"Jerusalem," I started, "That's what they say this planet is named. Holy City, it means in some ancient tongue, long since passed." I placed my hand upon the scanner beside the door and it slid open.
"Who's 'they'?" asked the purple one.
"The records," I answered, briefly wondering why they didn't know that already. Then I remembered a certain philosophical book I read once upon a time. Theory of Thought, it dubbed, awareness of the fact that others have different experiences and prior knowledge that differs from one's own. Most commonly developed in humans around the age of four, or so the records say.
I stepped through the doorway and entered the lounging area, where one could look out into the universe beyond. Not really much to see, I often ignored it, though I couldn't deny that the room had a feel of sereneness, possibly explained by the large windows and low furniture, or so the records of interior design claim. "This facility is the last outpost of known life in the universe," I say, walking out onto the scarlet carpet of the den. In front of me are the tall windows, and I look out into the darkness, gesturing to the view. "Welcome to the end of the universe," I greeted the creatures, "I will be your guide."
There were six in all; white, pink, orange, yellow, blue, and purple. The computer says they most resemble Equines, but there was a percent error of 30%. Equines don't talk, the records say. Well, the records don't explicitly state this, though many of the authors of the ancient texts state that humans are the only forms of life intelligent enough to form verbal language. Of course, other organisms have their own means of communication, but none of them ever built a quantum cooling chamber.
They all turned to look out the windows. I looked with them, though I wasn't sure what about the empty view held their attention so strongly.
The purple one began shaking her head, "No, no, this isn't right," she said, "I know about humans; they live on Earth, and that doesn't look anything like the Earth I saw."
"What planet do you recall humans existing upon?" I asked, spotting an opportunity to learn. According to the records, there was a planet once called Earth-where humanity began, they say-but they left within ten thousand years. Eventually, they returned to their home planet when it was in danger of being swallowed up by their dying sun, some time around 67,000 CE. I haven't gotten exceptionally far into the archives, but I hypothesized Jerusalem was the remnants of that home planet Earth.
The purple one looked at me, "For one thing, Earth was green!"
Green was my favorite color. Out of all of the illustrations preserved in the records, I was partial to the green ones. Looking out onto the void surface of Jerusalem, I saw none of that lovely color. Instead, for miles (seventeen miles, to be precise) in every direction, there were fields of rolling hills topped in ice and snow. A pure, untainted surface of clean whiteness covered the planet's surface. It was not frozen water, it was the gases that once made up the atmosphere, condensed into solid snow. Jerusalem had no atmosphere, because it was all frozen upon the surface.
I nodded, and decided to use the rare opportunity to practice a certain rhetorical device I had read about, called sarcasm: a bitter, harsh irony. I nodded, said, "Welcome to the year One Hundred Trillion," and turned around to head to a nearby monitor. It was an example of sarcasm because the year One Hundred Trillion was a very unwelcoming time to exist.
"Where are all the stars?" The white one asked.
"Gone," I responded simply.
"Gone?" repeated the pink one incredulously, "Whaddya mean, 'gone'?"
"I mean gone," I repeated, accessing the records through the monitor in front of me. I wanted to input the new data of the six talking equines before the computer's hourly contamination sweep. "Sucked into black holes, exploded in supernovas, or dissipated into nebulas, billions and billions of years ago." I finished scanning the creatures and saving their data, inputting a personal hypothesis as to their origin and purpose, though I didn't have much to go off of. "There's no more stars left in all the universe. And I know; I've been searching."
They continued staring out the window. I honestly had no idea as to why they were so intrigued by the lack of stars, it hasn't been anything new for billions of years. Perhaps they came from a different time period, where stars still existed. I recorded that thought and closed the monitor, turning back to the creatures.
"How did we get here?" the orange one asked, finally turning away from the empty void of space. She was wearing a hat I had seen before in the records. A Stetson, it was called.
I reflected upon how to answer that. I knew exactly how they had been brought here, though I didn't know where from. I hypothesized they would need prior knowledge of my job before they could fully understand my purposes. I gestured for them to follow me, "Come," I instructed, and walked out of then den through a nearby door.
