Cosmic Chaos!

More questions, lesser answers.

      There are some moments on life where everything gets more and more confusing than it actually is. Questions, tons of them, bump on your head and you have no answer for them at all. There is a big turbulence, a big mess on your head and in the reality around you that you mostly have no idea on what to do or expect next. One thing is enough to change the reality you are living in.

        When me and Nick got there, Luis and the professor were already confused, shocked and prepared for the worst. Luis’s device actually had predicted it. It had predicted what would happen next and what would cause that crazy event on the future. One small piece of device can literally change everything. As we entered the room, the professor approached us and said:

-“Nick, go right there and start make the calculation we need. We have tried to select some of the information that you need to make these calculations. So hurry, there is tons of more to be done.”

As he guided Nick on what to do next, the professor came up to me and said:

-“First of all, happy birthday Martha. I am actually really sorry I could not come on your birthday party. I had so much work to do. I hope you had fun and enjoyed the night. But now, as you know, we got work to do, so we need your help at the moment. Every time the device prints information, you have to grab them all and separate it from the rest of the information that is going to be printed next. So we need you to be there all the time so we don’t lose any piece of important information or they do not get mixed together. If you are willing to do that, we would be glad to have you here.”

I did not say much at that moment. I just smiled and shook my head in approval of what the professor just said. The work had already started and we are all very focused. Even though we had already been having spent lots of energy throughout the day, the fact that we were about to find the truth we had always wanted to know, gave us the motivation and the power to keep going through that night. Nick was on one side of the room, the professor was on the other. I was near the machinery that was still making that silly noice, while Luis was already really tired looking at his computers all the time. The hours were passing so fast and so quick that we all were tired at some point. We had to sleep. But we could not stop working that night as the device that Luis had created still kept on giving us plenty of information. So we decided to work as two different groups. Nick and Luis were the first group, while me and the professor would be the other one. So me and the professor decided to take some sleep. I decided to sleep on a couch in a room nearby while the professor decided to sleep on his office. I can genuinely say that the nap I took at that time was quite the best I had ever taken. That day had already been really tiring and quite amazing, with tons of emotions. But there was so many questions left with no answer. But at some point, even with all these questions around you, a rest is always needed. A rest to refresh your thoughts and energy.

I did not know how much I had slept until Nick woke me up. It had been a while. I guess it was about to sunrise at the time I woke up.

-“ If you want to keep sleeping, let me know.”-said Nick.

I could see on his eyes, he was so tired that he actually needed that rest more than me. His eyes were red and the skin had turned black around them. So I needed to wake up and take his place. I could not tire him more.

-“I am fine Nick. You can take my place here. Take some rest, you look pretty tired.”

-“I am okay Martha, I mean you can keep resting if you want to.”

-“I do not feel sleepy at all Nick. You need it more than me. So have a good rest. Has your father woken up?”-I asked.

-“Yes, he woke up half an hour ago. He is working there. Luis is taking a rest right now. The work has been pretty intensive and we are already halfway on knowing exactly what will happen. If you find anything, just wake us up, okay?

I just once again shook my head in approval and went to the office we were working. I could see there the professor working pretty hard and was already very focused. So I decided just to join and ask him what I could do, without saying anything else that would take the concentration our of the work we were doing. Hours were passing and passing real quick. The machinery kept on beeping and making the weird noice. I was getting the printed information and papers while the professor kept on calculating every piece of information that was there. The sun rose up. We had not stopped working for hours now. Hours and hours of work had gone unnoticed by me and the professor. But the device had not stopped working yet. Until that one moment, when that weird noice stopped. It just did. By itself. And that is when we thought that everything we needed was there. I was about to go and wake Nick and Luis up, but the professor told me not to do it. He said that we needed to finish what we were already doing and then call them. We shouldn’t get confused by them. I mean he is right, while you are working so hard and intensively, the moment when you stop, you get easily distracted and lose it all.

     There was no more printed information coming. So at that time I was not doing anything. I was just looking at the professor and wait hopefully that he could finally calculate all the informations and at the end make a resume of it all. It was at some point a complete silence from both of us and the only noice that you could hear was the professor typing in the computer or writing on the papers. And I would just look at him, somewhere in the room, in silence and emotionally confused. When that moment would end, there would be some news for all of us. Maybe it will be good news, maybe it will be terrible one. But I think, the thing we all want is some of our questions to have an answer. And we would not have answers if the professor was not fully concentrated on his work. 

