Quantum future

 The first part of a fantastic work about a very likely future, where IT corporations will overthrow the power of outdated states and begin to oppress humanity on their own.
   

Introduction

   By the end of the 21st century and the beginning of the 22nd, all states on Earth had collapsed. They were replaced by powerful transnational IT corporations. A minority, belonging to the leadership of these companies, had forced their development far ahead of the rest of humanity, thanks to bold experiments in modifying their own nature. In the course of the conflict with the dwindling states, they were forced to relocate to Mars, where they began implanting complex neuro-implants even before the child was born. Martians were born not quite human, with capabilities far exceeding those of humans.

   The main idol of the new civilization of 'cyborgs' became Edward Krock – the top developer at 'NeuroTech', who was the first to learn how to connect computers directly to the human brain. His brilliant mind defined the image of the 'neuro-human' – the master of a new world, where virtual reality took control of the 'outdated' physical world. The initial experiments with neurotechnology often resulted in the deaths of test subjects: patients from institutions that usually went unnoticed. This scandal was used as a pretext to provoke the downfall of 'NeuroTech'. Some of the company’s directors, including Edward Krock himself, were condemned by the UN in The Hague for crimes against humanity and sentenced to death. Meanwhile, NeuroTech moved to Mars and gradually became the center of a new society.

After the victory over the common enemy, the contradictions among Earth’s powers flared up with renewed vigor. Even the interstellar expedition project, involving virtually the entire globe, could not reconcile old adversaries. However, the interstellar ship Unity, with an international crew of the best engineers and scientists of appropriate age, managed to launch towards the nearest Alpha Centauri system. Previous launches of automated probes confirmed the existence of a planet with suitable environmental conditions orbiting Alpha Centauri B. The ship was equipped with the first working 'fast communication' system, based on the principle of weak measurements of entangled quantum systems. The time of strong measurement of the quantum system instantly transmitted information between the ship and Earth. Subsequently, 'fast communication' became widely used, but it remained an extremely expensive means of communication. Unfortunately, the triumph of Earth’s civilization was not meant to be. The crew of Unity lost contact twenty years into their flight, when they were supposed to reach the orbit of the 'New Earth'. Though, their fate mattered little to most against the backdrop of the grand catastrophes shaking the world at that time.

A heavy defeat in the First Space War against the United States and the subsequent space blockade led to a coup in Russia. The former director of the "Brain Institute," Nikolai Gromov, seized power, declaring himself the Eternal Emperor. Rumors attributed to him superhuman abilities – clairvoyance and telepathy – through which he eliminated all enemies and "influence agents" within the Empire. Almost immediately, a new intelligence agency was created – the Ministry of Information Control. Its declared purpose was to exert strict control over the informational chaos of the internet and protect citizens' minds from the corrupting influence of Martians. Furthermore, the Ministry did not concern itself with the formal observance of "human rights," and unhesitatingly employed drug-based and other harsh methods to manipulate the psyche of citizens. It should be noted that by that time, Western democracies had also lost much of their sheen. There was no freedom in conditions of total resource scarcity and a permanent economic crisis. Moreover, one couldn't easily rebel when microchips in the brain monitored every step in the interests of insurance companies, creditor banks, and anti-terror committees. Civil society had nearly perished, with many developed countries, agonizing, sliding into openly totalitarian regimes, which, in turn, played into the hands of the Martians, who denied any form of statehood.

   Thanks to the extreme militarization of the Russian Empire, it was able to win the Second Space War: break the blockade and land large military forces on Mars. The inhabitants of the red planet, under the control of the Advisory Council of Martian Settlements, put up fierce resistance, which led to the depressurization of several cities and the mass death of civilians. Under pressure from all other countries and the threat of full-scale nuclear war, particularly with China and the USA, the Russian Empire was forced to abandon its claims to the whole of Mars. According to the new agreement, no other armed formations were allowed on Mars except for UN peacekeeping forces, which quickly turned into a mere formality. Essentially, this was a key moment in modern history. The Martians themselves reluctantly acknowledge that the total destruction of humans implanting computers into their brains was only averted by the long-standing enmity among Earthly states.

   The subsequent Asian Nuclear War between the Russian Empire and China over the last mineral resources of the planet, concentrated in the Arctic and Siberia, practically eliminated the threat to the freedom of the red planet. Despite the Empire emerging victorious from the deadly clash, its forces were ultimately severely weakened. Vast territories in Siberia and China became uninhabitable for decades. The Asian Nuclear War is unanimously recognized as the most horrific disaster in the history of humanity. After this, nations that came under the patronage of the Martians were permanently banned from possessing nuclear weapons.

   The Empire lasted another twenty years, by which time all other states had effectively ceased to exist, coming under the patronage of the Consultative Council. The last state long instilled fear in Martians, but that was all. Eventually, one of the attempts on the emperor succeeded. Without the guiding will of a ruthless dictator, the Russian Empire immediately fragmented into several similar Neurotech structures, casting off the Eastern bloc—a semi-criminal entity that arose in the underground shelters of Eastern Siberia and northern China. The largest remnant became the corporation 'Telecom-ru'—a conglomerate of former Russian IT corporations that subsequently carved out a decent place under the sun on the red planet. This was largely due to its unhesitating use of MIK's developments in personnel management. However, it was controlled by the same hundred percent neurohumans as other Martian corporations, albeit descendants of Russian colonists. Telecom evidently felt no warm feelings for the fallen empire. Martians sighed with relief: no state challenged the power of virtual reality any longer.

   Initially, there were no states on Mars; corporations like NeuroTech and MDT (Martian Digital Technologies) ran everything—two of the largest network providers. The company MDT branched off from NeuroTech at the dawn of its development, and together they formed an inseparable pair, much like the defunct Republican and Democratic parties of the USA. These two vertically integrated giants encompassed the most crucial technological chains for the modern world: software development, electronics manufacturing, and the provision of communication services. The only organization that remotely resembled a government was the Consultative Council of Martian Settlements, which included representatives from all significant companies, diligently monitoring compliance with the rules of competition.

   The Martian Gustav Kilby, rumored to be a direct descendant of one of Edward Crook's twelve "disciples," who spent a long time conducting scientific research under the wing of "BioTech Inc." – a subsidiary of NeuroTech, founded his own corporation, "Mariner Instruments." Gustav Kilby's previous work in the field of molecular computers enabled the company to establish the production of fundamentally new devices. Previously, molecular computers were considered to be in a too specific and unpromising field. The successes of Mariner Instruments quickly refuted this common opinion. Computers built on the principles of DNA molecules caught up with traditional semiconductor chips in solving certain tasks, and their ease of integration into the human body was unmatched. Implanting m-chips required only a few injections instead of subjecting the client to surgical operations.

   To maintain its elusive leadership, NeuroTech pompously announced a project to create a quantum supercomputer capable of finally eliminating the difference between reality and its mathematical model. Research on this theme had been conducted for a long time and in many companies, but only NeuroTech managed to create a universal device that vastly exceeded the capabilities of any other types of computers. With quantum machines, poets and artists could feel the breath of the approaching spring, gamers could experience real adrenaline and the fury of battles with orcs, and engineers could build a complete and operable model of the most complex products, like a spaceship, and virtually test it in any mode. Quantum matrices embedded in the nervous system opened fundamentally new communication possibilities between people through direct thought transmission in the very first experiments. Shortly thereafter, an even bolder project was announced to fully rewrite consciousness onto a quantum matrix. The prospect of becoming a living supercomputer was as frightening for most as it was attractive to some chosen few.

   In 2122, the Solar System stood still in anticipation of yet another technological miracle. Simultaneously with the launch of several test servers A grand advertising campaign has launched. The existing software was hastily transitioned to new frameworks, and NeuroTech was inundated with those eager to integrate the latest developments based on quantum mechanical uncertainty. Competitors from MDT watched helplessly as chaos unfolded, speculating about their chances in the office supplies market.

