Universe Alpha[1]
"Iodine, Magnesium, Vitamins D, B and C.", Chance was making a mental list for himself as he entered the nearest 24-hour Welcia drugstore. He also bought vanilla flavored protein, iron and calcium supplements. He did a discrete self-checkout and he put all of the purchased items in a brown medium sized bag which he clutched nervously and rushed out. One more thing was needed, so he decided to swing by a Seven Eleven. After getting a huge freshly squeezed orange juice glass bottle, he walked out to the nearest park and sat on the bench. He opened the bottle and poured some of the juice into a smaller paper cup, which he then drank. Then he opened the brown bag and clumsily started ripping open the packages with supplements. He mushed Iodine and protein and a little bit of everything into the orange juice, as much as he could fit in and then closed the cap and shook it.
An old man passed by and spotted Chance on the bench. Without saying anything he slowly walked and sat near him. The old man was wearing an orange hoodie, sneakers and slim fit jeans. He sat down, breathing heavily as if with every inhaling the air was painful to the inside of his trachea. Chance lifted his eyes from the bottle and looked into the eyes of the old man. His constitution was extremely skinny and just hearing him breath you could tell that he is on the brink of death. The old man pulled his hand out of the hoodie front pocket and wanted to greet Chance, to which Chance responded by handing him the orange juice cocktail that he just finished mixing.
"Drink all of it, please. It's the fastest thing that I could come up with.", muttered Chance.
Without saying a word, the old man chugged as much as he could of the big bottle spilling most of it on his clean clothes. After almost chocking a few times, the old man stopped drinking and wiped his mouth clean with a napkin.
"Did you bring the other thing that I asked?"
Chance reached out in his backpack and opened a bento box filled in every slot with gnocchi in tomato sauce with mozzarella. He handed the man this box and a set of chopsticks. It was clear from this food arrangement that the bento box was never meant to be used in this way, nor the gnocchi inside were ever meant to be eaten with chopsticks. Even so, the old man broke open the set of wooden chopsticks and slowly started eating them one by one.
At the end of his meal, the old man said to Chance: "Please… don't feel sorry for me. I had a magnificent life. More wonderful than one could ever dream of. If I had continued to live the way that I lived, my life on Earth would have ended much sooner. Now, I am just glad to be able to spend the last of my days back home."
"Fermi… forgive me! Please, tell me exactly what happened."
…
Fermi grew up in the suburbs of Napoli and the only two things he was in love with as a child was food and music. His first memory as a child was his mother sprinkling water on the small basil bushes in their home garden. He used to bike on the way to school and he would always stop if someone was playing foreign music on the radio. Phoenix was his favorite band and he dreamt of owning their record. However, waiting for your band's music to come up on the radio also had its charm. Fermi's father was schizophrenic and one day he accidentally electrocuted himself to death after climbing a power pole thinking that he was going there to rescue a cat. Fermi's mother did not tell neither him nor his brother that their father was mentally ill until much later in life, allowing them to think that he died a hero trying to save someone's cat. When Fermi was 12, his mother left and his older brother was left to look out for him. They had the whole house for themselves and each of them took on new adult responsibilities. Romano was almost four years older than him and he'd started growing marijuana in a secluded section of their small garden. There were no more basil plants left over the years and the only plants in their gardens were the big lemon trees and weed.
Lots of teenagers used to visit their house to get drugs. Some of them became part-time residents and Fermi was in charge of cooking for them once they got hungry. He became really good at cooking pasta with limited to no ingredients. The brothers grew up like this and in time started dealing heavier drugs such as cocaine and amphetamine. They were saving up money that would allow them to get out of this business. Their plan was to move to Rome and continue their studies, get degrees and regular legal honest paying jobs. However, Romano got information of a police raid that was in preparation and both of them had to take all the cash they had on them and leave Italy. They took the train to Milan and from there all the way to Berlin, where they had friends. The brothers needed to lay low for some time and figure out their plans, but in the meantime, they got to experience Berlin's nightlife and Fermi was amazed by this new world of electronic music, stylish clothing and love drugs. The beautiful experiences of his childhood, watering basil leaves, finding his favorite songs on the radio, getting his first bike, seeing a naked woman on a poster for the first time, all of these beautiful moments were screened on the back of his eyelids when he tried pills for the first time. He saw his life and then he saw new images of stars, planets, new worlds, constellations and nebulas. "If this is not the past, this is probably my future", thought Fermi to himself. Knowing, for the first time ever, what his soul truly desires. Cosmic exploration.
