Heat Wave

Divyansh Bharti

High School Student

November/December 2025

Part 1

With the A/C turned up to the max, Adrian was just sitting there in the living room. The world outside was so burning hot you could cook an egg. It was about 90 degrees Fahrenheit even in the dome that encompassed his city. Energy had become an incredibly valuable resource; it was so valuable, in fact, that only the “well-off” could afford it. Water was also out of the question. Most of it had evaporated during the time when they had discovered the new element. The element that started it all.

They had used it as fuel, and since they didn't think anything was coming off of it, they assumed it would be fine. However, the element they were using to burn for fuel wasn't actually natural. An alien species had made the element that the humans thought they were using. The aliens had been working on making bombs, but not just any regular bombs; they had discovered white matter, a matter that is the opposite of dark matter. This matter is usually emitted from white holes, which can't be seen at all. You see, dark matter is almost impossible to acquire, as you would have to travel to the edge of a black hole to get it. While white matter is emitted from white holes, which are directly linked to black holes. This white matter is abundant throughout the universe but hard to find and securely collect. Anyway, the Aliens used white matter as a source of pure energy to power all their technology. The technology that ended up in the hands of Earth. Earth had sent a team of astronauts in cryosleep to a faraway planet. The humans had unintentionally found it and brought it back to the ship, unaware it was a massive mistake. You see, the device was a bomb. It wasn't even the Alien’s most powerful piece of technology, and Earth had just stolen it from them. Earth would be decimated if they were to find out. Thankfully, Time in space is weird, and the Aliens wouldn't know about it until about 20 Earth years. This is equivalent to approximately one month for the aliens at their current distance. The bomb was supposed to diffuse by then, but since Earth was using it for power, it had become delayed, as white matter is constantly emitting, and it takes time for it to charge up. If Earth could harness all the energy it emits, it would be safe.

Part 2

Now as earth started to abuse the insane power they had acquired which was about the size of a bottle of water was emitting 5 terawatts per second which is 1 trillion kilowatts per second. They had been inbound to what they could do. They developed so insanely fast that nothing could compare, not even AI. They had started to develop batteries that could hold megawatts which is about 1,000 kilowatts. They had started working on fixing global warming which was insanely easy because of the white matter. They had developed such an advanced species that they were close to becoming a type two species which is where they can harness the full power of the sun. They were so close but now it has been 20 years. The aliens found out that they had stolen their bomb and they sent another one to that location but they also sent out scouts. They wanted to know how hard of a battle it would be with the humans (which turned out to be easy). 

They also wanted their bomb back but they won’t go immediately to fighting as they wanted to avoid it.