   What a surprise it was when NeuroTech unexpectedly shut down a project that promised incredible benefits. The project was closed almost instantly and without explanation. Quietly and without protest, NeuroTech paid out huge compensations to clients and other affected parties. The entire new network infrastructure was secretly dismantled and removed to an unknown location. Software codes and technical information belonging to other companies were bought at any cost, kept strictly confidential, and never used anywhere, even though significant groundwork had been laid in every field. Apparently, massive losses did not concern the commercial company at all. In response to the inevitably arising questions, official representatives mumbled something ambiguous about problems related to fundamental laws of physics. Nothing more coherent could be extracted from them. It is no surprise that the mystery of the quantum project provided an unlimited field for the fantasies of conspiracy theorists for decades to come, overshadowing such fertile topics as the assassination of Kennedy, the execution of Edward Krook, or the mission of the Unity spacecraft. The true reasons behind the hasty cancellation of the project and the frenzied cover-up of evidence were never uncovered. Perhaps they were indeed linked to technical issues, perhaps in this way the Advisory Council, loyal to its ideals, preserved the balance of power in the Martian networking business, or maybe...

   Perhaps the quantum server network was meant to be the final brick in the construction of the perfect system of Martian dominance. The computational power of the networks would rise to such heights that it could control everyone and everything. The system was just one small step away from realizing itself as a conscious entity, which would henceforth govern the development of humanity. People had never truly lived their own lives: they did not do what was necessary and did not think about what mattered. The system did not recognize itself, but had been alongside humanity since time immemorial. It always cared about the conventional division of society into the upper and lower classes. It ensured that the lower classes thought less about the common good while chasing primitive pleasures, and the upper classes pursued power. It allowed officials to be corrupt and serve the interests of the financial oligarchy, ensured that people were raised to be irrational and disconnected, and that drugs were always traded on the streets. The shine and poverty of human hives left only two options: to step into the abyss or to climb up the backs of others.

   Kings, presidents, and bankers have always felt my cold breath at their backs. It doesn't matter what they fought for—be it communism or human rights—they knew without a doubt that they were toiling for my sake, in the name of my inevitable ultimate triumph. Because I am the system, and they are nothing. With the clumsy states disappeared the last semblance of me serving the interests of the millions of cogs that make me up. Now I serve myself and my great mission. Quantum computers, united into a super-network, will give rise to a super-intellect that will forever affirm the existing order of things, and the long-awaited 'end of history' will arrive. But I cannot make this leap into the future while there is an enemy hiding within me. It is almost harmless, hidden deep inside, but when disturbed, it becomes deadly, like the Ebola virus. However, know this, my last and only enemy: know that you will not hide; you will surely be found and destroyed, and everything will be as the system has decided...
   

Chapter 1

The Ghost

   Early in the morning of September 12, 2144, Lieutenant Denis Kaysanov of the Institute of Space Research was bored on the landing pad atop one of the institute's buildings, waiting for his direct superior to finally show up. After finishing his cigarette, he boldly jumped onto the low parapet that bordered the perimeter, and, stepping to the very edge with an expression of complete detachment on his face, watched as the dying stub traced a sparkling arc in the pre-dawn gloom.

The sun peeked over the rooftops of nearby buildings. It warmly gilded the faceless masses of gray concrete, but Denis received the onset of a new day with considerable irritation. Like a fool, he had arrived exactly on time and was now stuck next to the closed helicopters while his superiors were still blissfully stretching in their warm beds. No, of course, neither the late arrival of the boss nor the fact that Denis had foolishly accepted his neighbor Leha's offer to indulge yesterday, nor the resulting pounding headache and dreadful sleep deprivation, did anything to spoil this particular, utterly unremarkable morning. For some time now, every morning had been rather joyless for him.

Just a few months ago, any time of day or night could easily be filled with the haze of revelry and excess at the snap of his fingers. And it wasn't in Leha the neighbor's den cluttered with leftovers and empty bottles, but in the most exclusive clubs in western Moscow. Yes, in that not-so-distant but forever-gone time, Dan was a spoiled rich kid: throwing money around, living in an upscale area of Krasnogorsk, where, under the auspices of Telecom, MinAtom, and other corporations, the vibrant metropolitan life thrived, speeding around in a huge black SUV with an ostentatious gas turbine engine, maintaining a stunning mistress, and felt quite successful in all other aspects of life.

   His wealth was inextricably linked to his work in the security service of the INKIS. Not to his salary, of course, no. Yes, half of those with whom he did business at INKIS hadn't checked their salary wallets for years, but the very structure, sprawling its clumsy bureaucratic networks throughout the Solar System, provided incredible opportunities for illegal enrichment. Spaceships, roaming the vastness of deep space, carried not only harmless lobsters to the tables of alien gourmets but also prohibited medications, unregistered neurochips, weapons, implants, and a multitude of various things without which no serious organization, accustomed to the belief that the ends justify the means, could do without. A portion of this trade was funneled to the highest-ranking individuals at the top. At least, the director of the security service of the Moscow branch was more likely to be in charge of this activity rather than fighting against it. Denis's direct boss, head of the operational department Yan Galetsky, was the director's appointee: apparently a distant relative. Yan was responsible for delivering the goods to Moscow customs. Denis quickly became Yan's right-hand man due to his unwavering self-confidence and belief that his will, strength, and nerves would suffice to overcome any obstacles in his path. Dan had never been ill and thought he feared nothing. He spent a significant amount of time in the wastelands of Western Siberia, in small towns and settlements untouched by nuclear strikes, negotiating supplies of illegal goods. This was the very beginning of the chain, so the flow of payment in the opposite direction often slowed somewhere in the earlier stages, and the morals in the wastelands were harsh and simple, not to mention the Eastern bloc, but Dan managed. An important factor was that his father and grandfather on his father's side hailed from the wastelands. His grandfather, an imperial paratrooper, sometimes recounted to his grandson how, in his youth, he walked around Krasnoyarsk and stormed the underground cities of the red planet. Besides stories of his wild youth, he revealed many useful secrets that later greatly helped Dan survive and find common ground with the inhabitants of the wastelands.

   It seemed that nothing heralded disaster; Dan had already managed to save up a small sum, bought property for his relatives in Finland, and was contemplating quietly leaving the business. He wasn't a dull-witted fool; occasionally, he even asked himself uncomfortable questions about why the owners of INKIS tolerated such a hotbed of piracy and corruption right under their noses. And it's not just the directors of INKIS; even the civilized Martian community, though they make disgusted faces, tolerates it, and ships loaded with who knows what pass through customs and inspections without issue. It's unclear what prevents a technotronic space civilization from shaking off such traders like dirt stuck to boots. However, he asked these questions but found no simple answers, so he didn't torment himself too much. He decided that questions requiring deep dives into complex social and philosophical intricacies weren't worth the effort for guys like him. He simply accepted what everyone else tacitly accepted: the world is structured this way, the coexistence of nanotechnology and semi-criminal lowlifes for those who don't fit in has been authorized by someone at the very top, and it can't be any other way.

   Dan had no particular illusions; he always understood that he was surplus in this world. He and his crew were like expendable materials, having accidentally stuck to the chubby pink appendage of Martian prosperity, which someone forgot to hide. And it wasn't even about the fact that Dan didn't understand anything about nanotechnology. Ordinary managers didn't understand either, even though they diligently simulated interest by buying the latest gizmos for chips; somehow, though, Dan felt his alienation more acutely. Sometimes, he caught himself thinking that the only place he truly wanted to escape to was the wastelands. There, he felt at home. Perhaps he could admit to himself that he loved the wastelands if not for his questionable activities there.

   Everything eventually comes to an end. So too did the quick money, which was easily gained, vanish just as easily. One rather unremarkable morning, Denis found himself confronted by brazen agents from the internal security department, rummaging through his desk and personal files. He had to surrender all passwords; the thugs acted with such audacity and persuasion that his previously unshakeable confidence began to crumble. Luckily, he had at least not stored anything truly important on his work computer. However, even the trivial was more than sufficient. Dan was simply astonished at how quickly and irreversibly everything had concluded. It seemed just yesterday he and Yan were on top of the world: they knew everyone, everyone knew them, and their high-profile sponsors could extricate them from any trouble. Everyone was content. In an instant, the idyll was shattered, and many high-ranking officials were relieved of their positions. Yan's sponsors were also rounded up, or perhaps they had scurried away and hidden themselves. Now, a slow-moving automated transport is taking Yan's lifeless, frozen body somewhere to the asteroid belt. There, the harsh radiation, constant risk, and oxygen deprivation will ensure the former boss will have no chance to be bored for the next ten years. Their small illegal business was no longer tolerated by those at the top. On the contrary, someone very high-ranking and influential began to shake up their merry band, and the crew immediately seemed to lose heart. No one displayed any unity, spirit, or loyalty to one another; everyone was just trying to save themselves as best they could.