They followed me down a long corridor, and I entered a large, dark, empty room, save a small podium in the center. It was another monitor, and as I entered the room and walked towards the monitor, the room, sensing my presence, switched on the lights overhead. The six equines entered cautiously after me, and I turned my attention to the monitor.
"This room is called the Bible," I explained, "It means, 'the book', in the ancient languages. It is the interface used to access all the records this facility has stored electrically." As an example, I pulled up an archived illustration at random, and the image was projected from the wall in front of us. The equines seemed startled when the Mona Lisa covered the far wall. They must not be familiar with such advanced technology, so I took the painting down and searched for some archived music. I was partial to one in particular, and Dark was the Night, Cold was the Ground began playing softly in the background. I sometimes listened to it during breaks from my work.
I turned to the equines and continued, "I run this facility you find yourself in currently," I explained, "It is my job to study the records of human life, and record my findings to this Bible. I read books, scrolls, articles, I inspect paintings, I study economics, I study science, I practice math, I study everything. I call myself a Worldologist, but that isn't my official title." The equines seemed confused, most likely because they had suddenly found themselves at the end of the universe from wherever they had been before, but it was the best way I knew how to explain my job. I continued nonetheless, "As part of my job, I study the universe, and I used very sophisticated, advanced machinery to do so. I had been toying around with a reality bender, sculpting the fabric of spacetime, when suddenly I found a wormhole. I pumped in some negative energy to widen it and see where it lead, and you six fell out, dazed and confused." That was the best way I knew to explain how they had been brought here, I hoped they understood enough about quantum engineering to accept my explanation. I had honestly not been expecting anything to fall out of the wormhole I found, I was just being curious. The purple one-apparently the leader of the group-seemed to recognize my species before I hers. After scanning them for bacterium or viruses, I had them cleansed with a quantum healing machine of all nonvital bacterium and began explaining where 'here' was.
"Okay...I think I get it..." The purple one said cautiously, "So...by some, crazy, science-y way that I don't understand, you brought us here...by accident?"
Her voice had a hint of hope at the end of her sentence, and I concluded that she feared I had malicious intentions. To quell her fears, I nodded and said, "Anything could have fallen out of that wormhole," which wasn't necessarily true; a blue whale couldn't have fallen out, as the wormhole would not have been large enough to support such a large quantum dislocation.
Nevertheless, they seemed to relax a bit after that.
"So where did you find yourself before you were here?" I asked.
The purple one opened her mouth, but it was the pink one who answered, "We were having a picnic!" she seemed exceptionally thrilled to have been partaking in a communal consumption of food, most commonly held outdoors, popularized very early in human history; circa 1999 CE.
I nodded, "Yes, but I meant what planet and or time period," I clarified.
"Equestria," the purple one answered, "one thousand and one, SEC."
I turned and recorded that on the monitor, "SEC?" I repeated questioningly.
"Solar Empirical Calendar," she clarified.
I inputted the data and searched for a match, but the computer found nothing. I sighed; it would be extraneously difficult to calculate the point in spacetime the equines had dropped out of, and would set back my work considerably. I wouldn't want the equines to interfere with my work, so I decided upon a course of action. I ordered several identification bracelets from the monitor, and within seconds they were jettisoned from the wall on a loop. I turned to the equines and instructed, "Each of you take one of these bracelets. They will provide you with clearance level five throughout the facility, allowing you to travel to the recreational areas. Consult the monitors scattered in various places for directions, and I will work to find a wormhole that will return you all to your proper time and place."
It seemed an acceptable deal, and the six of them each took a bracelet, wrapping it around their necks. They left the Bible to explore the facility; the blue and orange one walking one way, the pink, yellow, and white ones walking back to the den. I turned back to the monitor to pull up a whiteboard application to perform my calculations on, and suddenly noticed the purple one had stayed behind.
"I'm Twilight, by the way," She introduced, "Twilight Sparkle."
I looked at her, nodded, and turned back to the monitor, launching the whiteboard app.
"What's your name?" Twilight asked.
"Unit 731," I replied. Such was my designation, but Twilight began laughing as if she found it humorous. I looked at her questioningly.