   I had to be patient. I knew it. I knew that I had to be silent and patient on what was going on. I was getting sleepy at some point, the morning had already come and I think for some minutes I was actually sleeping. And when I was about to get lost on my sleep, someone touched my shoulder. It was the professor. I woke up already ready to face everything that was about to come next. But the professor told me to come outside with him, as he had brought coffee for me and was holding it on his hand. So we went outside and there were some places that the workers could rest and drink some coffee. As we sat, the professor pulled out a pack of cigarettes and told me to get one if I wanted to. I did not know that the professor was a smoker or that he smoked some times. Actually, never have I been a big fan of smoking. Mostly the people around me would be nonsmoker so I was actually raised in an environment with nonsmoking people. The only person that could smoke sometimes was Gina, my best friend in the future, as she actually used to party a lot and had a really adventurous life. But she was not a daily smoker. I have nothing against people who smoke, do not get me wrong, but it was kind of a surprise to me as I never expected the professor to smoke cigarettes. I refused the cigarette and he took some time to light up the cigarette and start talking.

-"We are sorry Martha, that we had to keep you here for the entire night. I hope this does not cause any problems to you at work.."

-"There is no problem at all at work. I sent a message to my manager and he said that everything would be fine even if I missed the day today. It has been a busy week, but the manager is a very understanding person.."

-"That is good to hear. Work is done and I think we have an idea of what will happen next. And I have some good news and some bad news. Which would you like to listen to first?"

-"I mean the bad news. If I can handle the bad news, I guess I can be more than prepared for the good one."

-"The bad news is that we do not have much time to act. I do not know if they are going to approve our study on time. If they do, we are saved. If they don't, we have a small percentage to survive. It depends on how the act to us."

-"Who are these people?"-asked I in curiosity. 

-"People from the government, people from the science institutions, people that work in NASA. These guys do not easily believe you, they need facts. They need you to prove what is really happening with facts."

-"What is the good news then?"

-"The good news is that Luis's device works perfectly fine. And that is a great thing actually. Because of that device, we are right now ahead on time and we can fix something. And I may know now why they did not trust Luis back then."

-"What do you think that happened in my reality?"

-"Let me explain it to you. Luis is a very expressive person. So when he finds something great that is going on he got the desire and the passion to share it with the rest of the world. But there is a problem in this. When he tired to explain it to other people, he may get so confused sometimes they might lose trust or think that he lies. And in your reality, he did not work with us, so he found out the news alone. He might have called and we might have come here but I know whom he has contacted first from the big people. It is a friend of mine that he has called first. It is Mrs. Scott. He knows that he works in the NASA institution and he knows that if he tells him something, he would actually trust him. But one thing that my friend hates, is people who can not control themselves. So by the time that Luis tried to warn them in the future, they did not actually trust him until they got the information themselves a few months later when it was really too late. So Luis's information and calculations, and his great device, did the great work, but no one trusted them. Because of how Luis acts around people when he is scared, confused and enthusiastic. And I think I am 99% sure, that he in your reality has tried to reach Mrs.Scott, my great friend, but actually while trying to explain to him, they may have debated together. And if Mrs.Scott doesn't like you or even hates you, you come nowhere close to him again, nor the place he works, neither the place he lives, so I think Luis has gotten into the nerves of my friend and he actually never gave another chance to Luis. So there is another thing we have to deal with. We have to tell those two guys, especially Luis, to control his emotions and thoughts, as they do not help us at all on what we are going to do next. We need to have a perfect talk with these people if we really want to prevent the event from happening. If we are late, then the crash will be unpreventable and probably we would all die."

-"Wait, so how will the crash happen? When we first met you said that it has a small percentage to crash, but now you are telling me, we should not be late at all. Tell me, what did you got from the device and what has it predicted for the future?"-asked I as I was looking to get all the information that the professor already knew.

-"Let me start from the beginning. The device that Luis has created, which in my opinion is actually quite magnificent and amazing, is a device that predicts future events in the universe, depending on the energy they release, the trajectories of the movements of space objects, the history on how those objects have moved, past major events in the universe and many other things. The device is a really smart one, which actually through mathematical and physics calculations, tells you the percentage of future events happening. So it acts as a future predictor. But it is only for the universe. It is not certified for the moment but actually it will be a great discovery in the future. Because if they confirm the calculation that this device has predicted for this event. Luis always updates the information into the servers, so the device knows more on daily basis, becomes smarter and actually predict better. Now we talk about the event that is going to happen. It is actually going to happen in 6 months from now. And the percentage of that event happening is significantly high to happen. So it is almost sure that is going to happen. AC-303 will  hit Earth. But the question that may bump into your head is how? Let me explain it to you. At first the percentage of that space object crashing into Earth was almost around 2%. So at that time we did not had to worry much about it as per usual it does not hit Earth with that kind of percentage. But now, the device, through some calculations in the energy on the universe tells us that the asteroid has actually 96% to hit Earth, due to its change of trajectory. In terms of science, we have to worry about a life-ending event on Earth due to the diameter of the asteroid. It is actually that big, it would end the human life as we know it..."

