Two Hundred Heartbeats

Two Hundred Heartbeats

I do apologize for my recklessness, and my poor handwriting, but I'll have to be brief, because I don't have much time left. Forgive me as I glance at my watch constantly. Hopefully I have enough time to ease you into the thorny predicament that we will be faced with soon. Maybe by the end, my efforts will have been enough. Perhaps not. In any case, let me get to the gist of things.

I have approximately two hundred heartbeats remaining before I'm lost forever, to put it not so mildly. At the average rate of sixty to one hundred beats per minute, that works out to be about three minutes, maximum. Surely that will be enough time to spill my guts to a total stranger. If I write fast enough, that is.

What was just an innocent voyage of discovery, and data collection, has turned into a nightmare of dread and lost time, instead.

You should know that physics, and time, for that matter, can get kinda wonky out here, on the edge of the Frontier, in the reaches of intergalactic space. Especially when your ship's about to be consumed by a rogue black hole. I won't get into all of that time dilation stuff right now, there are plenty of sources you can peruse to enrich your knowledge of such things.

Also, I'm in a time crunch, so we'll just avert that subject for now. Even though I keep stealing glances at it, my watch is useless now anyway, due to the dilation, but some habits are hard to break. Thus, for timekeeping purposes, counting my heartbeats will have to do.

One hundred and sixty to go.

Shit! I've got to speed things up!

I need to pass this important data to someone, anyone, before it's lost to the inevitable pull of the singularity in my immediate future. You'll find a floppy disk enclosed in the same envelope as this letter. Since my transmitter's no longer working, this is the only method I have of passing this on.

I hope you have some manner of getting this information out, because if this gets lost forever, humanity is doomed. The entire universe, for that matter.

That's not hyperbole, or mere speculation. What I've discovered all the way out here on the edge of the unknown will shock you to your core. It's probably not what you're thinking, though.

Humanity won't be invaded and enslaved by a hostile alien armada. Nor will it be a random gamma ray burst aimed at our blue marble that will cook us in our sleep. And we still have a very long time until the 'Big Crunch' or the 'Big Freeze' that's theorized in our distant future.

This may be even more insidious than any of those things. Not because of its nature, per se, but because it's something that's not fully understood, or even fully developed yet. It's still only a 'potential threat' for now, but if it becomes fully realized, will surely be disastrous for our universe.

I also don't have time to venture into all that 'quantum entanglement' gobbledygook speak, but what I've found out here involves that level of physics. Basically, if this data proves to be correct, in approximately fifty thousand years, Earth time, a 'quantum bubble' will begin expanding at the speed of light from this very black hole.

Don't ask me to explain how this is possible, or what even this actually means, as it's still theoretical, but that's what the data suggests. I've went over it a dozen times in the previous days, and I don't see any errors or miscalculations. Our best scientists can confirm this, if they ever get their hands on it.

I'm praying this reaches them in time. I'm hoping that I'm wrong, that I made an error somewhere, but I don't believe that to be the case, unfortunately.

I say, 'Earth time', because once I'm past the event horizon, 'my time' will be different. From my reference frame, it'll be only a few hours, by my best estimate, before the bubble begins expanding from the black hole.

Once the process has begun, based on the current distance away from Earth, it will take about two hundred thousand more years to reach our solar system. According to the data, and my own personal theory, any matter that passes through the veil of this 'bubble' will have its constituent atomic particles reconfigured at the quantum level.

We're talking planets. Space dust. Stars. Humanity.

Even if you're not well-versed in physics, you've probably heard of quarks at this point, the building blocks of matter. They make up protons, neutrons, and electrons, which themselves make up matter as we currently know it. These are what I'm referring to as what will change. Their properties will morph in an unknown way.

What this amounts to is all matter as we currently know it will shift to a new physical state. New elements will form, possibly even new fundamental particles. The laws of physics will probably change, as well.

Gravity? May or may not exist anymore. The electromagnetic forces may warp into something fundamentally different.

Nuclear? More like 'not-clear'. Heh. A bit late for dark humor, but I digress.

We will cease to exist as we currently are, but who or what will then replace us?

Will humanity survive such an event? It's really difficult to say with any certainty at this juncture. Perhaps we will be evolved sufficiently by that point in the future to be 'immune', or be able to adapt, to such a change.

It's terrifying to think that something could just erase or rewrite everything that we are, and everything we know.

One hundred heartbeats left.

Despite our brilliance as a species, I don't see how humanity can survive this event. It will challenge everything we know, and the limits of our ingenuity. It may come to pass, that we don't survive past this event. If so, maybe some others will be able to navigate the unknown.

In any event, I'm preparing this manuscript to be jettisoned into the black abyss of the universe, just out of reach of this monstrous void that threatens to swallow me momentarily. Please, to anyone, or anything, that finds this, warn humanity, hell, warn everyone of the upcoming calamity.

There may be time to save everyone if they're sufficiently prepared for what's to come. Or at least, to attempt to escape or outrun it, if that's even possible. We still don't technically have 'faster-than-light' travel yet, but perhaps one day, we will come across a solution.

Maybe we can escape into another dimension, instead. Assuming the quantum bubble doesn't rewrite the entirety of the cosmos, that is.

I've never failed to be amazed by what we can achieve as a species, if we only put our minds to it. However, this may be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel's back. Barring some unknown factor, or outside influence, this may the end of our journey.

Or the genesis of a new one.

Forty heartbeats to go!

Damn it! Gotta write faster!

I'll wrap this up by saying that you shouldn't give up. I'll paraphrase one of my favorite quotes:

"No matter how dark the night, the dawn still comes."

I know how cliche and possibly blase that sounds, but it gives me strength. Though I'm faced with certain doom, humanity may still be able to render a solution to their multiple dilemmas, not just this one.

We have a long way to go, as a species, before we can join the 'cosmic collective', so to speak. I go to my death knowing at least, I was able to warn everyone about the upcoming apocalypse, if that's what it turns out to be.

I implore you, the finder(s) of this note, to act, to save yourself, and anyone you can, before it's too late!

Ten, nine, eight, seven...