end

the end.
The end of the world

Preface
The end of this bizarre story may provoke certain question from the reader. It is therefore presented first. Some of the provocative questions may be as follows:
What motivated the computers to destroy organic matter?
Who or what programmed the computers?
Who or what chose the two people to survive the annihilation of organic life forms?
Why would a rich man be chosen to survive? Earthly wealth has no value elsewhere, and it doesn’t look as if he would be allowed to take it with him. Material wealth cannot be passed on genetically.




Ending

The computers had taken over Washington. It was raining and all the people in the street knew they were done for. There was a man playing the accordion, who knew he was going to die. In the street the computers were treating the humans like slaves and making them keep to the left. Only two people will survive the computers as they have an escape rocket. The rain was beating down hard; and the rocket was being prepared. Only two people can be saved a man and a woman; so they can multiply and confirm the future of the human race on another planet.
The computers had developed a weapon that would wipe out all the people in the world and all the animals, basically anything organic. The two people chosen to carry on the human race are the richest man in the world and the smartest woman in the world. This combination would happily ensure the survival of the human race.
The annihilation weapon was ready to go off; and the rocket was on the launch pad. Just as the weapon fired the rocket launched and just made it past the blast wave. It climbed higher and higher leaving everybody else to die. Anything organic was destroyed.
So the richest man in the world and the smartest woman in the world drifted off into space and saw the earth not as a blue and green oasis but a red uninhabitable planet.







The Star Hoppers

The Star Hoppers were an extremely old race. Their history is 10 billion years old. Ninety percent of their population were wiped out then by the radiation from a supernova. They were lucky that it wasn’t closer otherwise it would have meant total extinction. A supernova is an exploding star, when it goes nova it produces vast amounts of light, radiation and dust.
The star hoppers had foreseen the imminent supernova, because a nearby star was a red giant. However they had not developed space flight, so they were forced underground, in spite of which most of them died. The survivors turned out to be naturally immune to a high level of radiation. From that time on the star hoppers dedicated their lives to science and space travel, to prepare for the next nova.
By the second threat to their world the Stars hoppers were well prepared. They had quantum assimilation as a means of transport. It worked by screening stars. If a star had the same mass, the same number of planets and a similar construction, one had only to match the speed and orientation in an orbit around the home star and telepathically tune in to the distant star to hop over the space-time threshold and be transported there.
The Star Hoppers had abandoned home a thousand times and had established a network of bases all over the Milky Way. They traded with other planets, but held their technology back from them until they were sufficiently developed to use the escape transport with cooperation. One or two other intelligent aliens happily hopped around the galaxy with them.

The hoppers found that a star near earth was about to go nova, they had to act quickly to save what they could. They found that the earthlings were dangerously greedy, and posed a threat not only to their selves but also to the rest of the galactic population. They had to teach earth a pretty harsh lesson. Francois Picard was their chosen messenger; he was a tycoon and probably the richest man in the world. French by descent he spent half of his time in Paris and was fascinated by its culture especially in the Louvre where he was currently studying Greek ceramics.
An especially beautiful bowl had caught his eye. He was a very vain man and spent hours grooming himself in the morning. To get his moustache at precisely the right angle he tied two balloons on the extremities of his handlebars.
It came as quite a shock to him when a star hopper materialised in front of him in the museum. He was squat with huge thigh and arm muscles; a planet with twice the gravity of earth had shaped him. Dressed in a suit of gold he seemed to radiate power.
” We are going to take over the world.” François gaped. The star hopper continued” the earth will be eradiated by a supernova remnant in three weeks time, prepare yourself and your girlfriend will be saved.”
The star hoppers quickly took over the world’s banks by reprogramming all the computers in the world. On television they showed the star that was soon to be no more. The light from it had been cast ten years previously.
They had calculated that one percent of the population would survive but they didn’t tell the earth this.
Francois and his girl friend Françoise, who was a financial wizard and the smartest woman in the world, made a small collection of they’re favourite books and videos. They said farewell to all they’re friends. At a time signalled by the star hoppers they went to a private airfield where the rocket was prepared. Ten minutes after their take off, the light of ten billion suns hit the earth.