The Science Fiction Collection

Not Alone

EXTRATERRESTRIAL

He held it in his hands and looked at it in wonder. Suddenly, a clock began ticking.

"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen! Ah, what a beautiful day it is to be alive. I thank you all for coming to attend the ITACAR, and for coming to attend my session on Aliens. For those of you who don't know, I am Professor Feyr Ray, the ITACAR stands for International Technological Conference At Rio and ALIENS is the term used to describe extraterrestrial life." Laughter rippled through the audience.

10.... What was going on?!

This was the auditorium at the ISTO (International Science and Technology Organisation), and it was packed with 30,000 men and women, eager to listen to the 5th and possibly the most interesting session of the Conference, Aliens. In front of them, on the stage, was the 6 feet tall and incredibly handsome Feyr Ray, a man with 15 PhD's and intense charisma, which kept all 30,000 pairs of eyes trained on him.

9..... He scrambled around, trying to figure out what was happening. Damn, he had to go!

"Terel, will you come out here, please?" he called, and a tiny portly man scampered across, and handed a staff to Feyr, which he clutched tightly as he slammed it into the ground with considerable force. A hologram popped up in the air which displayed a 3-D version of the Milky Way. The audience gasped in wonder.

8...... The clock was still ticking away, he couldn't let it come to 1

"Arthur C. Clark once said, 'Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the universe, or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.' I beg to differ, as I don't exactly see what is so terrifying about knowing that we are not all alone.

The Milky Way is home to 100 billion planets, 300 million of which are capable of supporting life. We have sent multiple unmanned spaceships to those planets, but until they return, we cannot be sure of any alien life whatsoever. However, the scientists at ISTO have created a super computer that can now take images of those planets. Of course, due to the distance, the things we will be seeing would already have taken place a long time ago, because of the time it took for the light to reach us."

7..... He needed to go back!

"Now, I've created an equation - the Feyrian Equation, which, in layman terms, states this.

The probability of human life existing on the 300 million planets is minimal, but the probability of life in general is directly proportional to the rate at which they're moving away from us. When calculated, this gives it 1 in 5000 chances, which means that we can tell, almost certainly, that at least 60,000 planets contain some or the other form of life.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the Feyrian Equation! Or, as I like to put it- the Extraterrestrial Equation"

He looked anxiously at the audience, awaiting their appraisal. The entire audience rose as one, and began applauding so loudly that the entire auditorium shook. Doctor Ray smiled.

6.... That's it, damn everything. He needed Ray's help, and he needed it now.

"Excuse me, Doctor Ray, could I please have a moment of your time?" Terel whispered in Feyr's ear.

"Right now?!"

"Y-yes."

"Ugh, alright."

Feyr glared at him and smiled at the audience.

"I apologise, ladies and gentlemen, I will be back in a few moments to answer any questions you may have for me."

As they walked off the stage, Feyr fiercely whispered, "What the hell, Terel? This conference is important!"

"What I'm going to show you is more important."

5..... Faster! Faster!

"Not right now, let's go, let's move it!"

Feyr stopped moving and folded his arms like a petulant child. "Terel Restar Tirax, you tell me where we're going or I refuse to move any further."

"Okay, fine! Your lab! Now let's GO!"

"My- What- Okay, I can walk myself!" he yelled, as Terel began dragging him by his hand.

4...... Damn it, they didn't have much more time!

They reached Feyr's lab (if you could call it one) and Terel ran towards the door, but this time, Feyr outpaced him. This lab was unlike any people have seen in movies or the science labs at school. This was a huge mansion, where every single piece of machinery had been invented and tweaked by Feyr and Terel themselves, and served a very different purpose from the one it was supposed to. The kitchen, for example, was where they played around with different acids and bases, testing their effects and perfecting new ways of using them. The bathroom used distillation methods to ensure the water used to clean them was completely pure and Feyr often tinkered with the pipes a little too, turning a few into super-conductors (and sometimes electrocuting Terel in the process). These, however, were just a few examples. Terel was heading towards the guest room, the only safe room in the house which neither one of them ever entered because it was so boring.

"Look at that!" screamed Terel in a hoarse voice.

3...... No! Why wasn't he doing anything?!

In front of them lay a terrifying, horrifying, truly scary....

Box.

A big, black box.

Emanating a ticking sound.

Feyr Ray stared at Terel Restar for a second, and then grinned. "You like it?"

"Like it?! What is it??"

"A black box,"

It was Terel's turn to stare at Feyr now. He smiled, putting his hands together and said, "Thank you for those words of profound wisdom, Your Majesty."

Feyr laughed, and continued, "Which will absorb all alien life within a 2.537 million light years radius of us."

2.... Oh no, this couldn't possibly be happening, this was wrong!

"But that's insane! That's wrong! It's inhuman! Why would you ever do that? And how would it even work?"

"Simple. I have a 5000-million watt generator in the box which created antimatter in a pocket of vacuum, which then goes into this pathway here, absorbing parts of the giga-Kertz which make up the black box, which it then uses as fuel (of sorts) to create an Einstein-Rosen Bridge between the alien and this box, and sucks it in here, using a little nano-technology I tinkered with while sitting in the bathtub the other day."

Terel blinked.

"Not a word of that made any sense, and I have a degree in five branches of science."

"That's because a lot of the stuff I mentioned was invented by me, and for that, you'd need degrees in five branches of sci-fi, not science."

Terel looked at him annoyedly.

"Anyway, what you're doing is wrong! What if they had a life that you uprooted? Besides, you could suck in an entire colony of aliens in there!"

"Oh, relax, they will be unharmed and I will return them after I'm done studying them."

1... Crap.

"IT'S GOING TO BE FILLED NOW! LOOK, ALIEN LIFE! RIGHT HERE! DO YOU SEE THAT, TEREL?"

No response.

"Uh, Terel? Hello?"

Feyr looked around. He sighed, as the revelation hit him.

Terel Restar Tirax

Extraterrestrial.

He smiled, and said, "I'm not alone anymore."

Entry for Round 1, Part 1 of The Ultimate Science Fiction Smackdown

Prompt: "Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the universe, or we are not. Both are equally terrifying."