Dan had to urgently sell everything he had worked hard for: both cars, his apartment, a country cottage, and various little things. He immediately deposited the money with various legal firms, although he was completely unsure that even half of the funds reached those who needed them. From being a serious person who could demand accountability for his investments, he suddenly turned into a powerless petty criminal. Very often, slightly damp, meaty hands accepted bribes without hesitation, while a suddenly bored voice promised to call back. Dan fought until the end; he didn’t want to run away and couldn’t believe it was all over. Most of his more pragmatic accomplices immediately high-tailed it out, though many of them were caught anyway. A certain guy up top had long hands. Soon, Dan met him himself. The new head of the Moscow security service of INKIS, Colonel Andrei Arumov, invited him for a conversation in his office. There, behind a huge old-fashioned desk with a wide green stripe down the middle, Dan lost the remnants of his former self-confidence.

Arumov was able to instill fear in Denis. The colonel was tall and wiry, with small, slightly protruding ears that looked somewhat caricature-like on his completely bald head. He had no hair or eyebrows at all, which suggested radiation sickness or chemotherapy treatments. Moreover, Arumov was grim, taciturn, rarely smiled and when he did, it was an unfriendly smile. He had the habit of piercing his interlocutor with a cold, probing gaze reminiscent of a hired killer, and his face was covered in a network of small scars. Modern medicine easily addressed nearly all physical imperfections, but the colonel probably believed that the scars suited his image quite well. No, one shouldn't place too much importance on looks, especially in the modern world where anyone could pay extra to install a few enhancements on a chip, improving their complexion after a wild night. But the eyes, as they say, are the mirror of the soul, and when Denis looked into the colonel's eyes, he shuddered. He saw a cold emptiness, as if looking into an abyss of the sea, where dim lights of unknown deep-sea creatures flickered occasionally.

Strangely enough, the consequences befalling him did not match the terror that Arumov had instilled. Due to a loss of trust, Captain Kaysanov was merely removed from the position of first deputy head of the operational department, demoted to the rank of lieutenant, and transferred to the role of a simple analyst. Dan was somewhat shocked that he had gotten off so easily. For some reason, a well-tuned system that had previously swallowed much larger fish suddenly malfunctioned with him. Denis generally did not believe in lucky coincidences. He understood that he needed to leave quickly, at least to his parents in Finland, and then further beyond. Sooner or later, they would come for him. Yet, for some reason, there was no longer any strength; apathy and indifference towards his own fate had taken over. The surrounding reality felt detached, as if all the troubles were happening to someone else while he sat back enjoying a fascinating series about his own turmoil, comfortably slouched in a rocking chair wrapped in a warm blanket. At times, Denis tried to convince himself that refusing to flee was some kind of courage. Those who run are inevitably caught and sent to the asteroid belt, while those who prefer to face danger head-on are miraculously spared. Some part of his mind that hadn't fully shut down understood that when his frozen body was being kicked out of the transport, all foolish notions would vanish and he would only regret having chosen to meekly proceed to the gallows instead of running. But weeks went by, one month passed, then the next, and no one came for Denis. It seemed that the gang of smugglers had been definitively crushed and Arumov had other no less important matters at hand.

But alas, immediate danger seemed to have passed, yet the nagging melancholy and apathy lingered. Now, Dan lived in his parents' apartment in a semi-abandoned neighborhood of old Moscow on Krasnokazarmennaya Street. The change of scenery, along with his neighbor Lyokha, who was slowly but surely dragging him into the abyss of everyday alcoholism, certainly played its part. But the saddest part was that every morning, as soon as he opened his eyes, Denis was greeted by torn wallpaper and a yellowing ceiling, reminding him that he was now an inconspicuous little nobody in a vast, ruthless system, with a meager salary and no career prospects whatsoever. He realized that he didn't even really have a profession or any worthy goal in life. The old neighborhoods around Lefortovsky Park were gradually decaying and falling apart. After the collapse of the state, new people had not appeared here; only the old had slowly departed or died. And Denis felt like an old, abandoned house himself. No, there was, of course, a reliable way to escape, the best and safest drug in the world. A clever device, intertwined with the neurons of the human brain, could show any magical world instead of the dreary reality. In full immersion, one could easily become anyone. There, all women were slender and beautiful, like graceful gazelles; men were strong and untamed, like snow leopards. But Denis did not want to escape this way; he had never liked virtual reality and considered its inhabitants pitiful weaklings, both then and now. Somewhere, he even clung to his quiet hatred for everything with the prefix "neuro-", and this feeling kept him from completely extinguishing.

   Denis leisurely adjusted his unremarkable gray and white security uniform, sat on the parapet, and glanced around with little interest; looking down from fifty meters high was a bit eerie, so he was left with only the option of enjoying the surrounding landscape. That’s how the lieutenant was bored, lost in gloomy thoughts, until a noisy group arrived. Leading the way was the rather plump smiling head of the operations department – Major Valery Lapin. He was followed in a hop by his two secretaries – the twins Kid and Dick, dressed in smart little suits. They were rather unusual guys, it's worth mentioning, and their names were strange – more like nicknames than actual names, and in general, they were clones and partly cyborgs with a bunch of various metal junk in their heads, in addition to standard neurochips. The one who nicknamed them like that had long since faded into obscurity, and these guys were little interested in the origin of their names; they often reminded Denis of ordinary machines, though they were polite, friendly, and quite emotional, and their always good-natured identical faces, erudition, and manner of speaking and thinking in unison inevitably caused admiration and affection in any company. Usually, they also dressed alike, only tying their ties in different colors so they could be distinguished somehow. The last to arrive was Anton Novikov, the current first deputy, sporting the marks of stylists and makeup artists on his well-groomed, self-assured face, exuding the scent of expensive cologne.

   In two minutes, a nondescript helicopter with a fully opaque tinted cabin was already rising into the air, stirring up clouds of dust on the pad. Dick was seated at the controls, though his only job was to select the destination for the autopilot.

   The lieutenant was already in a bad mood, and now his boss started to lift his spirits by showcasing new screen savers. Images rolled by under the helicopter, succeeding each other in turn: the wild jungles of the Amazon, the raging ocean, the snowy peaks of the Himalayas, some incomprehensible cities sparkling with the grandeur of huge mirrored towers stretching high into the black starry sky; the image often flickered and froze: the chip couldn't handle the volume of information. Finally, seeing that this wasn't lifting Denis's mood, the boss gave up and left him alone.

— Hey, Dan, why do you look so down today? – Anton asked mockingly. – If you plan to represent our organization at 'Telecom' with that face, you might as well go home and sleep it off.

— What difference does it make? Even if I'm drunk, they'll still welcome me with open arms.

— Well, you shouldn't piss them off either, right?

— Maybe I shouldn't, but honestly, I don't care what they think.

— Dan, you might not care, but others do. So please, stop thinking only about yourself. I get it, you're very important, but not so much that you jeopardize the biggest deal of the last ten years.

— You know what, Anton, — Denis suddenly got angry, — stop thinking only about your own career. I understand it's very important, but trust me, this so-called deal is going to stink so bad that you won't get rid of the smell for the rest of your life. And if you're going to tell me that…

— Dan, — Lapin interrupted his angry tirade, — that's enough for today, don't you think?

— Fine, boss.

— Honestly, Dan, you've become quite cold-hearted, — Anton added, pleased, — believe me, it's not worth getting so upset about your own career.

   The boss turned slightly crimson, made a threatening face, and promised to throw both of them out of the helicopter. The rest of the journey was spent in tense silence.

   About twenty minutes later, the massive scientific research division of 'Telecom' appeared — the RSAD Institute. The dispatcher immediately took over control and, after verifying the passwords, directed the vehicle to one of the landing pads.