-"As much as I am understanding, I am confused about one things, how is it possible that the trajectory of the asteroid has changed?"

-"You are on the right track, you are understanding me. At some place in our galaxy, a few months later, a small object will be created from a crash between two satellites of a planet. That crash will create different pieces of space object that will be traveling through the universe. That small object that I said, which actually compared to the asteroid is small, but compared to the other pieces from the crash, it is actually the biggest one of them. That exact object, will crash into the surface of the asteroid causing it to separate in two big pieces. The problem of this crash will be that one of those big pieces, the biggest one of them, will change its trajectory after the crash and will be on its way to hit Earth. At this point we have nothing on our hands to prevent it from happening. It is impossible as the universe has its way of behaving. So after this event, which will probably occur sometime in this December, we will have only 3 years and some months to create something to prevent the asteroid from hitting Earth. Now here come some other problems..."

-"What problems are you talking about?"-I said as the professor was lighting up another cigarette. 

-"We would need a few months to create a team and a project to prevent the event from happening. So we lose at least 3 months of creating a team. We have already lost 4 months as the calculations of the NASA institution will be too late to discover this event as we did. So 7 months lost already. Now let us add up the time we need to built and create that machinery that may save us all. Here goes maybe half a year. Another problem is that we need to act before that asteroid approaches Earth in quite a small distance. So we would need to act at least 1 year before it happens. So here goes 2 years and a half maybe. So we will have only 5 months to act against it. And 5 months it is not enough for at least a new problem that we have never faced before. If we remove these 4 months of waiting until they discover it and start preparing it, as the device calculates, we would have a 70% chance of surviving which is actually a really good chance. If we lose those 4 months, we would have then only 30% chance to survive as daily we lose 0,2-0,3% chance of surviving this event. The faster we act, the more chance we have of surviving. The longer we wait, the lesser chance we have to survive. So the future of the entire world is actually on our hands. It is in your hand, my hand, and our team. If we are able to convince them, that Luis's device actually has predicted it perfectly, that would give us a few months chance of surviving. It is quite terrible when you think it this way, but we got not much on our hands. Right now, we need a more specialized team, we need tons of scientists, engineers, masters of programming to help us prevent the apocalypse from happening."

-"So it is actually true, I have not been crazy or been living in a dream, it is actually something that is going to happen. And I was right about it. And we maybe have a chance of surviving."-said I in complete shock of what I had already heard.

-"At first I was kind of sceptic with what you said, although I believed the time-travelling story that you told. But now all the pieces are coming together, even the way on how Luis knew in the future that the apocalypse would happen. I am sure that even most of the scientists knew that this was going to happen in the future in your reality, but they did not have much in hand to prevent it from happening. So they took the short way, maybe some people have survived, maybe not, but they did not tell anyone, so they did not create chaos. And they let the humanity die that day. They allowed the asteroid to completely destroy our beautiful planet."

-"They didn't care about us. They just let us die. And here I am back in the past, trying to complete the mission they did not finish back in my reality. Preventing the worst from happening. I am right now terrified and in shock. I am lost of words."

-"I know how you feel. I mean you are shocked they did not even care about the rest of the world. But let me ask you a question. You go to the doctor, and they diagnose you with cancer. The doctor tells you, that you got lots of years to live. But you actually have one month. If he did not give you that hope and tell you that you got many more days to live, what would you be doing? You had only one month to live so probably you would do things you had never done, spend your money,  go on crazy adventures, do whatever you want because of the fact that you would die in one month. Now multiply that craziness with 7 billion. What would the world look like? So they took the short way, they acted normally, because it was their fault they did not do something sooner. Just as the doctor could not do something sooner. Everyone would crazy and the world would be a total chaos until the last moment. Or everyone would try to find a way to survive. The humanism would be already dead quite before the apocalypse. The negative thought here is that maybe some famous people or people of the governments may have found a way to get out of the planet while the rest of the world, which is a lot, would die. And now you are thinking, does my life matter? It actually does matter, because if you had not come back here to the past, took the risk to meet new people, whom you at first thought would think you were crazy, or not have taken the risk to meet Luis, try to find him, I think the history would repeat itself. And in this reality, in a few years, we would all die once again. That is why you matter. You always matter. For some reason, you will always be important to the universe. Doesn't matter if you are rich or poor, famous or just a shadow. You will matter to the universe in some kind of way. I am actually really happy that you are here. In the other reality, well I would be a dead person I think. They do not care about me too. So I would have probably died. But now with you being here, me, Luis, Nick, and the rest of the world got a second chance. The only thing we need to care about now is how to tell them this fact. This would be a major problem. The next steps we are going to make, are the most important and difficult ones for all of us. We need to think many times before we take them."-said the professor as he kept on smoking and smoking, as I think, he was emotionally so confused and shocked at that moment, even though his face never expressed any emotion at all. 

