A moment before immortality

I took Nikita by the elbow and led him to the mirror.

– Look at you. And then at me.

– Well?

– Don’t you see anything strange? – I ask

– Well, you look a little like me, so what? Brother or what? Or uncle?

– Nikit, do you know how many mistakes of my youth I would like to correct if possible? I am you.

Nikita pulled out his elbow and ran back a few steps.

– What? Are you drunk or stoned? Show your pupils.

«I’m sober, I haven’t drunk for five years now.» I repeat once again: I am you, only twenty-five years older.

– Came back from the future to save Sarah Connor?

– No, to save myself, that is, you.

– You don’t look like me. That is, it is a little similar, but so boring, you read the notations. I will never be like that. So, I went.

He didn’t say another word. A couple of seconds later the front door slammed.

I waited until late at night, but fell asleep to the sound of the TV on. And in the morning, as soon as I opened my eyes, I saw Nikita in the news bulletin. More precisely, the guy’s face was blurred, but I recognized a T-shirt with a characteristic inscription: «An eighth-grader, under the influence of drugs, stole a policeman’s service weapon and shot him during an unauthorized rally.»

I burst into tears. It seemed so simple: press the button in Belgorodsky’s invention, and you can correct any mistake of the past.

«It is impossible to correct the past,» Professor Belgorodsky said at our last meeting. «It’s very difficult to fix someone else’s, but you can’t fix your own.» It is advisable not to date yourself, this can lead to the «matryoshka effect». You will lock yourself into a looped period of time. You will meet yourself, trying to talk you out of your actions, then after a certain time you will return to me again to return to the past again, and so on ad infinitum.

– But why can’t the past be corrected?

– There, in the distant past, it’s not you, but a completely different Nikita Sivtsov. And his future is already determined by your past actions.

– But I’ll try.

I tried – so what? I know the future that awaits Nikita. Jail. Then Krylov’s gang. Drugs, prison again. It took me twenty-five years to understand that things couldn’t go on like this. But now nothing can be fixed: they won’t hire me for any job. Steal again?

When the tears dried up, I decided to try pressing the button: what if the recursion breaks and I can return to my time?

Belgorodsky sat in front of me, drinking red wine in small sips.

– Well, are you convinced? «There was sympathy in his intonation, but he really wanted to hit the professor in the face.

– Have you also tried to correct the past?

– I tried it. My nesting doll has been disassembled ten times. Until I realized that the past cannot be corrected. Each time there was a teenager waiting for me. Driven by youthful maximalism and rejection of the older generation. But the future is in our hands. Do you know what good future awaits you?

– So you looked into my future too?

Belgorodsky smiled conspiratorially.

– You will become a great scientist, make a breakthrough in mathematics and physics. During your school years, you really liked studying mathematics.

– Which one is it? After prison, I wasn’t even hired as a loader everywhere.

– Change your last name.

The professor pulled me by the elbow and led me to the mirror.

– I forgot to introduce myself at our first meeting. My name is Nikita. Twenty-five years ago I changed my last name. Becoming Belgorodsky. And before that he bore the surname Sivtsov.

I peered into the old man’s facial features. But the scar on his cheek is exactly the same as mine! There is a scar on his arm: apparently, he once had a tattoo in this place. This can’t be true.

– The past cannot be changed, the «matryoshka effect» will not give it. But the future is in your hands, Sivtsov-Belgorodsky. Don’t let the nesting doll close your future too.

The alarm clock rang. I woke up. Under my feet lay a bottle of vodka I had drunk yesterday, but my head didn’t hurt. And for some reason the mood was high: I knew. That this is the last bottle of vodka. Alcohol is a thing of the past. And the future is in my hands.

Entanglement of Souls

Have you noticed the invisible connection that arises between close people? You reach for the phone to dial her, and at the same second the call rings: it’s her. This connection is not weakened by thousands of kilometers. Sometimes you can’t find a place for yourself: anxiety leading to panic. You make a call and she breaks her leg. But I once encountered a stranger manifestation of such quantum entanglement of souls.