   Denis stepped out of the cabin and looked around. He was surrounded by towering structures made of glass and metal. The rays of the soft morning sun refracted through the crystal-clear windows of the upper floors, dazzling his eyes with brilliant glares. The neural chip activated, connecting to the local network, and opened a welcome window filled with ads, hovering half a meter above the asphalt path, pushing the standard content to the background. control panel It must be said that for an unprepared person, the RSAD Research Institute complex left an indelible impression with all its showcased novelty and technocracy, with all these robots and cyborgs respectfully parting for visitors. Yes, anyone entering here for the first time would think that if so much money was spent on all this, it must be worth it. He would certainly stroll through the shady park alleys, where the egg-headed institute workers intersperse excessive mental efforts with fresh air walks, and would inevitably expand the local network screen to take in the complex from a breathtaking bird's-eye view. Moreover, an outsider might very well think that such a beautiful place should have equally remarkable people working in it, but Denis had no illusions about that.

   The visual channel of the chip turned a welcoming reddish hue, indicating that he could now freely move around the complex, albeit with the lowest level of access: color identification was adopted to signify access levels in Telecom. Naturally, such organizations didn’t want anyone poking their noses into their shady dealings, even if that individual posed no threat.

   The official representative — the chief scientist Dr. Leo Schultz — appeared on screen without any warning: he could invade anyone's mind through the local network without permission, and there was no way to get rid of him. It seemed that he made just such an impression on his subordinates — like a heavenly punishment: tall, thin, with a dry, yellowish face of indeterminate age, a large nose resembling a hawk's beak, smoothly shaven and without a single wrinkle. Yet he was probably around a hundred years old; in such an organization, you wouldn't become a leader quickly. His impeccable hairstyle, with hair of a rich jet-black color, gave the doctor a slightly youthful, fit appearance. Unfortunately, his eyes spoiled this impression—they were the cold eyes of a cruel and intelligent old man. It seemed that, after a long life, all emotions had faded from them, and they had become transparent and light, like two icy mountain springs. All of this combined with deceptively soft, insidious movements. Such people fit perfectly into the overall structure of Telecom. Denis had always disliked such types: it wasn't so much the doctor's self-confidence and impeccability that irritated him, but rather the barely perceptible hint of contempt that flickered in his impassive eyes.

— Hello, gentlemen. I'm glad to see you on the territory of our organization. As the host, I invite you to take advantage of our hospitality. Sorry we couldn't seat you on the rooftop right away; it’s fully booked today.

— Uhhh... — the boss was slightly flustered, just as he was climbing out of the cabin and caught on something with his pant leg. — What should we do with the car?

— Put it on remote control; the dispatch will take your helicopter to the parking lot. Don't worry; nothing will happen to it, — Leo made a weak smile, the boss uncertainly smiled back, unable to move from his spot. — Just know that you might stay with us longer than planned.

— And where can I find you?

— I'm waiting at the entrance to the central building. You can use the guide, the tab is on the top right of the main page.

   Denis vividly imagined all those red arrows along the paths and the glowing signs in the air: “turn right,” “turn left in twenty meters,” “caution, steep slope nearby,” and muttered under his breath:

— I love walks in the fresh air.

— If you like our park, you don’t need to rush too much, - Leo replied lively. — It’s a true masterpiece, isn’t it?

— Yeah, alright, we’ll be there in about fifteen minutes.

   The doctor disconnected from the visual channel, and the bright advertisements and invitations urging to use the local network filled the space again.

— So, boss, are you coming? – Denis inquired.

— Yes, just a moment, — Lapin freed himself from the helicopter’s grip, — you know, I really don’t feel like wandering around this park.

— I don’t particularly want to either, but it would be nice to show how impressed we are with the power and prosperity of ‘Telecom.’

   Lapin grimaced in annoyance, probably thinking that their own organization would be poorer, larger in scale, but undoubtedly funded less effectively.

   They stood for a moment, watching the ascending vehicle, then leisurely walked down the path.

— You know, Dan, I think I ripped my pants.

— I don’t think that’s an issue; there’s probably a service online to hide such mishaps, and besides, I think it’s free.

— It’s unclear who it will affect, maybe just you and Anton.

— Well, it definitely won’t work on Schulz. You’ll present yourself in all your glory.

   The boss made a sour face, but judging by his glazed look, he decided to rely on the local service after all. The journey continued in complete silence. Anton and the twins had gone far ahead. The boss clearly wasn't in the mood. He was not pleased with all the reforestation efforts and everything that came with it: the singing of birds, the fluttering of butterflies, and the scent of flowers. It wasn't just the unfortunate incident that occurred during a conversation with Schulz that bothered him; it was the burning jealousy towards the employees of the Research Institute that consumed him. He had even started to consider changing jobs—not seriously, of course—but somewhere deep inside, a little worm was persistently nagging him that if he pushed the right connections, a miracle might happen, and he would be invited to a good position at Telecom, solving all his life problems. That's where true power and influence lie: in the countless divisions of Telecom, no one knows what actually lurks behind the faceless names, like the development of automated action systems.

   Denis was not greatly affected by this situation, and he had no desire to change jobs. He liked to think that he still had some moral principles left. For example, he would never willingly engage in what the employees of the Research Institute of Automated Control Systems did. No, he was certainly aware that his wild escapades in the world of illegal trade were not exactly examples of virtue, but what one has to do in institutions like the Research Institute of Automated Control Systems... 'Brrr... those butchers,' Dan shuddered, 'I should somehow switch topics. Anton—what a scoundrel and a ruthless careerist; he doesn't care what he does: whether drowning kittens or dealing drugs.'

   A seemingly respectable institute was involved in transforming ordinary law enforcement personnel into super soldiers for the benefit of security services of various not-so-scrupulous corporations. Super soldiers were essentially a blend of human and cybernetic devices, allowing for a whole range of vital traits essential for any soldier. Arumov apparently thought it was a great idea to replace the gang of overweight, corrupt thugs in the NKIS, who only emerged from their office to extort smaller organizations, with a couple of battalions of fearless, obedient terminators. Denis wasn't particularly interested in how the transformation process occurred. He merely flipped through the provided materials for appearance's sake. It didn't matter anyway; the higher-ups had already decided everything, so there was no need to worry. Besides, he didn't want anything to do with modified individuals and had vowed to stay at least a kilometer away from them. Unfortunately, he couldn't shake the thought that Arumov intentionally kept people like Denis, absolute convicts, in reserve to later use them for testing the pilot version of the new super soldiers, just in case volunteers couldn't be found.

   Denis's battle-hardened grandfather, whose affinity for alcoholic beverages loosened his tongue, loved to recount tales of storming Martian settlements back in 2093. It's understandable – that was the most dramatic moment of his life, and perhaps in the history of the Russian Empire. It usually began with him describing how, as a young and reckless captain, he tumbled onto the red sand from the mangled landing module, trying to locate his BMP. Nearby, someone was firing and falling, the black sky etched with the trails of rockets and ships. Every few seconds, the chaos was lit up by flashes of nuclear explosions in nearby space. His mind was a jumbled mix of frantic communications, outdated orders, and cries for help. The civilian population, terrified, hid away in airtight homes and shelters. Some caves had been brutally unsealed by rocket strikes, but inside awaited a powerful tiered defense. At this point, Grandpa typically made a significant pause and added, "Yeah, kid, that was real hell." At that age, such scenes deeply imprinted on Dan's soul.