"No," she replied with a smile, "I mean your name, a real name!"
I looked at her. The humans of the ancient times had names; it was an inefficient method, and very commonly were identified by social security number rather than name. As this was a scientific facility, I was designated an identification number: Unit 731. I did not need any other name, 'Unit 731' was already unique.
Twilight's smile faded when I did not answer her, "You mean you don't have one?" she concluded. I did not follow her logic; my designation was Unit 731, I did not need another name.
She smiled again, "Well, I'm going to call you Hugh! Hugh Mann." She laughed at her own statement for some time. I believe the ancient humans called what she just said a 'pun', a rhetorical device wherein the use of one word suggests another meaning, or the meaning of a similar sounding word.
Nevertheless, I did not object. I nodded and opened a new document in the whiteboard application. A large screen of white was projected into the air behind the monitor; a hologram for me to work upon. I walked around the monitor and pulled up a list of equations, beginning the tedious quantum mathematics.
Twilight watched in rapt attention as I worked, apparently impressed by my scientific prowess. I felt something new, something I remember the records labeling a similar feeling as 'pride'.
She watched me write various symbols and numbers for a time, but finally spoke up and said, "Hugh?"
It took me a moment more than it should have to realize she meant me, and I turned to acknowledge her.
"Where's everybody else?" she asked.
I stopped writing. Of course, having last seen humanity one hundred trillion years ago, she would have memories of thousands upon thousands of humans congregated in small geographic areas at a time, across the surface of the globe. The end of the universe was dissimilar in this way. I turned back to the calculations and cleared my throat. I did not remember the last time I had done that. "There are none," I responded.
"What?" she asked, clearly not understanding what I was implying.
This was my least favorite feature of my job. I turned around, put my hands on the monitor, hung my head, and sighed. "There are no more humans," I clarified, "I'm the last."
Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity had returned to the den they had been in before, reclining on the low, blocky furniture. As a self proclaimed fashionista, Rarity was impressed by the use of the low, white couches and the stark contrast of the scarlet carpet beneath them. She didn't know much about humans-that'd be Twilight's department-but they were certainly skilled designers.
While Rarity admired the scenery inside, Fluttershy seated herself upon one of the couches and looked out the tall windows, searching for the faintest glimmer of light. "I just can't believe all the stars could be gone," she thought aloud.
"Didn't you hear the human?" asked Pinkie Pie, who was fiddling with the monitor next to the far wall, "He said this was the year one hundred trillion; no star can survive that long! I'm only surprised none formed after they had all died."
Rarity rolled her eyes, "Don't pretend for a second you understand any of this," she chastised, "one minute we were enjoying a lovely picnic, the next we're at the end of the universe," she said, mimicking the somber, low tone of the human's voice.
Pinkie Pie left the monitor alone and turned around with a smile, "What do you mean? It's as easy as locating a gravity bubble within any baryon in the Higgs field and feeding it negative energy to create the potentiality for a macroquantum dislocation through the relativistic field of spacetime, happens all the time!" she finished cheerfully, hopping off to explore the nearby corridors.
Rarity watched her skip away, mouth agape. She shook her head, Never question Pinkie Logic, she thought. She instead turned to admire the handiwork of the facility itself. The walls were a smooth white color, wrapping around the inside of the corridors with curved corners. A very sleek, futuristic look, to be sure. The floor was a chrome sheet, decorated with partitioned bumps. It looked like it would be cold to the touch, but it was actually comfortably warm. "I'll tell you one thing: these humans certainly know how to build a facility. What do you think, Fluttershy?" she asked, turning her.
Fluttershy hadn't been paying attention, fully absorbed in watching the neverending blackness outside the windows. Hearing her name, she turned her head and made a questioning sound, "Hm?"
"I said what do you think of the facility?" she repeated, "It's nice, isn't it?"
Fluttershy looked behind her at the sleek, futuristic design of the room and nodded, "Oh, um, yes, it's nice," she conceded, turning back to the window, "It's just...It's silly, really, but..." she shook her head, "I just can't believe the stars will go out someday."
Rarity rose her eyebrow, "What do you mean?" she asked.
