One Billion Received

From the journal of Dr. Marko Riley

12.06.2039

It’s been forty-two days since the orders came in. Stephens says we don’t have much longer, and I guess he feels that this should light a spark—but all it does is piss me off. He’s a good scientist, but a bit inept as a friend.

The greed of man was always destined to be our downfall. Looking back, maybe we were selfish to try so desperately to save as many as we could. We survived pandemics, natural disasters, environmental catastrophes, and pointless wars, but now we can't survive the greatest problem we have today: overpopulation.

We’re a civilization of countless feats. We put a man on the moon in the 60’s, and seventy years later we put a man on Mars. Four men and four women, actually. Over the past decade that number has grown tenfold with further expeditions, and a small successful civilization has planted its roots. The next great technological feat, however, lies on the shoulders of myself and Dr. Stephens.

Mars is a perfectly suitable solution to our overpopulation. Some even say the manufactured air up there is better than what we have on Earth. The problem lies in the time it takes to get there. We’re still using the same rockets as ten years ago, and the manufacturing process for more is far too lengthy. If we were we to send up the necessary one billion people via rocket, it would take so long that the remaining eleven billion on earth would already be doomed.

I’ve been working on teleportation technology since the early 2020s. The work I’ve done has rarely made the papers, but I’ve seen enough success to attract the eye of Uncle Sam. If we are able to successfully teleport people and resources to Mars, we could evacuate one billion people in just five years. Forty-two days ago, I received orders that this was no longer a pipe dream, but a necessary implementation. If we don’t start getting people off this rock, humanity will face a mass extinction event within the next three years.

Stephens is on Mars and will be building the other half of our “portal” up there. I’ve never actually met him, but in forty-two days of correspondence, we’ve come to know each other fairly well. Our progress has not been without obstacle. First and foremost, communication to Mars is difficult. Even with the technological geniuses out there today, we haven’t yet developed tech that allows us to speak on anything even remotely similar to a phone call. We’ve managed a sort of Morse code signal between the two planets, but seeing as I don’t know Morse code nor understand the device that actually sends the messages, everything has to go through someone else in the project first.

The second biggest obstacle is that Stephens’ supplies have still not arrived on Mars. They were shipped out the same day we got our orders, and it takes roughly fifty days to make the traverse using old tech. I’ve got an entry and an exit gate in my lab here on Earth for testing, but the third obstacle is that I’ve so far only managed half the trick. Countless objects have been fed into the portal, but none have yet to come out on the other side.

Hopefully, Stephens will have his supplies soon, and I’ll have made some progress.

12.15.2039

I’ve just received word from Stephens that he’s received his supplies and is quickly getting to work on assembling the exit gate. The timing couldn’t be more perfect. I had my first successful teleportation yesterday! Sparing no expense, Uncle Sam has provided me with dollar store tennis balls to pass through the gates. I stood at the entry gate, tossed a ball underhand through the portal, and immediately turned around to start recalibrating the machine knowing it couldn’t have worked, when I heard the soft thunk, thunk, thunk, of a ball bouncing out of the exit gate.

Sure that someone must be on the other side, dropping balls in some sick form of prank, I tossed another ball in lightly, and sprinted to the other side of the room. I saw no one on the other side of the portal and caught the ball after its second bounce.

Now I was sure that I had a successful experiment. So sure, in fact, that I removed the heart shaped locket from my neck (a memento from my mother with her initials inscribed, MAR, funny enough) and tossed it through the gate. I heard it clank and then rattle into a pile on the other side of the room.

Sending inorganic material through is one thing, but living objects is another entirely. Reluctantly, I grabbed our first live subject (a rat we named Ratt Damon, an old actor from a movie about Mars), and gently pushed him forward into the portal. Much to my delight (and Ratt’s surprise, I’m sure), he came out of the exit gate unscathed.

We’ll have our first test of Earth to Mars teleportation as soon as the exit gate is finished.

12.21.2039

Well… we did it. I’m not even sure what to say at this point. A massive weight has been lifted off my shoulders, and I feel I can finally start to relax. The logistics of who goes through and when they make the jump is someone else’s responsibility.

When Stephens finished his side of the portal three days ago, the usual tests began. Seeing as overpopulation was our problem, we were able to cut down on the time for the teleportation tech by making the process a one-way trip; there was no need for anything to be sent from Mars to Earth—at least not yet—so we left that problem for another day.

