In a distant future humanity achieved such a level of technological advancement it was able to breach the borders of three-dimensional reality and move to the multiverses of multidimensions. But some of us were too afraid to move on. So, they stayed...
ओह! यह छवि हमारे सामग्री दिशानिर्देशों का पालन नहीं करती है। प्रकाशन जारी रखने के लिए, कृपया इसे हटा दें या कोई भिन्न छवि अपलोड करें।
The protocol is clear, the launcher cannot send the personal belongings of immortals with them. I don't know who wrote it, but they clearly never worked in logistics. Over the millennia, so much junk had accumulated here that the two times a month that we were allowed to launch it into the Baby wasn't just not enough. It was ridiculous — criminally so.
Neither could we dump the junk into one of the garbage universes, nor could we send it to the Lagrange points of nearby planets, as prescribed to do with unclaimed space debris. No, we had to launch it into our black hole with its owners, but not at the same time.
The manager who worked at the launcher before me went to the Central Computator to deal with this issue. But he never came back.
All these personal belongings were accumulated in a four-dimensional warehouse. Twice a month, those that had been there the longest were selected for "evacuation" to the Baby. That's what I assigned Rob to do. Rob didn't grumble, in fact he didn't talk much at all. Not daring to make the jump and finally end his immortal life in the event horizon of the Baby, he had not been the first one who decided to stay and work on the launcher. Some had lived at the station for a year, some for more. Some decided to go ahead and make the jump or booked a transport and flew away or... Well, different things had happened with each.
Right after the start of his work shift, Rob had gone into the warehouse. I stood outside and continuously smoked, then spat into the boundary of the gravitational cocoon and watched as the saliva was slowly stretched by the Baby's attraction.The old man had been gone for too long.
I went down to the sled and started the scanner, which showed me the point where a package with personal belongings was last requested, and began transitioning there. Turning the corner near section 7014, I found an open box with glowing cubes in it. And everything immediately fell into place.
There was a case, from many years ago, stuck in my memory. Another tenthousander had arrived at the launch site. These guys always brought problems. He was rushing with his box between those waiting in line and constantly interrupting my work. At first, he demanded to be "evacuated" along with his belongings. Refusing, he then asked me bring him into the warehouse and let him pack his stuff. The protocol strictly forbade both. With that, he refused to jump. But after receiving a personal message from the Central Computator, he gave up, calmed down, and a week later disappeared.
But left his box. And there were Tesseracts inside it! How did he get them? A long-banned ancient technology. By that time science had not yet learned how to get into the angelic dimension and people were given an option to be digitized into a subuniverse.
They were sold this idea – as granting eternal life. Each such tesseract was an ordinary 4d, three dimensions and time, only with an information precision lower than our universe. Yes, it was possible to live there, but the resolution was coarse and the quality of perception left much to be desired. Of course, it was a breakthrough for the time. But those who decided to live there, sooner or later (and this was estimated in millions of years), realized the finiteness of these worlds. But by that time, everyone had forgotten where they came from. It was not possible to keep such knowledge. Nobody had considered how the precision of information would be distorted over time.
I knew right away what had happened to Rob. The poor guy touched one of the four-dimensional cubes and fallen inside it. This has previously happened to a person I knew.
I was faced with a choice, to report the incident to the Central Computator and wait for an answer, which could take centuries. Or, I could do for Rob what he himself had not dared for several months now — launch the tesseracts together with him into the Baby — simultaneously freeing thousands from the torment of virtual universes. Many might not support me, but I chose the latter. I don't like to wait. Moreover, the protocol did not prohibit this.
I carefully closed the box, trying not to touch the cubes, sealed it with eternal tape, and transitioned from inside the warehouse back to the launcher. There, the AI quickly calculated the trajectory. I pretended to check the calculations, enabled guidance, and fired the slingshot. With the usual whistling sound, the "cargo" left the launcher and rushed toward the Baby.
I came out of the launch hangar and lit my last cigarette. After the creak of a door, behind me I heard, Rob.
"Oh, already launched it? And I found gloves for carrying multidimensional loads," the old man said, shaking the thick pieces of manymaterial on his hands.
Narrowing my eyes, I looked at them, took another drag, and looked at the sky, where the launch trail was disappearing.