…
"I blacked out and the ambulance had to come get me from the club. At the time it seemed as easy as falling asleep in my own bed. In my delirium, I was seeing all sorts of things and at some point my mother came to cover me with a warm blanket. This made me feel safe and happy. I was driven to the hospital and they kept me there for a good half day before I could wake up. By that time, they did some blood tests and asked if I had any family. They wanted to tell me I have leukemia, but they were too afraid to do it straight to my face.", finished Fermi while putting out his cigarette, "eventually they told me I have no more than a year to live. Probably eight months. I applied for various study scholarships and loan programs, and eventually I got into the Tokyo University's Astrophysics program. It was a dream come true. I wanted to spend the last months of my life here, in Japan, learning more about the universe."
"What about the doctors? Are you still in treatment?"
"It's incurable. I need to do a checkup at the hospital every 2 months, but I am not doing any kind of treatment. Eating healthy makes me feel better and I still go to electronic music events sometimes. Lectures and thesis research are keeping me busy."
"Do you have any idea of where your mother is now?"
"I haven't got the slightest clue. She just left and never came back. Now I am here, in Tokyo and my brother is in Berlin. We have no way of knowing if she returned home or not. If I live long enough, I would like to visit my home in Napoli one last time."
"We need to get back to the university, the lecture will start soon.", suggested Mia as she sipped the last of her coffee. Together with their classmates they went for a long lunch break that turned into a discussion about Fermi's life. He did not intend to tell them all these details, but it did him good to be honest to his new friends about his troublesome past.
…
During today's lecture, Fermi needed to do a five-minute presentation on his chosen thesis topic.
"Imagine a girl spinning a hula-hoop around her waist. What if the hula-hoop were to suddenly become invisible during her exercise. You would still see here moving and based on that you could imagine what kind of orbit the hula-hoop does, how fast it moves and how heavy it is. Now imagine that while still remaining invisible, we add 2 more hula-hoops around her waist and she has to keep rotating all of them. By how her body moves, you could tell that something changed and that there are more hula-hoops now.
This is the basic method used by astronomers to search for habitable planets. They monitor stars, similar to our sun, for this wiggle movement that would indicate that other big objects are orbiting around it. Based on its movement pattern, it is possible to deduce if there are big exoplanets such as Jupiter around it, if there are more than one and how heavy these planets are.
…
The Goldilocks principle started out as a bedtime story for children. A little girl called Goldilocks was wandering around the forest and found the house of three bears. She entered it and saw three bowls of porridge on the table. The first one belonged to Papa bear, the second one belonged to mama bear and the third one belonged to baby bear. Goldilocks tasted the first bowl of porridge and it was too hot. She tasted the second bowl, belonging to mama bear and it was too cold. When she tasted the baby bear bowl, it was just right.
Astronomers have used this story to better explain how they are searching for habitable planets around the wobbling stars. After identifying a new solar system such as Kepler, Gliese or Trappist, astronomers look at wiggle and estimate how many orbiting planets are around it. If the final number is seven or eight, they try to estimate which of these planets are in the so called "Goldilocks zone", not too hot, not too cold. They use our solar system as a benchmark and they end up with candidates for possible planets that could contain water in some form.
This is how we ended up with a list of possible habitable planets such as:
1. Kepler 186f, about 500 light years from Earth,
2. Gliese 581c, about 20 light years from Earth,
3. Proxima Centauri b, about 4 light years from Earth.
Other than the fact that these and many others have been identified as habitable planets, they may also host some kind of alien life. Unfortunately, the fastest way to reach Proxima Centauri b using the current space faring technology would take about 6,300 years. This doesn't stop scientists from searching and identifying new potentially habitable planets in other solar systems. Perhaps in a few hundred years humanity will find a way to reach speeds close to 1/3 speed of light and this would mean that the journey to Proxima Centauri b would take slightly less than 20 years taking into account acceleration and deceleration of the ship."
