[The methane hydrate time bomb is not a “bomb”. Here is how it works: Global warming thaws the ice at the north pole, releasing thousands of tons of methane. Since methane is flammable, having 5% of it in the atmosphere will mean that any sort of fire, like a lightning bolt, will ignite the world. Even though this is very likely to happen close to the North Pole, the fallout means that all plant and animal life forms will die.]
It was long expected that the methane hydrate time bomb would go off. There were two solutions to this: The first was to go to outer space and live there, and the second was to tunnel underground and live there while the heat from the bomb dissipated. Any logical mind would consider the second option as a better solution. To save as much of humanity as possible, the UN did something that many thought to be childish: they spent most of their money and time digging a lot of holes. Not any hole, but huge holes, buried 5 miles deep in the earth, to save humanity from the bomb.
The UN, which controlled the entire world and its population, dug 25 square mile holes 5 miles deep into the earth. Brute force was their answer to the bomb. My grandfather was a member of the digging crew who dug day and night for years. My father, meanwhile, spent most of his life designing what the five-by-five-mile squares would look like.
I, on the other hand, was a cybersecurity analyst. This was probably the worst mistake in my life. I certainly thought that keeping the passwords to open the 600 holes would be simple, but no. Of course, my naive idea that protecting computers from desperate people excluded from the selected people to continue humanity would be easy was soon disproved.
I underestimated the frenzy of those billions who had endured hunger, diseases, natural disasters, wars, and many other types of terrible crises. Even though we selected the best computer scientists, engineers, mathematicians, and all the best people from the sectors needed to run society, there was still someone desperate enough to find a back door. Millions tried to interfere, most to no avail. But some were lucky. Our “airtight” system always had holes, and after one hole was patched up, another would appear.
I had no idea what I was doing when I signed up as a cybersecurity analyst. Three days ago marked 100,000 hours logged related to cyberattacks. It was also the day that the fatal hack occurred. A hacker hacked into the system and did a lot of damage. The documents about who would go into which hole at what time and do what job was ERASED! Now, of course, the average human might say something like:
“Bwwut… just cweate another list!”
Remember, this is just seven days before the bomb will go off, so of course not!
As I was working long into the night on that fateful day, I felt that all the hard work that I spent earlier protecting humankind was nothing compared to this. As I worked and worked and worked to decrypt those files, I thought about humanity. How fragile it was! The methane bomb was just one factor that could cause human extinction. What about the asteroid scare of 2162, or the viruses of 2172 and 2165? Humanity was fragile. ALL life was fragile. Perhaps my efforts would delay extinction by a few hundred thousand years. Perhaps humanity could not win the methane bomb challenge and go extinct in 7 days!
But I, along with the computer system geniuses, could not give up. This was not a defeat; it was a call to action. And take that call we did. Riding government-backed support, the best decrypting systems, and the best brains in the industry, the faintest beacon of hope shone on the horizon.
I was trying to use brute force to solve the encryption, as, after all, brute force is what prevails at last. Have no force, and you can accomplish nothing, as my grandfather said.
As midnight marked 150 hours to solve the encryption and get the millions into the underground systems, that light that I had relied on faded a little. And faded some more. Then, the light disappeared. The unfathomable energy reserves that I had mined to work were gone. I fell asleep.
The next day was quick as lightning, yet as slow as a snail. Time seemed to flash by as midnight marked 126 hours to solve the mystery. The beacon which had relit itself at noon when my colleague announced a breakthrough was fading again. Then, as suddenly as one millisecond leads to the next, that beacon of unsteady light exploded like a nebula.
I will remember that moment distinctly for the remainder of my life. It was 3:53 in the morning, and I was back from a coffee break when I suddenly realized that the last file I had saved was file 92, the last step necessary to decrypt the files with brute force. If I was correct, if I ran the code, I would SAVE HUMANITY almost fainted, but I hit the “RUN” button. What happened next was a blur.
When I came to, it was 6:32 AM. The sun began to creep out. On my screen, a file reading “NAMES OF SELECTED” was sitting. I hesitated to open it. If I found jumbled letters, it meant I had failed. I opened the document. The first thing on the list was: “Aaeyjwmtha”. I cried with terror and grief. I had missed the mark—wait a minute, is the name “Aaron Sanders” below that? And then “Adam Jenkins”? Could my eyes be fooling me?
I sent the picture to the top code checker and waited for the results. I expected a failure message to come at any moment. Without warning, an email reading “FILES DECRYPTED – HUMANITY SAVED” had arrived. My work was done. With 118 hours to sift the real from the fake and send the lucky humans to the holes, I could finally enjoy a nice walk on Lake Michigan.
