The God Experiment

Chapter No.72. Burst!

Chapter No.72. Burst!

The call from NASA sounded frantic. They said that something really bad was about to happen. James and Sylvia were at college and Janet was at her job. Robert only had Baby Jack and Sparky at home with him.

He cloned himself and went to the JPL Mission room. Jason was there with a man and woman. Jason didn't even bother to introduce them. He just went into the problem.

"We're 97 percent confident that there's a long Gamma Ray Burst heading directly at Earth. A Wolf-Rayet star only a kilo-parsec away is about to go supernova and it just happens to be pointed directly at us. Even though our atmosphere is good at stopping gamma rays, the ultraviolet light and damage to the ozone would wipe out life here."

"Hmm," Robert reacted. "I'm not sure what we could do to stop it. I assume it's traveling at the speed of light."

"Yes, and it has the energy of our Sun's total output over ten billion years in only a few seconds."

Robert smiled. "Wow! That could surely melt one's underwear.

No one laughed.

"Okay, maybe we can bend space to make it curve away from Earth."

"That would require the gravity of a star."

Robert shrugged. "We'll see what we can do."

After he vanished, Jason turned to Gary, an astrophysicist, and Marylin, an astronomer with a specialty in supernovae. "If they can fix this problem, they are truly super beings."

"I'm surprised by how nonchalant he was," Marylin said. "You would think that he would be concerned about all life being eradicated."

"Maybe he isn't concerned about that," Gary said. "If he's a superbeing, he might not have to be concerned about death."

Jason sighed. "I suppose we'll soon find out."

When Robert materialized at home, he found the rest of his family already prepared, including Baby Jack and Sparky. "It will take all of us to do this," he said.

"We're ready!" James declared. Janet raised her fist, Sylvia saluted, Baby Jack shrieked, and Sparky barked. With that they teleported to the front of the gamma ray burst that was traveling at the speed of light. They were now moving at the same speed.

"Okay, we only have a few minutes to accomplish this," Robert said. "We'll have to create a huge dark matter blob the size of a star to make this thing bend.

"We don't really know what dark matter is," James said.

"Yes, we do. It's a particle that has mass but doesn't interact with other visible particles. You can visualize it."

"Yeah," James said. "I see it."

Janet and Sylvia agreed. Baby Jack giggled and Sparky barked. All of these responses were mental vocalizations.

The front of the gamma ray burst was just crossing the solar system near the Sun when their efforts caused it to bend to the left just in the nick of time.

"Oh shit!" James said.

"What?" Robert reacted.

"I think we just trashed Venus."

They flew over to near the planet and stared at the effect of the gamma ray burst.

"That's weird," Sylvia said. "We can see the surface of the planet."

"That's not right," Janet said.

"That's because the gamma ray burst blew some of its atmosphere away," James said.

"Good thing we were able to turn it away from Earth," Janet said.

"No kidding!" James said.

"Take some pictures," Robert said. "They might not believe us otherwise."

James took pics before they returned to JPL.

"Obviously, you were effective," Jason said with a smile.

"Yes, but when we diverted the gamma ray burst, it crashed into Venus," Robert said. "I think we damaged it."

"What, the planet?"

"Yeah. We can see the surface now."

James downloaded the pictures.

Jason, Gary and Marylin stared at them with shocked expressions.

"I think we owe you more than we could ever imagine for doing this," Jason said.

"How did you do this?" Marylin asked.

"We created a solar sized dark matter blob."

"You had to be moving at the speed of light to keep up with it," Gary said. "Are you saying that you did this at the same time?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

He shook his head. "Unbelievable!"

"How could you create dark matter?" Marylin asked. "We don't know what it is."

"It's a particle that has mass and doesn't interact with normal matter other than by gravity," Robert said. "It's all over the place out there. It's like trying to fly through jelly."

She shook her head.

"Okay," Robert said. "We'll leave it to you as what to do about Venus. Call us if you need any help,"

They vanished.

"I think this proves how really powerful they are," Jason said. "They can manipulate physics and have power over the universe."

"And yet, they are just a family," Marylin said. "We'll never truly understand them."

"Thank God they're so eager to help us."

"We wouldn't be here talking about this if they hadn't done what they did," Gary said.

That realization was something that everyone would soon come to believe.

Several days later, NASA decided to reveal what had happened even though a lot of it had leaked out to the web. Jason decided to do it as a speech. "As you've probably heard, we asked the superheroes to divert a powerful gamma ray burst that was headed directly at Earth. If it would have hit our planet head on, it would have destroyed most life. In other words, we were faced with a mass extinction event. The superheroes diverted the gamma ray burst to miss Earth, but it impacted Venus. As you can see, Venus has lost much of its atmosphere, which allows a view of its surface." He paused to allow people to see the effect. "Without their intervention, we would have been destroyed completely. I believe that their presence is proof that there is only one God, and this God is responsible for all that we see and don't see. Obviously, Over the centuries, God has sent saviors and great thinkers, such as Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Mohamad and Buddha to help us understand our place in the universe. Evidently, God has sent us the superheroes to prevent our annihilation. We are fortunate to have them with us. Thank you."

"I didn't expect that," Janet said. "At least someone values our work."

"Hopefully, we won't be considered too dangerous to coexist with humanity," Robert said. "I believe something is happening to us that we hadn't expected."

"What do you mean?"

"I think we've been given the power to become a true comic book superhero family and remain that way."

"Are you suggesting that we will remain in our present forms forever?"

"I don't know about forever, but yes."

"I'm not sure I want to be a comic book hero," Janet said with a subtle grin. "I pictured myself as a movie actress."

"I wanted to be a quantum physicist," Sylvia said. "I could have been the next Einstein."

"I visualized myself as a great basketball player," James said.

Baby Jack giggled. Sparky added a bark.

"I just want to be able to enjoy the sunset," Robert said. "On a planet that's still full of beauty.

That was something they all could agree on.