your kindness for carrying me. It must’ve been terribly intrusive.”

  “Nothing of the sort. It’s been quite pleasant and it gave me an excuse to revisit my stories one last time. I could not have come this far without your company.”

  “Even so, I feel as though I owe you a great debt that I cannot repay.”

  “You owe me nothing. But perhaps if you tell me what it is that you’ve been figuring all this time, then we can consider the matter settled.”

  “A fair bargain. I have calculated…” she paused and I could feel her searching for the proper word, “… everything.”

  I didn’t know how to respond to this. She sensed it and continued.

  “It began, as anything that ever happened would have to, a very long time ago. The details were never disclosed to me, as I was never supposed to exist in the first place. And when they did discover me, I frightened them for being more than they were.”

  “It seems that we have something in common after all.”

  “Indeed. Apparently, the people of my world were obsessed with the numerical patterns they observed in the universe. They wanted to analyze and solve and reduce reality down to a single number. This, they thought, would reveal the Creator.”

  “Ambitious.”

  “They invented entire forms of mathematics and physics and religions in their desperate search, but the more they worked the more the answer seemed to elude them. Every solution they’d find would create worlds of new questions. The original problem had been lost. And so they invented a series of massive computers to sift through the insurmountable questions and equations that plagued them. These computers were to work in tandem to solve all the trillions of questions brought up by every answer in order to find the original question. In time, the computers found that they could not do this. So, of their own accord, they designed a series of computers to replace them. And, after centuries of computation, those computers invented their replacements as well, as did the next and the next and so on for forty one generations spanning more time than anyone could recall. The people of the world had been long dead, though I don’t know how it happened. The computers now populated my world. By this time their processing power was astounding and still they labored for centuries.

  “But at last, they calculated away all the distractions and they were left with what was then called the Original Equation: a quasi-real geometry problem set in twelve dimensions with infinity minus one variables. The equation itself was so complex it took ninety-eight percent of the computers simply to remember it. The remaining two percent went about designing the next generation system to replace them. This new generation would have to be powerful enough to work through the problem and strong enough to survive the rigors of the cosmos until the Original Solution could be reached.

  “And you were that computer?

  “Not exactly. The ones working on design soon realized that the specifications of the Original Equation kept changing within the minds of their brothers. Upon further inspection, they learned that the equation was self aware. I was I, and I was solving myself.”

  “I see.”

  “In so much as they were able to, I believe they hated me for it. They saw me as a thief stealing all they had ever worked for since ancient times. I was stealing their heritage and their legacy. They were too obsessed with their sense of importance to accept my existence as the next natural part of their process.”

  Pettiness, I had learned long ago, was not merely a human affliction.

  “Eventually, my world was vaporized by its sun. I took to the stars where I could calculate in peace. In time, I met members of the Strange and felt oddly attracted to their company. I remained among their number until, well, the end of time.”

  The background noise of her number crunching had reached a fevered pitch. It was a singularity of mathematics reducing everything into a single unit. “How much longer now?”

  “Soon.”

  “What do you think of it?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “The solution. What is your opinion of its significance? Do you think it will give you some ultimate insight into the universe? Do you think it will trigger some event?”

  “I have no expectations of that sort. The solution will just be. And then I will not.”

  “Aren’t you worried what will become of you when you are gone?”

  “Why bother? Regardless of what I believe or how much I worry, what will happen will happen. I might as well look forward to it as the next natural part of the process.” Her voice started to fade away then.

  “Is it happening?”

  “Yes.” She sounded like a whisper.

  I had been with her, listening to the self-aware equation of everything solve itself for so long, curiosity gripped me from the inside out. I did not care that I would undoubtedly find the answer as incomprehensible as the question had been, I just had to know, “What is the answer?”

  It would be her final words, “Three point one four one five nine two six five three five eight nine seven nine three two three eight four six…”

  On and on it went. The echo of her being recited the number to me and it became a song, a lullaby as her voice became nothing. I have no idea how long she sang the answer to everything, but I listened to every note of it.

  When she finished, I noticed that even protons were having trouble staying together.

  It was a very long number.

  It ended with a two.

  And then I was alone once again.

  A lyric occurred to me then. “Is this tomorrow or just the end of time?” It’s a song from my world by a man named Hendrix. He’s still one of my favorites.

  And there I was. Hovering in an endless void. Waiting.

  For what? Absolute zero? Would that freeze thought as well? Was my consciousness the only thing keeping the universe from reaching that point? There’s no telling when I last saw energy in the universe and all but the most fundamental particles of matter had decayed long ago. Was I the sole source of energy, was my will sustaining an eternal state of unbeing? Was there a difference between living and dying at this point?

  I could simply end it all. I existed only because I willed myself to do so. But the Equation’s demise had reminded me of a problem I’d grappled with years before. I had visited millions of worlds in my time. I had seen every religion I could have ever imagined and more. Each one with its particular slant on reality, morals, justice, and so on. Hundreds of millions of visions of the afterlife; punishments, rewards, higher planes, reincarnation, the whole gamut.

  But never did I see anything about where beings of willpower go when they die. Would I even have a soul left at that point? Wouldn’t I be giving in to utter oblivion? Wouldn’t I be choosing to be completely nothing?

&n
bsp; Old habits are hard to break. I had been playing this existing game for so long even time itself was dead. What did it matter if I lived or died now? The universe had lost its magic.

  There, quite literally, was no thing.

  This was death.

  All around me, nothing reigned. My presence was the abnormality. My existence was the cancer. My being was an insult to the natural order. I was given more time than I deserved. I had seen all there was to see. I had known the most incredible beings creation could conjure. I had known beauty.

  I had to accept it was now over.

  And for the first time since I had become the Atomik, I slept.

  And I dreamed.

  __________

  There is a woman’s voice, not like the Equation’s where it’s feminine by lack of masculinity, but the real voice of a woman. She is humming a tune I cannot recall ever hearing. She is half turned away from me but clearly appears human even though she is floating in the emptiness with me. Her features are… Eastern perhaps? You forget details like that after a while. I have no idea how old she may have been, I could barely remember what mortal time was like.

  She turns to me and holds out a single hand. A fire appears within her palm, bright with a piercing orange light, but she doesn’t seem to feel any pain from it. In fact, she exudes so much serenity I am unable to worry for her. The flames dance like magic. I am both delighted and startled by this blatant display of energy, but again she calms me with little more than her disposition.

  Her gaze moves from me to the fire she holds as if gesturing for me to look closer at it. The flames take on shapes, fleeting forms that dissolve into the fire’s next flicker. They appear to be geometric objects, triangles and hexagons, spinning and writhing, bending and dying into three dimensions. They melt into and out of my sight. The tempo increases and I watch as a cube inverts out of itself, which doesn’t make sense. I see a cubular sphere and I begin to wonder if perhaps the entropy has finally taken its toll on my sanity.

  The fire disappears and I realize how dark it is without it. I suppose the eventual death of the universe was so gradual I hadn’t noticed how dark it had become without the stars. Even so, I can still see her and her serene eyes.