A7-02 Nowhere to Run

It has arrived.

A two-dimensional foil. A postage-stamp-sized fragment of two-dimensional space, hurtling into the solar system at near light speed.

Once it contacts the first bit of matter in the solar system, the entire solar system will be "unfolded" into two dimensions. All three-dimensional structures — stars, planets, life — will perish in the dimensional collapse.

And you have no lightspeed ships.

Wade is dead. The lightspeed ship project died with him. Humanity huddles in the Bunker Cities — those underground cities built on the far sides of planets — originally constructed to withstand photoid strikes.

But a two-dimensional foil is not a photoid. It's not a projectile fired from a direction — it's the collapse of three-dimensional space itself. No planet can shield against it. No bunker can resist it.

The bunkers — have become coffins.

You stand beneath the dome of Europa City. Above you is the translucent ice shell, and through it, Jupiter's enormous shape looms — a vast russet sphere, like an eye that never closes.

The alarms have been sounding for two hours. All eight million people in Europa City know — the two-dimensional foil will reach Jupiter's orbit in less than six hours.

But there is nothing to be done.

No ship can escape — conventional ships travel far too slowly compared to light speed, and the dimensionality reduction spreads at light speed. You can't outrun it.

No bunker can resist — two-dimensionalization has no direction, no distance limitation.

No surrender is possible — the Singer civilization doesn't care whether you surrender. They don't even know there's a civilization in this solar system. The two-dimensional foil is merely their cleaning tool, like a human spraying insecticide into a corner that might contain cockroaches.

You are that cockroach.

You walk up to Europa City's observation platform — a transparent hemisphere protruding above the ice shell's surface.

From here, you can see space.

Jupiter occupies half the sky. Its Great Red Spot stares down like an ancient eye, coldly watching everything. At Jupiter's edge, you can see the Sun — a point of light much smaller than what you saw from Earth, but still the brightest star.

You search that starfield for DX3906. The star Tianming gave you. You aren't sure you can see it from this angle — a star 286.5 light-years away might be too dim, might be drowned by Jupiter's glow.

But you keep searching.

Behind you, someone walks onto the observation platform. You turn — a woman you don't know, about forty, holding the hand of a girl about seven or eight.

The woman glances at you. "You're Cheng Xin."

"Yes."

The woman says nothing accusatory. She simply picks up the little girl, points at Jupiter in the sky, and says softly: "Look, sweetheart. That's Jupiter. Remember what it looks like."

The little girl gazes at Jupiter, her eyes bright. "It's so big."

"Yes. So big."

You turn away. You can't look at them anymore.

Your tears fall silently.

If Wade were alive — if you had supported him — if the lightspeed ships had been built —

Perhaps this moment would be different. Perhaps right now, at least two hundred and fifty people could fly away.

But would those two hundred and fifty include you? Would they include that woman and her daughter?

You don't know.

The one thing you know is: without lightspeed ships, everyone's fate is the same.

In the final hours, Europa City grows eerily quiet. People no longer panic. Perhaps because there's nothing left to panic about — panic requires hope as a substrate. When hope is completely gone, what remains is a strange calm.

Someone plays music in the city square — a piano, performing Chopin's nocturne.

Someone at home cooks a last meal — carefully preparing a pot of soup.

Someone sends messages to distant family (in other Bunker Cities) — "I love you."

Someone does nothing — just sits, staring at the ceiling.

What do you do?