"Well, this is the future, right?" Fluttershy pointed out, "this is the year-what did he say it was-one hundred trillion? That means that someday, long after all of us are long gone, this'll be all that's left," she explained, gesturing to the empty sky.
Rarity looked out on the universe with new meaning, feeling an existential crisis coming on, "That's..." she trailed off, unsure of how to respond.
The two of them looked out the windows for a long time after that, until Pinkie Pie's voice emanated from inside the facility, "Hey, that looks like fun! How are you doing that?"
"This is really weird," Rainbow Dash observed as she walked through the tall corridors of the facility.
"Ya' don't say?" Applejack agreed, walking alongside her. They had left the 'Bible', as the human had called it, and walked down the corridor opposite the way they had come.
"So this is the future, huh?" Rainbow Dash confirmed, knocking on the smooth, white walls of the hall experimentally.
Applejack nodded, "Hundred Trillion, th' guy said," she reminded.
Rainbow Dash nodded, "No stars left...weird..."
The two continued on in silence, reflecting on the somber world of the future. Dash soon got tired of thinking, and thought loudly, "What are we even supposed to be doing? Didn't that guy say something about 'recreational areas'?"
Applejack nodded, then pointed out a door on the wall nearby, "Maybe that's one," she wondered.
They walked over to the door. It didn't have any sort of knob or handle, in fact the only thing that looked any different from the smooth white wall was a small black slate nearby the door, where a handle would have been. "Now how did that guy open this...?" Rainbow Dash said, experimentally pressing her hoof onto the slate.
A thick green light suddenly flashed on the slate, travelling down from top to bottom. Rainbow didn't remove her hoof, and when it reached the bottom, the entire slate glowed green, and the door slid open.
"I'll never understand th' future," Applejack swore, stepping into the room with a shake of her head.
Rainbow followed her. "Well this is dumb!" she observed when they discovered the room was completely empty, "What's this even supposed to be?"
Out of nowhere, a voice said, "Room index: Gravitational simulator,"
Applejack and Rainbow Dash clasped each other fearfully, "W-who said that?" Dash demanded.
"Ah think...Ah think th' room said it!" Applejack observed.
Rainbow nodded, but didn't let go of Applejack, "What'd it say? 'gravitational simulator'? What does that mean?"
"Gravitational Simulator activated," the voice said next, "Simulation set for zero g's."
A humming sound emanated from the walls, and the two ponies suddenly began floating away. "H-hey! What the hay's goin' on, here!" Applejack said indignantly, frantically flapping her hooves in the air.
Rainbow Dash, used to the experience of flying (though not floating), slowly drifted away from her, bursting out in fits of laughter at Applejack's incompetence.
"Ya find somethin' funny?" Applejack yelled, "Get me down from here!" she said, turning head over hooves.
"No, this is fun!" Rainbow argued playfully, kicking off of the way and soaring across the room, "Wheeee!" Flying without using her wings felt foreign, but it was so much fun! It was as if she had just become completely weightless.
Applejack gently collided with the wall, bouncing off and travelling back across. Rainbow Dash, using her wings and the walls to angle herself, was flying loops around Applejack. Her hat tried to detatch itself from her head, but she frantically grabbed for it and held it close.
"C'mon, Applejack," Rainbow said, pretending to be reclining on an invisible chair as she floated past, "Try to relax; this is fun!"
Applejack scrunched up her nose indignantly, but couldn't help breaking down in laughter at Rainbow's airborne antics. "Alright," she conceded as she neared the far wall. Angling her body, she reached out and gently kicked off of the smooth surface, flying through the air much more controllably. "Whee!" she cheered as she did so.
"You see?" Rainbow said, glad that her friend was enjoying their odd circumstances.
The door suddenly slid open again, and Pinkie Pie saw her friends floating through the air, "Hey, that looks like fun! How are you doing that?" she said.
"Wha-what do you mean they're gone?" Twilight asked frantically. "I saw the humans, there were billions!"
Hugh looked up at Twilight, "A few years passed," he said insincerely, in his monotonous voice, "trillions." With that said, he spun on his feet and began chalking down several equations on the whiteboard that had materialized behind him.