"Thank you, Fermi, for the depressing presentation on how we will never reach other habitable planets before our own planet is destroyed by global warming or nuclear war or both.", pointed James.
Chance smiled at this bitter sweet joke. Perhaps there would be a way to check some of these planets up close, thought Chance.
"Well done, Fermi! An excellent presentation and a great research topic for your thesis. Kudos! Could you please come by my office later today so that we can discuss a bit more about your scope? I will wait for you around half past two.", said Chance and then switched to the next student. "Serghey, will you prepare the research topic presentation for the beginning of our next lecture, which is next Wednesday? Please use the same format as Fermi. Thank you!"
…
Chance heard knocking on his office door.
"Fermi? Is that you? Please wait one moment and I shall join you. Such a pity to stay indoor on such a sunny day. Let's talk while taking a walk.", suggested Chance.
…
Fermi and Chance were walking near the river bank. They had some time and Chance asked his student, hypothetically, what would be the solution to the extremely long space travel duration.
"I've recently read a paper about 5-dimensional travel portals functioning under the Randall-Sundrum model. This could be used for human sized travel to distant places, albeit there are some limitations to this theory and some risks."
"Do you have the mathematical formula for this model? Can you please email it to me now?"
"No problem, professor. What is this in relation to?"
"We will test it, together. I have not told anyone about this yet, except for Yuri who was there to help me deal with an extremely difficult personal situation… With the right preparations, I believe that we can test both this and your research theory about one of the habitable planets."
"Professor, I don't know if you know this but I have leukemia. I am the perfect test subject for any kind of space experimentation. If I get an opportunity to do something amazing, with my remaining time, this would make me happy. I am not sure what kind of conundrum you'd be signing me up for, but know that I… I want to make the most of what little time I have."
"Fermi, shake my hand.", said Chance, while breaking entropy again and completely healing him. "What if you did not have a terminal disease? What if you had your whole life ahead of you, would your answer to my question change?"
Fermi smiled. "I've never been the type of person to run away from an adventure."
"Good. Get the exact coordinates of Kepler 186f and meet me in my school office in two hours."
Chance got the whole Randall-Sundrum model tattooed on his right lower leg. It was a huge mathematical formula, but he checked it multiple times and it should function. As soon as he exited the tattoo parlor he went into an alley between buildings and he checked if he was there alone. "Break!". A small sphere the size of a glass marble appeared and it steadily started to grow bigger and bigger until it got to the size of a small fridge. He saw on its surface the melting fragments of his school office. He jumped inside of it and he was shot out with incredible force onto the wall of his school office. He hit the bookshelves like a cannonball and broke a few of his ribs and nearly fainted in the process. "Break!" he regenerated his broken bones and tissue. The pain was somehow still in his mind and it ached terribly. He started putting the books back together and realized that this kind of portal would not work for going to confined spaces. Better to aim for a football stadium or a giant warehouse.
Fermi entered the office and saw Chance sweeping up the floor for broken glass and wood pieces.
"What happened here?"
"Never mind, do you have the coordinates? Please write them on the blackboard here. In a few moments I will explain everything to you. We will be able to check Kepler 186f for habitability, but first we will need to steal three spacesuits with life support modules. Orlans will do just fine. We are going to Moscow."
...
[1] Universe Alpha is the Universe in which Chance is forgiven and understood for his past mistakes. In redemption, he connects with his students and they all work together on his space exploration project. Probability of universe destruction estimated at 99%
Universe Beta is the Universe in which Chance is left alone to atone for his sins. He is neither understood nor accepted by Yuri and her peers. This distance makes it more difficult for him to process through his grief and it ends up spiraling down. Instead of growing outwards, he is pulled inwards to crash into his own singularity. The schoolgirl scientists are working to prevent an absolute disaster. Probability of universe destruction estimated at 100%.