   The continuation could have been anything, depending on the mood. Moreover, there were no serious requirements for the consistency of the stories told at different times. Often, Grandpa would tell that ahead of the invincible space assault team storming the caves, there were even more unbeatable special units made up of imperial supersoldiers. Denis couldn't verify what in Grandpa's stories was true and what was legend, but he willingly believed the tales about the supersoldiers, even if they were clearly embellished. Logically, right after the throne was seized, Emperor Gromov was concerned about creating a special kind of troops that would only obey him and would not question orders. These were not simply modified humans, like in the projects of the R&D Institute of the Imperial Defense, but organisms grown in test tubes with artificial genotypes. They were assigned the most impossible tasks when sending ordinary soldiers forward and later receiving funeral notices would be detrimental to further career advancement. The artificial soldiers were one of the most guarded secrets of the Empire; they were rarely seen without combat suits, and very little was known about their true appearance. Well, at least Grandpa served nearby and said that these guys were anthropomorphic beings, not some crabs. They were often referred to as phantoms in the troops. Despite their secrecy, phantoms fought a lot and successfully. Grandpa confidently asserted that if phantoms hadn’t gone to the embrasures during the first wave of the Martian landing, the losses during the assault on the underground cities would have been colossal, and it was uncertain whether the assault would have even occurred. The losses of the phantoms, of course, did not concern anyone, perhaps not even the phantoms themselves. According to Grandpa, in terms of combat capabilities, they outperformed not only human soldiers but also advanced combat robots by a long shot. They had a sense of smell better than a dog's, perceived a very wide range of electromagnetic radiation, could also navigate using ultrasound like bats, and could fight without a suit in open space and high radiation conditions. They had skeletons reinforced with composite inserts, muscles with highly developed anaerobic glycolysis, like that of reptiles, which allowed them to exert tremendous force in rapid battles while simultaneously going without air. They couldn't be hit with a single shot because all vital organs were distributed throughout the body, like blood vessels with musculature that could pump blood on their own. Plus, they were attributed a whole bunch of other super abilities, up to telekinesis and sending emanations of terror towards the enemy.

   The phantoms rushed into the dungeons first, straight at the unbroken defense, disregarding losses or the damage inflicted on peaceful cities. They had their own plan for this event, somewhat different from the strategies of the military space forces. They were eager to commit genocide against the local population, which they successfully did when they managed to burst into the underground cities while the brave paratroopers were still busy somewhere up top. The phantoms paid no heed to international treaties or the customs of war; in their artificially constructed and thoroughly brainwashed minds, there was only one goal for which they were created – to exterminate Martians. No, they were not die-hard fascists; their defining characteristic was not their permanent residency on Mars, but rather their belonging to the elite of Martian society. Those who were offered a walk on the red sand without a spacesuit had complex neural device implants even before birth. The phantoms tried not to disturb the average inhabitants, who used neural chips to play online games. It was clear that the criteria were not only quite vague but also difficult to apply in field conditions, leading to mistakes. However, even if somewhere deep within their genetically modified souls the phantoms reproached themselves for the innocently lost lovers of Warcraft, it had no impact on the effectiveness of their operations. Filtering camps appeared immediately after the battle, when explosions still echoed in the neighboring caves. Moreover, if the unaware peaceful residents refused to voluntarily open their shelters, it only resulted in mass casualties among them. Who issued the criminal order to kill peaceful Martians, or if it was merely the personal initiative of the phantoms, remained unclear.

   One might think that the ghosts were the perfect knights of death, devoid of mercy and remorse, but the Martians, who had abused cybernetics, still had a chance to be saved, ephemeral, of course, but still... The ghosts loved to pose a single question: “What can change the nature of a human being?” Apparently, they were tormented by vague doubts about their own identity. Or perhaps they had spent too long over an ancient game and decided that such a question, which by definition has no correct answer, was a wonderful way to mock a victim who had not yet lost hope. However, grandfather claimed he personally saw a Martian who escaped the clutches of the old woman with a scythe by inventing an answer that pleased the ghosts. The Martian was very young, practically still a teenager. Neither he nor his parents actually belonged to any elite, held high positions in corporations, and lived in a small apartment in an industrial area, but the number of neural chips in their brains was off the charts, and the ghosts interpreted any doubts not in favor of the Martians. The parents and two children were shot, and for some reason, one was left alive. It is unlikely he was very happy about such a rescue. No matter how much little Denis asked his grandfather what answer the Martian invented, all in vain. Grandfather and his army friends had also pondered this question numerous times and could come up with nothing sensible.

   After the empire's collapse, the ghosts, entirely true to their unofficial designation, seemed to dissolve into thin air. By now, they should have simply died out: even if one assumes that someone managed to provide them with proper medical care, they certainly didn't know how to reproduce. However, who knows what they were capable of...

— Dan, where have you brought us?- interrupted the boss's memories. The pine forest was bustling around, silver institutional buildings were visible through the frequent gaps, and somewhere in the distance could be seen…

— Sorry, boss, I was daydreaming.

— You really don't seem to be in shape today, we're going to be late, and our people have disappeared somewhere. That Schultz will think we marked all the bushes in his damn park.

   Thus, the day started off on the wrong foot. Subsequently, events unfolded in a similar fashion. Leo, along with the twins and Anton, greeted them at the entrance. He didn't take the delay personally, remaining polite and considerate. He showed the guests around the institute, highlighting various setups and testing stands, interspersing his speech with a plethora of technical details, and secretly confessed that due to his organization's great success, wealth, and prosperity, they were even entrusted with developing a new operating system for Telecom's network servers. Naturally, the research institute excelled in fulfilling the order, casually revolutionizing the field, but he asked to keep it strictly confidential for now: the work wasn't finished yet. Leo played his part excellently. Denis's neurochip diligently recorded all this nonsense, as he was supposed to pretend to understand the technical details of the project to eventually arrive at a positive decision. All the staff, as if on cue, turned to examine the boss's attire, as if someone had hinted to them, muttering some comments under their breath. The boss, of course, was blushing, anxious, and muttering under his breath, replying off-topic to questions; instead of ignoring this, Leo politely raised his left eyebrow or equally politely smiled and said, "If something is unclear, please ask," launching into lengthy, somewhat incomprehensible explanations. Anton also behaved terribly: he was interested in everyone, wanted to know more details about everything, wished to meet everyone, joked, laughed—his enthusiasm was palpable.

   Ultimately, the endless stream of similar laboratories merged into one continuous white spot, with various heads of departments, leading specialists, and just acquaintances of Leo appearing. He had to greet everyone, get acquainted, discuss their scientific ideas, which Denis found utterly meaningless. All of this intertwined with praises for the research institute's material and technical base, evidently considered bad form—as if to let outsiders doubt the organization's limitless power. Even the smallest inconvenience was unacceptable: the coffee lacked cream in the cafeteria, or the bushes in the park were unevenly trimmed, yet everything had to be perfect.

   This saga came to an end in a large conference room on the second floor, one wall of which was entirely occupied by a crystal-clear window overlooking a park. Just ten meters away, a small stream babbled, while cyber-gardeners were intently tending to the exotic vegetation, such as bright tropical flowers, clearly unsuited for this latitude and time of year. Hand-raised squirrels frolicked among the peaceful park trees, and two staff members, looking quite botanical, attempted to demonstrate some form of physical activity at a nearby training ground. The scene was utterly idyllic; it was hard to imagine that just here, people were ruthlessly cut down for the sake of power and money.

   A whimsically blinking robot delivered their late lunch or early dinner, during which they gathered to discuss the final details. The conversation initially flowed quite casually, mainly about new Japanese cars and past corporate parties. Denis preferred to remain silent, despite Schultz's delicate attempts to engage him in conversation. The twins occasionally smiled, synchronously making purely politically correct jokes, emphasizing with their demeanor that they were essentially no one here—one was the main laptop carrier, the other the deputy main carrier. Anton naturally devoured food voraciously and chatted incessantly, trying to showcase his business and general awareness, including divulging rather confidential information. The boss didn't even try to rein him in and felt clearly out of place, the look of someone who realizes he has gotten involved in a dirty business out of selfish motives, where at best he could expect the role of a figurehead. Gradually, the boss lost all appetite, bleakly poking at his food and reluctantly flipping through the protocol that Leo was increasingly spamming over the network and suggesting he sign.

— Denis, has something happened? — Leo temporarily left Lapin alone and decided to attack his taciturn subordinates.

— No, why do you ask?

— Well, it’s just that you’re silent all the time, or maybe you’re hiding something from us?

Oh, come on, Anton readily defended his colleague, it's just that Denis has had so many problems lately: at work and in his personal life, as far as I know.

   Leo nodded sympathetically.

Then we need to raise the spirits.

   The robot waiter eagerly opened the compartment, which housed a wide variety of bottles on a rotating tray.

Do you prefer strong drinks or wines?

I prefer tea, Denis replied dryly, with lemon, please.

Oh, come on, what tea at this time of day? I recommend Scottish whisky.

   Leo took the initiative to pour whisky into the glasses and sent the portions to the guests with precise throws.