I first sent through a tennis ball. We only had to wait about ten minutes before someone on the team translated a Morse code message that said “tennis ball received.”

There was about five minutes of celebration after this result, and then it was time for the next test.

I grabbed Ratt Damon, and placed him in front of the gate. I went to give him a push, but before I could, he practically leaped through the gate himself. We waited anxiously, and in ten minutes we received another message. “Ratt Damon received.”

There was roughly thirteen hours of celebration after this result.

Our first human test was a civilian who had volunteered weeks ago. Someone in the project had the cute idea of identifying our subjects with the numbers 1,000,000,000 all the way down to 1. Mr. One Billion—or as I would come to know him: Bill—had made the walk through the entry and exit in my lab a couple hundred times, and was physically, emotionally, and even genetically identical after every short trip.

I sat Bill down yesterday and told him of the unknowns of the trip from Earth to Mars. We knew what would happen on the shorter trips, but Earth to Mars is—excuse my pun—astronomically different. Bill told me he didn’t have anything left to live for on Earth, and he viewed Mars as an opportunity to start his life over. If his finding a new life could allow those left on Earth to have a better one, Bill viewed that as a win-win.

I thought that was beautiful.

Bill went through the portal this morning. Journalists and scientists alike were gathered at the windows looking into the room, but it was just me and him on the inside. Just before he stepped through, I stopped him and gave him the locket my mother had given me all those years ago. MAR. He took it somewhat reluctantly, smiled a somewhat sad smile, and then stepped into the entry gate.

For ten minutes the world sat in anticipation to see if we pulled off the greatest technological feat in history. The Morse code machine started beeping, and the message came through, “1,000,000,000 received.”

From the journal of "Dr." Andrew Stephens

10.25.2039

There is no civilization on Mars.

The whole thing was made up by the governments of the world to give us hope. Some form of pacification to keep us looking forward to a better tomorrow. It’s true that overpopulation is a problem that could wipe out the planet, but there’s no truth to Mars being our salvation.

Our true salvation is to kill off at least a billion individuals… though this, of course, is not something you could tell the world and have them accept openly, and so the Mars propaganda began about ten years ago. There was never a mission to Mars. We sent a rocket up, but it just came back quietly in the middle of the Pacific.

There is no Dr. Andrew Stephens. My name is Andrew Stephens, but I've been employed by the government since I was 23. I'm not a doctor, or a scientist, or a teleportation specialist. If there's anyone other than the government to blame for this lie, it's me. A decade ago, They told me Mars, and I wrote a story.

This kept on for longer than I should have let it. Riley and the entirety of Earth believe that I’ve been on Mars assisting with the start of civilization on the red planet. I, of course, was unable to tell anyone about what I do and the lies I've told. I've formed no meaningful relationships my whole adult life. The closest thing I've had is my friendship with Riley.

Riley is a brilliant scientist, but he would never commit to the atrocity the world so needs him to enact if he knew the truth. Over the past couple years, I've come to terms with this necessary evil, and decided if it needs to be done, I'll be one of the first to volunteer. Someone else can step into the shoes of "Dr. Andrew Stephens."

I don’t know the specifics of the agreement, but some big world leaders got together recently and formally decided we could and should kill off one billion civilians of the planet Earth using Riley's device. Orders were given today.

12.20.2039

I met Riley in person for the first time the other day. I had every urge to tell him what I know to be true. He’s under the impression he’s saving twelve billion people, when in reality he’s saving eleven, and damning one.

I volunteered to be the first subject so that I could save those other billions.

After all, I have nothing left to live for on Earth.

A clip from The World Times

20 March, 2042

Days after thousands of bodies were discovered washing up on the shores of Alaska and British Columbia, another disturbing discovery was made: a massive underwater grave estimated to contain millions of individuals.

Law enforcement and researchers alike are left scratching their heads with no clues as to how this could happen. The bodies discovered range from weeks of decomposition to years. Names of identified individuals have yet to be released, and teams from all over the world have come to assist in identifying more individuals to provide clues as to the origin of this mass grave. Decomposition on some bodies has progressed so far that details of pieces of jewelry left on bodies are being used in hopes of identifying cadavers. One such piece is a heart shaped locket discovered engraved with the initials MAR.