The rest sounds like a “happily ever after” fairy tale. And I think it was. The collection of the 120 million people was successful. Our timing was wonderful. 72 hours after everything was sealed up, the bomb exploded. The rattling did little to disrupt the wheat and corn plants that were already growing in the holes. Only then did I truly realize what I had done. Humanity was saved… by me. What an example of Mission Possible.
It was long expected that the methane hydrate time bomb would go off. There were two solutions to this: The first was to go to outer space and live there, and the second was to tunnel underground and live there while the heat from the bomb dissipated. Any logical mind would consider the second option as a better solution. To save as much of humanity as possible, the UN did something that many thought to be childish: they spent most of their money and time digging a lot of holes. Not any hole, but huge holes, buried 5 miles deep in the earth, to save humanity from the bomb.
The UN, which controlled the entire world and its population, dug 25 square mile holes 5 miles deep into the earth. Brute force was their answer to the bomb. My grandfather was a member of the digging crew who dug day and night for years. My father, meanwhile, spent most of his life designing what the five-by-five-mile squares would look like.
I, on the other hand, was a cybersecurity analyst. This was probably the worst mistake in my life. I certainly thought that keeping the passwords to open the 600 holes would be simple, but no. Of course, my naive idea that protecting computers from desperate people excluded from the selected people to continue humanity would be easy was soon disproved.
I underestimated the frenzy of those billions who had endured hunger, diseases, natural disasters, wars, and many other types of terrible crises. Even though we selected the best computer scientists, engineers, mathematicians, and all the best people from the sectors needed to run society, there was still someone desperate enough to find a back door. Millions tried to interfere, most to no avail. But some were lucky. Our “airtight” system always had holes, and after one hole was patched up, another would appear.
I had no idea what I was doing when I signed up as a cybersecurity analyst. Three days ago marked 100,000 hours logged related to cyberattacks. It was also the day that the fatal hack occurred. A hacker hacked into the system and did a lot of damage. The documents about who would go into which hole at what time and do what job was ERASED! Now, of course, the average human might say something like:
“Bwwut… just cweate another list!”
Remember, this is just seven days before the bomb will go off, so of course not!
As I was working long into the night on that fateful day, I felt that all the hard work that I spent earlier protecting humankind was nothing compared to this. As I worked and worked and worked to decrypt those files, I thought about humanity. How fragile it was! The methane bomb was just one factor that could cause human extinction. What about the asteroid scare of 2162, or the viruses of 2172 and 2165? Humanity was fragile. ALL life was fragile. Perhaps my efforts would delay extinction by a few hundred thousand years. Perhaps humanity could not win the methane bomb challenge and go extinct in 7 days!
But I, along with the computer system geniuses, could not give up. This was not a defeat; it was a call to action. And take that call we did. Riding government-backed support, the best decrypting systems, and the best brains in the industry, the faintest beacon of hope shone on the horizon.
I was trying to use brute force to solve the encryption, as, after all, brute force is what prevails at last. Have no force, and you can accomplish nothing, as my grandfather said.
As midnight marked 150 hours to solve the encryption and get the millions into the underground systems, that light that I had relied on faded a little. And faded some more. Then, the light disappeared. The unfathomable energy reserves that I had mined to work were gone. I fell asleep.
The next day was quick as lightning, yet as slow as a snail. Time seemed to flash by as midnight marked 126 hours to solve the mystery. The beacon which had relit itself at noon when my colleague announced a breakthrough was fading again. Then, as suddenly as one millisecond leads to the next, that beacon of unsteady light exploded like a nebula.
I will remember that moment distinctly for the remainder of my life. It was 3:53 in the morning, and I was back from a coffee break when I suddenly realized that the last file I had saved was file 92, the last step necessary to decrypt the files with brute force. If I was correct, if I ran the code, I would SAVE HUMANITY almost fainted, but I hit the “RUN” button. What happened next was a blur.
When I came to, it was 6:32 AM. The sun began to creep out. On my screen, a file reading “NAMES OF SELECTED” was sitting. I hesitated to open it. If I found jumbled letters, it meant I had failed. I opened the document. The first thing on the list was: “Aaeyjwmtha”. I cried with terror and grief. I had missed the mark—wait a minute, is the name “Aaron Sanders” below that? And then “Adam Jenkins”? Could my eyes be fooling me?
I sent the picture to the top code checker and waited for the results. I expected a failure message to come at any moment. Without warning, an email reading “FILES DECRYPTED – HUMANITY SAVED” had arrived. My work was done. With 118 hours to sift the real from the fake and send the lucky humans to the holes, I could finally enjoy a nice walk on Lake Michigan.
The rest sounds like a “happily ever after” fairy tale. And I think it was. The collection of the 120 million people was successful. Our timing was wonderful. 72 hours after everything was sealed up, the bomb exploded. The rattling did little to disrupt the wheat and corn plants that were already growing in the holes. Only then did I truly realize what I had done. Humanity was saved… by me. What an example of Mission Possible.