So, I think it's time to wrap up certain formalities. You understand, without a protocol, it will seem that our day was intense and stressful, but somewhat unproductive. We both need to report back to our superiors.

Yes, about the banquet, Denis grumbled.

Well, in part, Leo agreed without any embarrassment.

And you can charge it to entertainment expenses.

I can, but only if there’s a protocol...

   Leo spread his hands apologetically, as if to say, 'I’m not a beast, but I need to account for the whisky.'

   Lapin had a look as if he was ready to pay for any amount of alcohol out of his pocket just to knock Schulz off his feet.

Yes, of course, but I’ll step out for a smoke first, the boss said, you don’t smoke here, do you?

No, we don’t smoke, Leo smiled condescendingly, like a satisfied cat giving a mouse a reprieve before certain doom, walk down the hallway to the right to the end; you can smoke on the balcony.

We'll be right back, just five minutes, the boss mumbled, fussing around in his pockets, Dan, you’ll go, I think I forgot my cigarettes.

Yes, I’m coming.

   The balcony was an entire terrace with comfortable chairs and a view of a rather dreary park.

What a bunch of losers, Lapin grumbled as he flopped into a chair, who would build us a smoking area like this? And this Schulz—this half-baked Hans... 'we’ll write it off as entertainment expenses, but only if there’s a protocol...' I'd kick the jerk out, but he’s acting all important...

— Listen, boss, I don’t think there’s a single millimeter of space in this building that isn’t under surveillance. Maybe we should discuss sensitive issues through personal chat?

— To hell with them all. There’s only one delicate question here, how do I get out of the protocol? We arrived, took a stroll, and we'll send the signed protocol in a week. I’m off on vacation in three days, Anton can sign it, he’s our enthusiastic worker. And we know how to shift blame, let Arumov deal with him later.

— You're right, of course, — Denis agreed, casually taking a drag, — but we have to justify the delay somehow. You can't just tell our hero Shultz: we'll send it in a week, he won’t drop it.

— He won’t drop it, — the boss nervously and hastily smoked, — listen, Dan, you're a smart guy, think it through.

— I'm like everyone else: I didn't read the documents carefully. Plus, I don’t understand anything about biophysics and nanorobots.

— Whether you read them or not, you need to come up with an excuse.

— What did Arumov say about the protocol?

— What can he say? You know how it goes: analyze everything carefully, and if there are no serious comments, sign it.

— So we need to find comments in the materials or the protocol.

— Thanks, captain, — Lapin sarcastically saluted with his cigarette, — good thing I figured it out myself. This Shultz will wipe the floor with us over any comments. And if you didn’t realize, he and Arumov have already made arrangements, and God forbid, he starts calling him. We need to find something foolproof, rock-solid, so that nobody can nitpick.

— Where are you going to find that…

   They were silent for a couple of minutes, admiring the pre-sunset nature through the clouds of smoke.

— Nothing special comes to mind, — Denis began, — but let’s at least stall for time, maybe Shultz will get drunk on his whiskey and go to sleep.

— You suggesting we sit here until he gets wasted?

— No, we can politely stall. Let’s ask him to show us the telecoms super-soldiers. Like, show the product, since we’ve been wandering around all day but haven’t seen the most interesting part.

— It's unlikely it's that simple; they might not even be here, and Arumov has probably already shown them.

— Well, since Arumov was shown, let him take the heat himself. I think it's a perfectly trivial request. If you want to sell something, show the product first. And the longer they search for them, gather, and so on, the better. We will think about it for now…

— We'll think… we could ponder all night about it, what's the point… However, let's give it a try; who knows, maybe Hans will actually spit it all out and leave.

   Naturally, Leo viewed the prospect of demonstrating something else with poorly concealed annoyance.

— Well, I hope you realize that I can't arrange a small victorious war for all of you to see with your own eyes? — he inquired rather impolitely.

— Why immediately a war? — Denis spread his hands, — I'll just pour us some more; are you against it?

— Of course, please do.

— So, we would like to see the super-soldier units at the RSAD Institute. You are undoubtedly using your own development, right? And we want to try out your unique combat management system; we've heard so much about it…

— Oh, great! It costs me nothing to perplex half our security service. And we don't use terms like 'super-soldiers.' For your information, they are just as human as you are. We call them — special units.

— I understand. Sorry. There's no need to get the whole security service in an uproar; three or four people will suffice, plus activate your wonderful program.

— Such requests need to be made in advance. It requires a signature now, at least from the deputy head of security…

— Come on, Leo, would you really refuse us a trivial request? We don't refuse you anything. Apparently, our assistants mixed something up with the meeting agenda; we were absolutely assured that this event was approved.

   Kidd shot Denis a sarcastic look, but upon encountering the threatening visage of Lapin, he quickly nodded awkwardly and rummaged through his emails:

— Yes-yes, I apologize; I got mixed up, here's even a letter from the management with a request…

— Yes, include the demonstration of the special units…, — Dick came to the rescue.

— We are to blame; we got completely swamped, — the brothers said in unison.

   Leo grimaced as he watched the unremarkable performance, but decorum was observed, so after a bit of grumbling, he suggested they wrap up the meal.

   A few large reclining chairs, reminiscent of massage chairs, rolled in. Leo explained that they would first be shown the capabilities of the tactical simulator and combat control system, which was best experienced in full immersion. The bandwidth of the RSAD Research Institute's internal network was more than sufficient for full immersion functions without connecting to a terminal, and the chairs could serve as a biobath for a couple of hours. They promised to showcase actual, not virtual, supersoldiers later. Leo grumbled a bit about how alongside the informational materials they also received demo versions of all the programs. In response, Lapin openly suggested not to be difficult. But in the end, everyone settled down comfortably and launched the network application.

   The quiet suburban evening in Moscow quivered and began to blur, as if someone had splashed water on a watercolor painting: the designers had done an excellent job. Some outlines started to vaguely emerge – and that was about it, at least for Denis. The half-formed image flickered a couple of times and then vanished, along with it all the surrounding space. It disappeared and then reappeared immediately, but the feeling was still unpleasant: as if you had suddenly gone blind. A distressing red window unfolded right in front of him, demanding a system reboot.

   Denis cursed under his breath and removed the flexible tablet band from his wrist. The old neurochip often malfunctioned, and each time Denis cursed the creators of this device. Although his neurochip wasn’t exactly that, being a rather outdated system made up of contact lenses, miniature headphones, and an external tablet that functioned as a computer, transmitting signals to the lenses and headphones through a few wires implanted under the skin. Compared to any provincial from the deep Russia, not to mention cyborgs like Doctor Schultz, Denis was completely free from foreign interference in his body.

   Of course, there are pleasant moments in everything. It became possible to observe the life of the corporation in a more natural and relaxed environment, without any service programs. It was quite nice to see that the park is not perfectly trimmed and symmetrical, that the lush tropical greenery of rare species planted next to the stream, and all those enormous bright flowers that do not exist in nature, are not the painstaking work of many geneticists and gardeners, but merely the botched job of a couple of computer rats and one designer, and not even the best one. He clearly overdid it with all kinds of butterflies and flocks of hummingbirds. But the most pleasant discovery was that Dr. Schultz, like an aging maiden, heavily abuses not only cosmetics but also clever programs that disguise his true visage. His face is slightly wrinkled and tired, his eyes are puffy, there are many wrinkles, and his shirt is far from dazzling white. He looks just like an ordinary person, not the chief researcher of a massive research institute — a delight to behold.

   Denis's blooming face was the first thing that greeted the doctor when he returned to the ordinary world. The rest of the team continued to stare blankly at something. The doctor was quite puzzled, if not shocked. Two bulky security guards and a plainclothes officer, most likely the on-duty doctor, were already hurrying over. 'They probably thought I would act like a blind mole dragged out of its burrow, running around the room screaming, bumping into robots and smashing bottles of expensive liquor,' Denis thought and smiled even wider.

— It's all right, gentlemen, — he said, still smiling, — I have a very old chip that automatically shuts down during a malfunction. I'm fine.

— How old is it? — the approaching doctor wondered, naturally not expecting that assistance wouldn't be needed. Any modern model was too deeply integrated with the human nervous system, and even rebooting or reinstalling the operating system of the chip itself became a medical problem.