-"Can I ask you something, have you find any answer or solution on how I got here? The first problem is almost solved, but my problem is yet with no answer at all."

-"I have been working a lot on your case. And I need to be honest with you about this. It so hard to solve that I am trying my best to find a solution about it. First of all we need to find out how you got here, what made it happen, what caused that incident that made you travel in time and end up here. As long as we are sure about the first thing, I think that we might find a way to take you back. We may not be a hundred percent sure, but at least we will try."

-"But let me ask you, what are the chances of discovering what took me here?"-I asked.

The professor took a deep breath before he answered. At that moment, in some way, I realized that the news was not going to be good at all.

-"As I said I am going to be honest with you. And the chances actually are quite low. This is something new to every scientist. Each scientist that would be on my place, would have a lot to deal with. It is not something that usually happens to us. Probably this the first case in the entire history of science that there is a living time-traveller among us. It is quite hard, I am trying to work on as many theories as possible but none of them has actually convinced me. This morning I met up with a friend. That is why I missed your birthday which I am really sorry. I asked him in not a very detailed way, that what can cause time-travelling. Most of his theories actually met mine. But he always said that it is impossible for someone to travel in time with the level of science we have. I tried to get the best out of him, but he actually had not many ideas different from mine. So I am still at the starting point, trying to find out and explain it first, let alone finding a way to take you back. I am really sorry once again, but you have to understand my position. It is not that simple, science does not work that way. Especially when you have to deal with a person who has travelled in time. It is something so big, that most of us would be lost on ideas."

-"I understand. I am hoping that there will be a solution in the future. At least for the moment I am really happy we got to know what is going to happen next.."

-"I am actually really happy too. If It was not for Luis, we would know nothing new. But mostly if it was not for you, we would have no idea at all.."

I smiled and at some point there was complete silence between us. I was about to ask the professor if he was mad at me dating Nick but he came up first with a statement.

-"Nick told me he went on a date with you. Before you say anything, I am actually really happy you guys are dating. It doesn't matter where you come from, as long as my boy is happy with you, I am more happy than he is. Did you enjoy the time with Nick? How did it go? We have not had much time to talk recently."

-"Nick is an amazing guy and I like him a lot. It was one the greatest nights of my life. And he made it special for me. You have raised a wonderful boy. I am really happy that I got the chance to meet him in this reality and built something special. The only thing that I am worrying about, is the future, if I will be here or not. That is what worries me. But my feelings for Nick are quite pure. And I would love to have him by my side wherever I end up."

-"I am happy to hear that from you, Nick told me he loved the time he spent with you and he really likes you too. Let me tell you something from my experience. You both have fun together, create something beautiful and let go of all the thoughts and the problems. It does not matter where you will be in 1 year, 2 years, or even if you go back to your reality. You won't lose each other. Because even if somehow the reality separates you, you will not forget each other. You will look back and remember all the great time you had together. You are young adults, life is full of up and downs, but as long as you know how to appreciate each other in the present, you will be always happy. You have my blessing and you do not have to worry about anything. You are part of our family, our friendship and the beautiful team we have built. Even though I missed your birthday, doesn't mean that I am mad at you. Never think that I am mad at you about dating my son. I am actually happy that my son is taking the first step. It has been a long time since he has dated someone. So feel free whenever you want to talk to me and express yourself, that won't bother me at all. If my son likes you, it is great that we spent time together."

-"I was really scared to actually ask you that, but now I am glad that we worked as a team together. Even though I have plenty of questions left, I am glad that most of them got some answers. And the answers I needed right now. I am happy that I have met you. I will make sure that me and Nick have a great time together."

The professor smiled at me. It had been a while we were talking. We had to wake up the boys and tell us about the plan that was going to take place in the future. Even though my future was still uncertain, I was glad that at this moment I was around some amazing people, that in the future would be by my side on my hardest decisions. Most of the time, since I have been in this reality, I have had so many questions. But right now, most of them in which I had doubts, were answered. And it is one of the greatest feelings, when some answers that you had been looking for a while, were here for you. But now we had to wake up the rest and get prepared for what was about to come next. Things that would totally change our lives. Things that would create more questions. Things that we had to find an answer in some way. But until then, there was plenty more to come.