Twilight was aghast. Hugh was talking about the total, complete extinction of his entire species, and he acted like it was nothing! He threw around the death of every star in the universe like a Frisbee! Where had all his sincerity gone? The humans she had met, they had been so caring of everything (some more than others), and now, all that was left was Hugh, living alone at the end of the universe, more robot than man. "Whuh, where did they all go?" she demanded, not letting go of the issue.
"Died out," Hugh explained simply, not turning from his equations, "Their biological makeup was inefficient; very few lasted much more than a century."
"Don't you mean you're biological makeup?" she corrected, bitter at Hugh's bitterness.
Hugh turned around then, looking in Twilight's eye and shaking his head. "No," he said, and then proceeded to reach up and remove his own right hand, placing it nonchalantly on the monitor in front of Twilight.
Twilight repressed the urge to scream, "H-how did you do that?" she asked instead.
"My physical body has been digitally, electronically, and mechanically augmented," Hugh explained, showing Twilight his stump of an arm. Where there most likely should have been flesh and blood, there was a sunken hole filled with various metal prongs, ones that most likely fit snugly into holes in his fake hand that was crawling across the monitor.
Twilight's eyes widened; he was more robot than man. "How..." she trailed off, staring as the hand on the monitor crawled it's way to the edge, fell off, and made it's way to Hugh's foot, tapping on it.
He bent over and picked it up, reattaching it to his wrist with a snap. "Do you see this chestplate?" he asked, pointing to the strange suit he wore over his torso. Twilight hadn't paid much attention to it before, but he was wearing a sleek, white piece of machinery that looked similar to metal armor, except for the glowing blue circle in the center of his chest. It covered his upper torso and shoulders, curved to fit his body. Beneath he wore a tight, stretchy gray shirt that ended abruptly at two white gloves-at least, she had assumed they were gloves, but they were his actual hands. Sleek, futuristic, white hands, which were only slightly thicker than his arms.
Her eyes travelled back to the chestplate Hugh was signifying by tapping the glowing blue light in the center and she nodded.
"This is not just for decoration," he said, turning around and pointing out another piece of technology on his back. It was a thick circle of blue light that matched the light on his chest, but was more of a ring bolted to his back, wrapped around a black circle. "This is a portable fusion reactor, biologically engrained in my central nervous system. It provides my body with energy in the form of electricity gathered from the nuclear fusion of hydrogen. In other words," he clarified, turning back around to face Twilight, "I do not need food like a normal human. It also provides the power for my synthetic organs and extremities, such as my hands and my heart, and with what natural cells that remain, it discourages cellular division. All these systems work together to ensure that I live much, much longer than a normal human."
Twilight had gotten used to not understanding the future by now, but she believed she had gotten the gist of Hugh's explanation, "So basically, you're immortal. And part robot."
"I believe the ancient humans more correctly denoted it as, 'cyborg,'" Hugh offered, turning back to his whiteboard, "Now please, I must get back to my work if I am to send you equines to your proper home."
Twilight ignored his order, making connections, "So, what?" she asked, "The other humans made you immortal and sent you to this facility? Did you have to watch every other human die?" she spat, angry at Hugh's lack of anger. Hugh did not respond, so she continued, "How long have you been the last, Unit 731?" she asked insensitively, trying to get him to show the least but of emotion.
"I'd have to check," Hugh said instead.
"Ugh!" Twilight breathed, giving up. She turned around and walked to the door, deciding to catch up with her friends. She put her hoof on the black slate beside the door, emulating how Hugh had opened it, and after it scanned her hoof, it blinked green and slid open.
"I'm not just the last human, you know," Hugh said just as she was in the doorway.
Twilight turned back at him. He was still working at his equations, back to her. She stood there for a moment longer, silently willing him to elaborate.
"I didn't say Jerusalem was the last outpost of humanity in the universe," he continued, "I said it was the last outpost of life."
Twilight involuntarily gasped as she guessed the implication. Before she could respond, Pinkie Pie's voice from deeper down the corridor rang out, "Hey, that looks like fun! How are you doing that?"