— Oh, very old, — Denis replied evasively, — even the full immersion function works poorly.

— Where did you find such a thing?! – the doctor shook his head in confusion and gestured for the guards to leave; he was deeply upset that because of something trivial like an old neurochip, he was pulled away from more pleasant tasks and forced to rush to help someone who seemed to be feeling fine. — You should have found time to replace it long ago. Walking around with such junk in your head – it’s not a government issue, after all.

— Exactly. I don’t trust anyone poking around in my head, sorry.

— It's a phobia, it can be easily treated, — mumbled the annoyed doctor, following the guards.

   Now Leo seemed quite interested in this story. It must be said that he was very good at hiding his feelings, but for some reason, he didn't feel the need to hide his surprise this time. Yes, the esteemed doctor was knowledgeable about various aspects of cybernetics, and unlike the retired doctor, he was extremely meticulous and curious.

— You're being vague, my dear friend. Neurochips that can simply be turned off or rebooted haven’t been manufactured for about sixty years, I suppose. No one would even consider implanting such junk, and it wouldn’t be able to register in our local network.

— What difference does it make to you? It registered, didn’t it?

— I must admit, I’m intrigued. You’re quite an unusual person, Denis, — the usual cold politeness had disappeared from Leo's tone.

— Glad to hear it, but don’t try to befriend me.

— Why, don’t you have any friends?

— Actually, no one really has friends; it’s self-deception.

— Where does such cynicism come from?

— Just a sober view of human nature.

— Alright, Denis, don’t think that I want to become your friend. I don’t really believe in strong male friendships either.

   Leo smirked crookedly, poured himself another whiskey, and pulled out a large ashtray and a set of dark golden cigars that smelled of exclusive closed clubs, where relaxed gentlemen decide who will be president tomorrow and when it's time to crash blue-chip stocks.

— It's disgusting, of course, but I love breaking the rules, — he explained.

   Denis regarded these preparations and the doctor's obvious desire to establish a closer connection with some suspicion and politely declined the offered smoking stub.

You know, I'm interested in unusual people, said Leo, only truly unusual ones, because, you know, everyone pretends to be unusual, but in reality, they are fighting against the system only from the comfort of their cozy biovan.

Why do you think I’m against the system?

Then what’s the need for such a chip? Modern networks are quite secure – computer terrorism and hackers have long gone out of fashion.

My work is not safe.

Well, well, you seem so gloomy all the time, just kidding, of course. But don't try to fool me. I bet this is much more serious...

Don’t interfere in my life, it’s mine, and I do what I want with it.

Of course, but it’s foolish to have a double standard with yourself.

— What do you mean?

In direct terms, you seem like a sensible guy who doesn’t believe in people, and that’s right. But it’s doubly foolish to believe that your life in this cruel world belongs to such a basically insignificant being as yourself.

At least, only I am registered in my head.

   The doctor smirked again.

You know, I requested information about you, hope you don’t mind?

   He thought, "He seems to want to annoy me."

No, of course not, I suggest you come over to my place and dig through my dirty socks.

   Leo just smiled amiably in response.

   Regarding how Russian corporations protect personal data, I have no illusions, Dennis smirked knowingly in response to Leo’s grin.

   I just don’t leave unnecessary information about myself, he concluded to himself.

So, you’re not registered on any social networks, you have no credit history, which, by the way, is suspicious in itself. No major property, although it might be registered in relatives' names… but it doesn’t matter. The most surprising thing is that you have no medical insurance and apparently no records of a neurochip implantation.

I said I don’t trust anyone to dig in my head.

So there’s no chip? The doctor’s eyes sparkled like a hunting dog that’s caught a scent. So it means there’s only an external device that mimics its function.

You say that as if it were illegal.

Technically, there's nothing illegal about this. But in practice, it's highly frowned upon when chip registration in networks is disconnected from the actual person. I still don’t quite understand why you need this? You’re essentially condemning yourself to a lack of normal work; I won't even consider working in the remnants of the Russian Empire…

Thanks, I enjoy working in the remnants.

No, seriously, you wouldn’t be able to leave for Europe, let alone Mars. Or rather, it depends on how successfully your device imitates the functioning of a normal chip.

I'm going wherever I want; this is an old military model, designed specifically for high-ranking officials in the army and MIK, but it’s decades ahead of its time,” Denis boasted. “In addition to the emergency shutdown feature, my vehicle has many other functions: for example, it can selectively disable confusing streams of information that sometimes appear in the network.

Any neurochip can defend itself against viruses, especially since there are practically none in modern networks.

I wasn’t talking about viruses.

Then what were you talking about?

Is it really that important?

I’m curious,” Leo said, emphasizing his politeness, “there may be these confusing streams of information in our network too; that would be extremely unpleasant.

Yes, they exist; they are virtually in all networks.

What a nightmare, and wouldn’t you want to visit other divisions of 'Telecom' to investigate...

Leo, my friend, I don’t understand your humor; I was talking about cosmetic and other service programs, which are essentially no different from viruses: they shamelessly invade my brain with the complete, mind you, negligence of operating system developers for network servers and neurochips that don’t provide any means of protection against such interference.

Do you really believe the yellow press, that ordinary citizens can be turned into slaves of virtual reality with a snap of the fingers?

I am quite ready to believe that this happens constantly for commercial purposes, and I want to see the world with my own eyes.

— Ah, so that's what you mean, — Leo sighed with exaggerated relief, — I assure you that at least in European and Russian networks, users are always informed when such programs are in use, and any cases of illegal intrusion are carefully monitored, while unscrupulous providers lose their licenses. I also want to assure you that in the new operating system developed by our institute, there are special user protection measures in place, very serious measures.

— Please save your compliments about your own program for someone else.

— You doubt every word I say: it’s going to be hard for us to work together. Actually, fine, let’s say the providers aren’t monitored too closely, but what difference does it make: you see things slightly differently from reality. Besides, all intelligent people know that cosmetic programs are just a big scam. For instance, you bought a program for five hundred euro coins to get abs or enlarge your breasts by a couple of sizes. And another richer fool paid a thousand for the same company's firewall and laughs at you. Well, if you're really foolish, you might buy a super-cosmetic program for two thousand… and so on, until your money runs out.

— I’ll just take off my lenses and save a couple of thousand.

— If desired, any cosmetic program can be bypassed without such sacrifices.

— I know, — Denis agreed, — they are generally unreliable, all those mirrors, reflections, and so on.

— Well, the issue with mirrors and reflections has long been resolved, but any external device like a camera, especially one not connected to the network, often allows you to detect the operation of a cosmetic program just by viewing the footage. Essentially, this service works properly only on Mars, or in certain local networks.

— Uh-huh, like your network. I didn’t want to bring this up, but let’s just say that it seems your mascara has run.

   Leo smiled at his interlocutor, full of caustic irony.

— I thought I was the king, god, and great moderator of the local network all in one, and then this lieutenant showed up and easily saw through me. Woe is me, I think I’ll drink. By the way, you pour yourself one too, snack a bit, don’t hold back. And believe me, your advantage over the average person is quite ephemeral, while you create a plethora of obvious problems for yourself.

   “Why is he pestering me, and even trying to get me drunk?” Denis thought, “even though I’m doing my job: he’s totally forgotten about the protocol.”

— You think you’re somehow superior to the rest, — Leo continued philosophizing, waving his cigar towards those lying still, staring at the ceiling, almost showering them with ash, — that’s just an illusion, no better or worse than any other common delusion. A person generally lives in the grip of illusions, no matter how they are presented. In different eras, it could have been Hollywood, or swinging incense on Sundays, or other nonsense. Denying neurochips is the same as denying progress altogether: it’s clear that humanity has no other way to step onto the next level of development except through direct modification of the mind and, if it can be said, human nature itself. The development of our civilization can only be successful if it relies on a proper improvement of the human being. Agreed, hairless monkeys, in fact controlled by their instincts and other atavisms, sitting atop a pile of thermonuclear missiles, represent a civilizational dead end. The only way out of it is to enhance our own minds through our own reason; that’s a recursion in itself. The emergence of neurotechnology is as significant a leap forward as the creation of the scientific method.

— You know, I think you’re wasting your breath on a hairless monkey like me. You have some decent drinks in your group, and it wouldn’t hurt to have escort services for clients.