The sun is a thermonuclear reactor. Usually it gives warmth and life, but on this day the withered grass drooped its «head» stems in the hope of hiding from its overprotection. It smelled… what does it usually smell like in cities? Exhaust fumes, asphalt melting under the summer heat. Dust. The smells coming from the cafes contrast, but at fifty degrees in the sun this smell does not seem pleasant.

When entering the subway, I put on a medical mask, hoping to protect myself from an invisible enemy. There’s no crowding of people; they make noise, hurry somewhere, as if at this pace of life they will have time to see more than they are destined to see. Ants are too small to see the whole world; their life is only enough for an anthill. But on this day I did not see any malice on the faces of those I met: even under the masks one could read a slight smile. Everyone is tired of hiding from the virus in concrete prisons; they want to see their colleagues and take a break from the gaze of the web camera. A person quickly gets used to new conditions, so many, when a policeman is not watching them, strive to pull the mask down to their chin: they are tired of living in fear. How many epidemics have we survived! Will we survive today in stuffiness and a mask?

Got on the escalator. There is a wall of people in front and behind, so there is no choice: move forward and only there. SHE was rushing towards me in the same cage of human bodies. Our gazes met for a moment, and then the river carried her upward, to freedom. I tried to turn around to extend this visual acquaintance, but those behind me began to shout something unpleasant. The metro is a cemetery of feelings; everyone wants to bury a piece of their negativity here. The lower you go underground, the angrier people are.

The day passed as usual: routine, many calls, reports. Plants absorb viviparous sunlight and moisture, people make paper from plants, such is the bureaucratic cycle. But that day I couldn’t concentrate on anything: her eyes were in front of my eyes. If I were a world-famous writer, I would not be able to describe her face: her features either clearly emerged in my head or were hidden in the fog. If I were a policeman, I would have prepared an identikit long ago and posted a search notice throughout the city.

My colleagues and I went to a nearby cafe for lunch. Daily empty conversations: yesterday a beauty spent the night with Semyon again, Ilya caught a ten-kilogram (according to him) ide over the weekend, Dimon and Slava discussed the next mission in «Tanks». I said some nonsense myself. Sometimes it seems to me that people practice blowing soap bubbles: the larger the ball, the higher your status, but inside it is empty. At that moment everything was nonsense to me except her eyes. I stopped blinking so as not to scare me away: there she was, sitting at the next table. She smiled at me mysteriously and waved her hand. Now I had time to see the black raven hair and the small dimple on the chin. The boys turned around to follow the direction of my gaze.

– Hey, Sanya, did you see a ghost there?

I came out of my stupor. He blinked – and the next table was empty, there was no sign of her.

– Yes, I was thinking about my own things. Never mind.

«You’re kind of thoughtful today.» Who is she? – Semyon winked at me conspiratorially.

– Later, guys. I’ll tell you everything.

These are the stars who have affairs with fake kisses on camera. That’s why they are stars, to shine for everyone. For the common man, love hides behind the curtains: the fewer witnesses, the stronger the connection.

That night she came in a dream for the first time. This time I managed to see not only the diamonds of her bottomless blue eyes and the unnatural blackness of her hair, but also every curve of her body. A sculptor creates a masterpiece from some detail, and then fills in the missing parts. I slowly reached out to her, afraid to wake up from any sudden movement and frighten away my dream. She hit me on the arm and pouted playfully.

– Impudent. Not on the first date. Otherwise I will never come to you again.

– What is your name?

«Try to come up with a name for me yourself,» she glanced briefly from under her lowered eyelashes.

– The name must be unusual. Secret. Yes, I would call you Mystery.

«You can call me Mystery if you want.»

– And my name is…

– Sorry, not today. Let’s agree tomorrow.

An alarm clock is a guardian of time. Every morning he reminds you how fleeting the nights are. You’ll sleep an extra minute, then another one the next day, and you won’t notice. How life goes by. But that morning I didn’t want to wake up at all. Maybe a dream is reality, and what we consider reality is just a simulation? Get crazy. It would soon be night again.

Mint flavor of toothpaste. Two eggs on a hot frying pan. The bitter taste of invigorating coffee and the poisonous smoke filling the lungs – there is no way to wake up without them. The Ministry of Health warns, but what in city life does not harm our health? Maybe stress at work is good, or the crush on the subway?

