Author: Philip G Hostetler

The project began as deep space exploration. All that was found was uninhabitable, far flung planetoids and asteroids, space, and more space. And finally, the edge of space, that was the most salient discovery we made and a puzzling phenomena. We found that space was moving into a metaphysical oblivion, that space was a material of sorts, a thing in and of itself. We started sending probe drones into that metaphysical oblivion. We programmed them with coordinates to return and land on earth if they were to survive… whatever lay beyond the universe.

None of the probe drones returned, it least not in the way we expected. When we sent them through they immedietely registered as though they’d already returned to earth. ‘Had to be a malfunction’, we thought…

Then Dr. Niard suggested something totally absurd. If they’d already arrived on earth, why not look for them here? In fact, why not look for them at the Research, Launch and Logistics center we worked at every day.

“What like in the drone hangars? Or the supply rooms? They’re lightyears away, how could they be here?”, I said,

“No”, he said,
“Underground. Buried.” A few eyebrows raised, bewildered expressions were hard to hide, but he was insistent that we at least give it a shot.

So we contacted the local university’s archeology department, asking them to do a deep metal detection for a specific type of alloy used in the construction of the probe drones, Erisium, an alloy that was truly immune to corrosion and entropy. They inquired as to why and Dr. Niard replied,

“Honestly, the less you know, the better.”

Much to our surprise and, apparently, Dr. Niard’s chagrin, the archeological team detected Erisium buried just outside the Research, Launch and Logistics center’s foundation. They began digging and a day later dug up the first drone probe we’d sent through, affectionately named “Helldiver-1”

We all turned to Dr. Niard, looking for some explanation.

Dr. Niard shook his head grimly,

“I’ve always carried a sort of delusional paranoia with me, that maybe, just maybe, I’ve been myself before. That moments of stark deja vu are actually recollections of an elementary similarity of a time I’d been myself before…”

“Uh… what?!”

“Don’t you see? The drone probe we sent through that metaphysical abyss, that unknowable emptiness, we sent it one, or many universes’ ago, and it recycled into a new universe. The Erisium enabled the probe to survive the harsh conditions of the early universe and it waited, waited until our solar system formed and familiar landmass developed at its programmed coordinates. I wouldn’t be surprised if we found another Helldiver-1, or multiples of Helldiver-2’s and 3’s.”

It was a horrible implication, that the universe, reality as we know it, perpetually recycled, and that fate is a very real and terrible possibility.