Phase Change

“The change has come to pass. The next kind of life that may arise in this region would be on a different energy level, and a bit more fragmented than the ones before. Ah, no wonder even the most advanced civilizations never detected other civilizations elsewhere."

"Still making up theories even at the last minute..." she smirked.

"What else can I do? I was born to ask questions, and answer some..." he grinned.

“What will happen to us?”

“back to nothingness, i guess...in a forever-sleep.”

“But that doesn’t make sense," she quizzed. "Life, consciousness, purpose, all this...why would it all end in nothingness?”

“I do not know...” He sighs.

“There is a God that saves if one believes...Eternal Life...” she looked straight into his eyes, eager to continue.

He spreads his arms, as if submitting to the void, and asks, “Why does everyone want to be immortal?”

For a moment, there was silence.

"I am nothing..." he says, and gently touches her face, “just remember me when you get to heaven, okay?”

She nods, with glazed eyes, anticipating an afterlife without him. Then she asks, "Is there anything we can leave behind--a message, to tell others about what happened?"

"No. I think they'll just find out by themselves. They’d have no way of knowing that we ever existed. Everything will be erased from the deepest core."

He looked up at the sky through the transparent field dome created by the Zero-point Plasma Generators. Filaments of vibrant hues grazing the dome were streaming like the aurora, reacting with the sweeping wave that spread like a wild fire at cosmic speeds. All life, planetary colonies and civilizations were wiped away within a diameter of several billion light-years. At that point, their tiny sphere was all that was left from the previous state of that region. But now it is straining under the weight of change bearing down upon it...ready to collapse.

"How long will this hold?" she moved closer and wrapped her arms around him.

"Just a few more moments. This bubble will not have enough energy to resist the phase change...”

There was just enough time for a tight embrace. No fear nor tears were in their eyes, just peace in their last words.

“I love you...”

“...and I love you.”

The bubble disintegrated, and they faded away.

////////////////////////////////////

In Context: An Ever-Changing Universe

The Biosynthe

She opened her eyes from the void. Bit by bit, images and thoughts trickled into consciousness.

She looked up, scanned the sky, and fixed her gaze on a bright reddish star.

She began to remember.

She was made of pure information and computation, tailored to thrive on this planet. Her body was contrived--every molecule, every cell--while in transit--then outloaded by nano-assemblers upon arrival to a new world that she would soon call her own.

And now she is alive, in the flesh.

As the imprint-knowledge continued to fill her mind, she continued to gaze at the constellations just as how they should appear from this region of the galaxy--as how they were depicted within the Simulant.

She knelt, touched the ground, and smiled as she whispered "Hello World" for the nth time. She reminisced life within the simulated worlds. It was fun while it lasted; trying life on different planets. Some had gravities that crushed her spine. She choked on her first breath of air, every time. The simprocs re-adjusted her body so she could survive and live on each new simulated planet, for a while.

The Simulant was designed to give her the sensation of pain each time her body was transformed. She hated it. But eventually realized it was all part of the experiment, or the training. She knew the protocol wouldn't allow her to go through a level of pain that she couldn't bear. And she admits, the pain made her feel alive.

She bit her lips and felt the sensation flow. This is it. She took a deep breath. It’s perfect. Real life on a real world. But a sweet paradox. This time around, she will truly live, and will surely die, somewhere somehow sometime.

Then she remembered her partner. She wondered if he ever made it; if his pod survived the entry. With a flash of memory of the last time they were together, she examined her newly-incarnated body. She felt relieved that it’s the same kind of body during the last time they made love. She remembered how they writhed and groaned with the most intense pleasure as they both came with the thought that it may be their last.

She looked around. And in the distance, she saw him joyfully waving in that characteristic frenzy that could be no other than her lover. It now all seem like a dream. But despite all the changes that they’ve been through, and the many re-spawned lives they lived on different worlds, she still recognized the good ol' mate that she had fallen in love with, all those time.

As they headed towards each other, they saw many other gestator pods scattered across the vast plains. Thousands of biosynthes were emerging from their cocoons. Some were wiping their eyes. Some were examining their appendages, wondering, remembering. Some were simply staring at the reddish bright star that used to be a yellow sun, the star that was once home to a place called Earth.



In Context: Musings on Synthetic Life and Biology