All in all, an ordinary morning. Only this time I eagerly peered into their faces, hoping to see the one and only thing. During the break, I went to the same cafe and sat at the same table, but she was no longer there. The only time in my life that I appreciated my introversion. I also often spent an entire shift in silence, so even today no one noticed anything unusual in my behavior. I didn’t want to explain anything to anyone. I really wanted to fall asleep quickly.

As soon as I closed my eyelids, she was there again, only this time naked.

– I told you that nothing would happen on the first date, but today is the second.

She pressed her lips to mine.

***

Cold and dark. There seemed to be no beginning or end to them. A man’s silhouette shone like a bright spot, like a lighthouse in an endless ocean. Wait, it’s me! My face, my appendix scar, my angel tattoo. But why am I there, on the bed, and here, in the dark? So cold! Just yesterday I was ready to take off my shorts and go to work, just to escape the heat, but now I’m shaking like I’m in the cold.

A man who looked so much like me opened his eyes. There was darkness all around, but the glow of his (my?) body made it possible to see the room a few centimeters away from him. I swam after him. For some reason I didn’t need to lift my legs. To move. No-I went to the kitchen and took the salt shaker. Not-I surrounded myself with a circle of salt. No-I smiled… where did I see that smile? That’s her smile! Having examined not-myself more closely, I recognized her features.

– Secret! It’s you! I am so glad to see you! What’s happening? Why is it so cold?

– Sorry.

«I have nothing to forgive you for.» I love you. But I don’t understand what’s happening.

«I almost fell in love with you too, but do I have a choice?»

– What are you talking about?

«I’m sorry…» she whispered. I feel like I’m almost crying.

– Explain to me what the hell is happening here!

– Okay, you deserve it.

Having drawn a circle, she continued to pour salt, pinch by pinch, onto the floor, creating an incomprehensible pattern of symbols and runes.

– In addition to the three dimensions of the material world known to you, there are seven more that belong to the ideal world. Small particles, like an electron, can exist in all ten dimensions, but living beings cannot perceive the shadows of an alien world until death. You know, this very world is not so ideal. The stars shine and warm only the three dimensions you are familiar with, and in the other seven there is cold and darkness. Therefore, one of the afterlife engineers came up with a way to return to the familiar world. The main thing is to create a quantum entanglement of two souls and then break it. In this case, the dead can take the place of the living.

I was once as naive as you. I met HIM: handsome, tall, muscular, black-haired with blue bottomless eyes. I looked for his reflection in everyone I met, but he came to me at night. And when I fell asleep in his arms, I woke up here. I have no choice: in order to live again, I must kill you. When I finish drawing the runes, our connection will be severed, and you will no longer be able to find your body. I will become you.

– And what about me?

«And you can find yourself a naive girl to become you.»

A single tear flowed down my cheek, but immediately froze in the surrounding frost of another world. No-I finished drawing the runic script and put my hand to the floor. A flash of light – and then nothing, empty, dark and lonely.

***

There was no time here. How long did I wander in the dark: a day, a year, or maybe a century? First, endless darkness. I could go up as easily as turning left; there were other, previously unknown directions. but soon I learned to pull out of the darkness the silhouettes of people – those who were still alive. And once I even managed to catch the eye of one girl for a moment. This was enough to connect our souls with an invisible thread. When she fell asleep, I gently stroked her glowing hair. Without waking up, she opened her eyes and looked at me.

– Who are you?

«You can call me Mystery,» I whispered.

She tried to touch my chest, but I took a step back.

– Sorry, not on the first date. I will come to you tomorrow, and then we will stay together forever.

Pain is like a stone thrown into the middle of a lake. It is inflicted on you by those who were hurt, and you, in turn, will try to pass it on to someone else, who will pass it on to someone else. But the circles on the water will fade away one day, but the circle of pain is endless. Or not?

I want to live. I want to touch my three-day stubble again, eat my usual scrambled eggs in the morning, and wash it down with a cup of harmful strong coffee. I want to hear Ilya’s stories during lunch. I want… You know, but for me in the whole world there is nothing left but me. me, and all around was darkness and cold. I know what I want, and I am ready for any meanness for this. Tomorrow the girl I almost seem to love will be gone. The main thing is not to think of her as a person. She’s already a ghost. And I will live again.

