Quantum Paradox

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. That’s according to the rules of physics we are aware of. In the quantum realm, these rules no longer apply. In the quantum realm, we begin to experience the truth of a holographic reality. A scream doesn’t have to be heard, it can be felt.

Rolon felt a chill swoop in and up their back suddenly, stopping them in their tracks. They turned and gazed back down the wide, empty sidewalk to where it met the orange sky, burned by the scream of the setting sun. A moment more and they whisked themselves back in the direction they had been heading before being distracted. Their long black coat whipped in the cool wind as if running from exactly what Rolon was walking towards.

The streets were as empty as the sidewalk and the tall gray unremarkable buildings which lined it, each one just like the next. Empty, gray, and alone. Rolon did their best to ignore the dismal atmosphere of those towering sentries silently watching their passing. They shrugged off the inquietude, listened to noisy chatter in their head in place of the voiding silence, and pushed on ahead through the motherless wind blowing in their face.

A glance at their navigator in their hand showed a blue blinking 00:12 on the timer they were hurried by. Twelve minutes until their personal ship landed at the rendezvous point once more. They scowled, more at the circumstance than themselves. They hadn’t been able to find what it was they set down on this miserable planet to get. This barren, abandoned attempt at creating a rich mining city from the first mile of ore they had discovered 60 years ago. Contracts and signatures had flown across the galaxy faster than nova drives jumped criminals laughing out of the hands of the law chasing after them. Buildings for living, shopping, entertainment were thrown up in the way only galactic mining corporations had the ability to do. The first mile of ore had lasted almost 25 years, but only because the demand slowed down the last 5 of them. The combination of a new material discovered for the manufacturing of space vessels not too long after this city sprang to life combined with the unexpected surprise of this ore not being viable past the first mile caused the little happy camp to vacate faster than the air being sucked out of a lock when the doors opened. Rolon grinned at this analogy running through their head and a sense of personal satisfaction rolled through their chest.

00:04 blinked back at them. They quickened up their pace so they could get the hell off this rock as quick as possible. The whooshing and whining sounds of their ship making a slow descent towards the deserted cement lot were almost drowned by the massive hallway of monoliths around them. The ship too had blinking blue lights, warning of its approach to anyone wandering immediately below it or nearby. The beams of the blue lights bruised purple as they roamed and probed the sandy air around the ship. Rolon heard and saw all of this only in the remotest of backgrounds to what stood there on the walk awaiting them. They had rounded the last corner and come to incredulous skidding halt. Their eyes were glued to the person standing dead center in their path.

The long red hair blew half-wildly, the flaming tendrils catching the wind even in this corridor. She stared back at Rolon and their slender legs, so intent on their destination a second ago and now unsure of where to aim themselves with this unexpected intruder standing in front of them. Red-hair’s face was masked against the subtle grit in the air, eyes watching Rolon intently. For a moment that was all, the two of them still in the corridor unmoving, unwavering, staring at one another while the heavy sounds of the spaceship finally gasped to a stop as it landed behind the masked figure.

Rolon didn’t know how to breathe. There was no reason in the name of this godforsaken planet that this woman should be standing here in front of them causing the air in their lungs to fail. It felt as vacant inside of them as the surely stagnant air in the buildings surrounding them. Below the absence of air, a storm was rising in Rolon. Huge ashen clouds of volcanic spew building to a climax, a mass of dark suffocation rising forth toward an explosion promised it by the forces of its creation. Rolon noticed this all within themselves in the split second it took to be released. They weren’t surprised. After all, hadn’t they just given their ship the order to open the lock and vacuum this woman out to space 12 minutes ago?