CERN and Fermilab are both the sites of circular particle accelerators that are several kilometers in diameter. In a joint experiment, the accelerators at both sites had been outfitted with additional equipment turning them into gigantic "neutrino lasers." Beams from both neutrino lasers were aimed to intersect alongside the Cassini space probe now closing in on Saturn. Theorists predicted that a tiny black hole the size of a BB would be created at the beam intersection point, which could then be observed by the Cassini cameras.
"That part of the experiment has been a complete success, and we're expecting a Nobel Prize if any of us get out of this mess alive," noted Foutzer. "There is indeed a tiny black hole that has formed near Saturn approximately 50 meters in front of the Cassini spacecraft, and we have observed it with the spacecraft cameras against the bright backdrop of Saturn. The position of that black hole is stable relative to the Cassini spacecraft even as the CERN and Fermilab neutrino lasers which created it have been turned off halfway across the solar system."
The beam intersection was deliberately planned for Saturn, not Earth, in case the theoretical predictions on the resulting artificial black hole size were incorrect. "If it had formed bigger than we had thought, it would have engulfed Saturn and no harm done to humanity," Foutzer said. "Well, okay, NASA would have lost Cassini, but those jokers throw away perfectly functional equipment all the time. Just look at Hubble."
While the experiment created a predicted small black hole near Saturn, it apparently also created a much larger unexpected black hole here on Earth. "You know, quantum mechanics is just SO tricky," CERN project lead Jaques Chien said to appreciative nervous laughter among assembled physicists at his location. "It turns out that just like there is a physical law on the conservation of mass or the conservation of momentum, there's also apparently a conservation of ripped spacetime. If you create a little spacetime rip far away, nature makes sure you get a bigger rip close to the source of the disturbance."
"Too bad we didn't run the beam intersection test at lunar distances. We'd have had days instead of hours to savor our success."
The large Earth-based black hole formed underground at a point equidistant between the CERN and FermiLab neutrino laser installations, and has started sinking towards the center of the Earth at an ever-increasing speed. The small black hole near Saturn and the larger one now within Earth are "quantum entangled" since they were both produced simultaneously with the same equipment. This means that a disruption at one black hole will be felt instantly at the other despite the tremendous distance between them.
At first scientists thought this quantum entanglement offered a possible escape plan for Earth. Any disruption of the Saturn black hole would instantly result in the "popping" of its unreachable sister now in the Earth. Since Cassini is plutonium powered, steering it into the nearby black hole would result in gravitational compression of its plutonium as it crossed the event horizon, triggering an atomic explosion like the one which devastated Hiroshima. Such an explosion, coupled with the small size of the Saturn black hole, could be enough to disrupt and evaporate it through Hawking radiation.
"Many people think black holes are eternal once formed, but that's just not so," said Foultzer. "Small ones do evaporate, and this one could, too, taking its entangled twin now under Earth with it."
However, Cassini program officials have refused to go along with the plan and the slim hope it offers. "We're just 90 days from Saturn orbit insertion," noted one Cassini official. "You think we're going to risk our mission on an unplanned maneuver that may not even work to fix somebody else's blunder? Forget it."
With no way to destroy the black hole within our Earth, it has begun to settle deeper into our planet, absorbing matter and growing in size as it goes. This absorption rate is expected to grow exponentially and will increase dramatically as the back hole hits denser and denser layers within the Earth. The absorption of the Earth's crust and all surface life into the black hole will be the last, sudden step in this process. Scientists have calculated the entire process will take only hours and is already at an advanced stage, but refuse to announce a specific time when all of the Earth will be consumed. "It will be over today," one crying CERN official confided. "We're not saying exactly when, because we don't want to take the flack if our calculations are off by five minutes. We're in enough trouble already."
President Bush is currently reported to be in a secret underground command bunker despite being told it would offer no protection at all against a black hole engulfing the Earth. "Our intelligence has been wrong before" he said in a statement released to the press. "Our plan for preventing this impending disaster, now only hours away, will be issued tomorrow. It will involve some very drastic budget cuts in the research programs at Fermilab. If the French don't do the same and bring solar-system terrorism under control at their CERN lab, America may very well be forced to invade."
Bush was said by advisors who spoke on condition of anonymity to be furious with the French over this incident. "He thinks it has to be their fault. No American could be so stupid to deliberately create a black hole" said the official. "It's going to take a long, long time for them to get back in his good graces after destroying the world like this."
At Kennedy Space Center, NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe ruled out sending religious figures into orbit and out of range of the expanding black hole, perhaps to the International Space Station. "Yes, we do have a Shuttle on the pad right now running some fueling tests that's technically ready to go," he said. "But sending religious figures into orbit to provide 'last rites' and comfort to the faithful on Earth as they are engulfed by an artificial black hole is just too dangerous. There could be a launch accident."
As government leaders seem powerless to deal with this force of nature that has been unleashed, the gravity of the situation has begun to sink in among the people of the world. Already reports of massive earthquakes and tremors are being reported worldwide and the artificial black hole's destructive erosion of our home planet continues. Coastal areas around the world are being pounded by record high tides and surf generated by the intense tidal forces of the growing black hole. Commented one observer, surfboard in hand, "It's gonna be a great afternoon for catchin' some really big waves and ridin' the tubes."
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