No. I will remain in the dark. Someone has to break the vicious circle.

She closed her eyes, harboring the hope of seeing me in her dreams. Tears flowed down my cheek, but now they did not turn into burning pieces of ice. I reached out my hand to stroke her hair and enter her sleep. But instead he hit himself on the cheek.

– No! – I was already shouting into the darkness. – She will live. And I will protect her sleep from scoundrels.

Something has changed. Flash of light: I opened my eyes. I’m lying on my own bed. A familiar scar from surgery, an angel tattoo.

– I’m alive! It’s me! I!

From a distance a quiet whisper was heard:

– This is impossible! This is my body!

Tell me, how could I fall in love with a girl whom I once called Mystery? Disheveled black hair is like snakes on the Gorgon’s head, the face is distorted, hatred lurks in the corners of the eyes.

– No, this is my body. You just borrowed it.

– But how did you come back! I performed the ritual, everything according to the rules. You should have left forever. This is my body!

– But I didn’t perform the ritual. I didn’t kill to live.

She screamed something else, but her voice was muffled, then the room became quiet, and after a while the Mystery dissipated like smoke.

On this day I did not go to work: I have the right to my second birthday. I picked up the phone.

– Marina? – the girl I almost deprived of her body was called exactly that. – My name is Alexander.

«I already thought that I just dreamed about you.»

– I promised you another date. Let’s meet today?

– Let’s.

Quantum of reality no destiny for god?

Three dimensions to the elves, singing under the sky,

Five dimensions to magicians, immortals of Istari,

Seven dimensions to the gnomes and cave peace to them,

Nine to humans, six of whom will be reduced to the size of an atom,

And one dimension for time to unite them and rule them all.

– Oh, many years, many sorrows. But ask, ask, don’t be afraid. What worries you? I know the future, I know the past and the present.

The image of a gypsy woman in a red scarf shone on the information wall. She sat next to a ball in which lightning flashed and the fog shimmered with rainbow colors. Science made progress every day, but something remained unchanged: human curiosity, the desire to know the future and prejudices. After the infosphere was populated by AIs, the need to improve computer technology naturally disappeared. A new generation computer made it possible to simulate the entire visible part of the Universe, down to the position of each star. And within the earth, scientists could find out the position of every atom, down to every quark. But despite the development of technology, they preferred to learn the future from a gypsy.

Alexey finished his aromatic coffee and put the glass on the table. A mechanical arm immediately appeared from the wall and moved it into the disposal unit. If it were not for the robots, an atmosphere of disordered chaos would reign not only in the research center, but also in the computer databases.

– If I set the delta-epsilon parameter within the Planck length and time, will I be able to continue the experiment?

– Yes, with large values it will not be possible to obtain sufficient resolution, red fellow.

Alexey grinned smugly, admiring his own development. He swiped his finger over the «Gold Handle» icon, and golden dust flew towards the cyber fortune teller.

– Health and good luck to you!

Alexey directed a beam of quarks to a target made of a hydrogen nucleus and transferred the image from the eyepiece of the ioctoscope («ioctos» = 10 ^ (-24)) to the information wall.

– Tenfold zoom.

Subtle shadows on the screen

– Second tetration of ten.

The image grew as usual, allowing one to see a raging sea of individual atoms.

– Two point one tenth.

The atom grew significantly in size, and now it was possible to look deep into the nucleus and discern a proton.

– Two point five.

Another leap into the miniature universe, and an image of the Milky Way (or another galaxy so similar to ours) appeared before my eyes.

– This can’t be! Where did I go wrong?! Make it bigger! Two point seven tetration!

– Sorry, honest fellow, but I can’t see such small details. Two and a half tetrations of ten is my maximum vision. I can’t set the bar lower than Planck.

Alexey slammed his fist on the table.

– We must repeat the experiment.

He repeated this increase dozens of times with different atoms, at different times of day. It would have been nice to try it on another octoscope, but this was the most powerful magnifying device in the world. He called Nastya from the Second Laboratory, and an image of the galaxy also appeared in front of her.

– Make it bigger!

– You think. I didn’t try? It makes no sense, our instruments do not allow us to see more.

– How romantic it is. Imagine that the collapsed dimensions form an entire universe inside a small atom. If the vibrating superstring is a microgalaxy, then it consists of nanostars, and around them, in turn, miniature planets revolve. Maybe at least one of them has life.

– I’m interested in another question: while there was no observer, this six-dimensional microuniverse existed in a superposition of many probabilities. And then we looked at it, and there was only one option left. And if…

«And if so, then it is possible that our galaxy is just a building brick in the macrocosm,» Lilya continued Alexei’s thought. – We have many options for fate, and if the huge titan, or whoever lives there in those incomprehensible dimensions, had not looked at us at the right moment, then we might not have met you, or we might have been in love and not at the same time. It’s a pity, most titans don’t care about our three dimensions rolled up into a small ball the size of their macroat.

Alexey laughed.

– To listen to us, you might think that the whole world is an endless nesting doll, where worlds are nested one into another. And only time unites them all, like a hoop holds the shape of a barrel.

– By the way, about time. The working day is over. What to cook for dinner?

– Will you cook yourself? Why don’t you set up a robot chef?

– You made such a discovery. It seems to me that we can eat something other than synthetic food for this reason.

– Okay, you go, I’ll catch up.

Alexey launched a virtual fortune teller.

– What is the probability of life existing inside the nucleus of an atom?

– If there is a universe inside the atomic nucleus, then the Planck time will pass from its origin to its death. But I, honest fellow, cannot look below Planck.

Cassandra’s Hell

No sounds, no smells, just blinding light and an endless twisting staircase. She had already taken a thousand steps, but thousands of steps flowed from above. An hour has passed? Day? Century? It seemed like there was no time here. For the first time in her life, the future was hidden from her by an unknown curtain.

The long-awaited peak! She wanted to catch her breath, but a fair-haired man of about thirty with white wings and a halo above his head looked at her unfriendly.

– Don’t hold up the line. Your name.

– Cassandra.

– Well, well… Now let’s see.

The entire visible space is covered with an endless stream of letters and numbers, in different languages, large and small. Sometimes the symbols were interspersed with images. Not even a minute had passed before the chaotic movement ended. In front of the girl shone her own portrait and a short dossier written in Trojan.

– So-so. So she’s a soothsayer. Law 2, Article 18, Part 10. Does the Fifth Cauldron suit you?

– What?

– At the moment, Boilers Five, Three and Fourteen are vacant. Most of your compatriots chose the Fifth, so I recommend it to you.

– Yes, that will suit me perfectly.

Cassandra glanced fearfully at the stairs.

– Do not worry. It’s always easier to go down than to go up. It doesn’t take much effort to get to the bottom.

The elevator doors opened, and a few moments later the girl fearfully crossed the gates of her new home for the next eternity.

The shelves rushed into the sky (at a minimum, the heavens should have framed the blackness above). At the mahogany table sat a devil: typical. With horns, a pig’s snout, but in a tailcoat and tie. He looked at the girl over her horn-rimmed glasses.

– Your personal business.

Cassandra handed over a plastic card.

– So, Cassandra of Troy. Welcome to Cauldron Five.

The girl looked around uncertainly.

– Yes, that’s exactly him. Don’t worry, after the Age of Enlightenment and the Great Tartar Revolution, we no longer burn sulfur. Of course, the historical names have been preserved. But we now use more sophisticated torture on our prisoners. We give them another life. Would you like to become a scientist, doctor or teacher? Although, the profession of a scientist is most suitable for soothsayers.

– Thank you!

– Don’t rush to thank. There’s a lot you don’t know. Few people are able to look beyond the horizon. Among them are some who are brave enough to change the future. They are the ones who move our civilization forward in time. But the majority moves in the opposite direction, a kind of «flow of anti-time.» The higher the achievements of progress, the more opponents of moving forward, the more ordinary people degrade. But why, in fact, develop if you just stretch out your hand and all the benefits will fall into your palm? So, you will now become one of the Atlanteans, whose muscles hold the sky at a constant height, and whose will tries to move it as far as possible from people.