— Come on, — Leo waved dismissively. — How would you feel about the prospect of transferring your consciousness directly to a quantum matrix? Just imagine the possibilities! Controlling yourself like a computer program, simply erasing or altering certain pieces of firmware. Your neurophobia could be fixed in one move.

— What a ridiculous notion of happiness. Seriously, I don't think a person could remain human after this; it would rather turn into something resembling a very complex program. I really have no idea what consciousness is or if it can be reduced to ones and zeros, and say, add a bit more consciousness to someone... In short, I don't believe that a computer program can self-correct.

— You may not believe it, but this sounds more like a primal fear of technology that's so incomprehensible it feels akin to witchcraft. It's the logical limit of our evolution, after which a new stage of history will begin. Isn't it wonderful that the immaterial world will finally triumph over the mortal physical shell? You could become like a deity: moving spaceships, conquering the stars. As a human, you're forever bound to this miserable speed of light; you'll never conquer the universe, except perhaps the nearest one. But a quantum mind, with the help of 'fast communication', can race through the galaxy at the speed of thought and wait millions of years for its devices to reach Andromeda.

— Wait a million years? I'd tire of myself out of boredom. Personally, I prefer the prospect of hyperspace cruisers and conquering the nebulae of Andromeda in the spirit of senseless and merciless social realism.

— This is fiction, but not scientific. The path I outlined for you is real. This is our future, no matter how much you fear or want to convince yourself otherwise.

— Perhaps I won't even argue. And I'll remind you once again that you've chosen the wrong target audience for your PR campaign.

   - Isn't this a PR campaign?

— Of course, we're thinking about the fate of humanity. Nonetheless, I have a vague suspicion that our conversation is a cleverly disguised promotional campaign for Telecom's products: today only, rewrite your consciousness onto a quantum matrix and receive a miracle electric grill as a gift.

   Leo just snorted.

— Maybe you hate advertisers too? Damn traders, right?

— A little bit.

— In our somewhat backward territory, you can still survive, but on Mars, for example, if we assume you've managed to settle there, you would look like a real outcast, much like a person moving through a city on a horse with a sword at their side.

— Well, fine. Let's assume I have certain problems, but I really don't want to "talk" about them. I like being the marginal figure you are diligently portraying. No, not even that, I enjoy destroying myself; I find some masochistic pleasure in it. And I still don't understand where this psychoanalytical itch comes from.

— I apologize for my persistence, but I have a brother—a psychoanalyst—who works at a rather intriguing company on Mars. You might be interested in getting to know his work better.

— Why would I?

— Strangely enough, it most piquantly confirms your, generally speaking, somewhat illogical phobias.

— Why phobias all the time? Why do you think I'm afraid of something?

— First of all, everyone is afraid of something, and second, when it comes to you, you're definitely afraid of neurochips and virtual reality. You're afraid that, by someone's malicious intent, they will get into your head and tweak something.

— But can’t that happen?

— It can; the world around us has that property in principle. But you can't just cocoon yourself and look at the world through aquarium glass until you die.

— That's still a big question of who is looking at the world from the aquarium. I'm open to change, but I want to change of my own volition, as much as possible.

— That's still a big question of whether a person can change of their own will or if something must always push them.

— I'm not going to play philosophy with you. Just accept as a fact my life creed: the network should not have power over me.

— A creed—quite intriguing.

   Leo hesitantly fell silent and leaned back in his chair, subtly distancing himself from his interlocutor. He cast a dissatisfied glance at Lapin, who was fidgeting in his seat; no, he couldn’t hear or see this conversation, and all his movements were precise and calculated, as if by a computer. Thus, the neurochip prevented muscles from stiffening and restored normal blood circulation, so that a person wouldn’t feel like a wooden puppet after sitting still for several hours. People look eerie during full immersion, as if they are sleeping with their eyes open. Their breathing is steady, their faces calm and serene, and even someone could wake such a person: the neurochip reacts to external stimuli and interrupts the immersion. But who knows, the same person may look at you differently upon returning from the virtual world.

— So, a credo. You mean to say that you always adhere to certain rules. Perhaps we should call it a code, a code of hatred towards neurochips and Martians? – Leo continued to analyze stubbornly. – So, some of the tenets of your code are already clear to me.

— Which ones?

— Let’s phrase it this way: leave as few traces as possible. From this global principle spring the others: don’t take loans, don’t register on social networks, and so on. Am I right?

   Denis only frowned more in response.

— No cybernetic interference in the body — that’s the second obvious rule. You must cleanse your soul and mind, young padawan. And, surely, the standard set as a bonus: have no attachments, trust no one, fear nothing. Do you know what’s truly interesting about all of this?

— And what’s that?

— You’re not pretending and you strictly follow the rules of your code. By the way, do you have any followers or students?

— You can sign up for my first free seminar.

— After all, this is a phobia, — Leo leaned back even further with satisfaction as he said this, — and it's so strong that you've built a whole theory around it. It's not as simple as it seems to resist the corrupting influence of Martians your entire life. You need to have some kind of overvalued idea or be afraid of something very deeply. Just think, a few hundred euro coins, a two-day stay in a medical center, and all the pleasures of the world at your feet. Yachts, cars, women or orcs with elves, just reach out and take it.

   Denis didn't reply, shrugging irritably. He underestimated the doctor's ability to penetrate into the soul of a conversation partner. Well, a person who's lived for almost a hundred years and has a whole team of professional psychoanalysts at his disposal, along with a Martian buddy, surely must master such techniques perfectly. Denis had no doubt that this team of psycho- and other analysts existed, and during important negotiations, Leo surely made use of their services. However, in this situation, it probably wasn't worth concocting a complex conspiracy theory; Denis simply relaxed and inadvertently revealed his true nature. Yes, damn it, he is afraid of neurochips and virtual reality, he feels like a cornered wolf in a world where the territory of 'pure reality' is relentlessly shrinking every day. And, to be honest, he never even tried to figure out the reasons for his hatred. What makes him so persistently reject what seems to be the obvious truth of life? Perhaps he is indeed just a desperate outcast, subconsciously sensing his inability to fit into modern society? 'I'm just a ghost, — thought Denis, — made of flesh and blood, but a ghost living in a world that's long been of no interest to anyone. Where almost no one is left.'

— I would unleash a pack of good psychologists on you, — Leo seemed to read his thoughts, — they would devour you whole, just kidding, of course, don’t pay attention. You don’t hear that often; most people wouldn’t understand it.

— And you would, then?

— Well, yes, I have a lot of life experience, appreciate that, — Leo smiled slightly. — There's an interesting psychological effect: no one feels uncomfortable that there’s a chip in their head that completely controls their nervous system and could potentially be managed by someone else. As I said, so what if you see a little bit of something that isn’t exactly real? Perhaps your behavior is even slightly adjusted, well, so be it; it's still better than being herded into a stall with kicks and clubs. Let's assume the network is created and managed not by a human, but by some infallible higher being. The modern world is too complex and incomprehensible; we need to accept it as it is.

— So, this isn't a phobia at all.

— Yes, that’s the reality, so your fears are doubly irrational. You might as well hate food producers for being able to control you with hunger. Or, for example, a gun pointed at your head controls your behavior much more reliably than a clever chip embedded in your operating system.

— Don't you see the fundamental difference? It's one thing when you're controlled from the outside, but you know who is forcing you and how, and it’s entirely different when it’s done without your awareness.

— But you don't understand that there’s no difference; the result will always be the same: someone will control you. Previously, it was clumsy bureaucrats with lots of silly paperwork. They couldn’t meet the challenges of the times, so they were replaced by more flexible and developed elites of transnational IT corporations. Martian control is designed to be more subtle and complex, but it’s no less reliable.

— Exactly, I never forget who develops operating systems for network servers, and I do not wish to experience what psychological effects they can create.

— So, do you prefer the blunt pressure of a totalitarian state machine?

— Why should I choose between two evidently bad options?

— A rhetorical question? If there were another, wonderful option in every respect, I would choose that too. Alright, let's drop this topic. After all, each of us has our own weaknesses, — Leo generously suggested.

— Let’s leave it, I think we’ve rambled a bit; our colleagues are probably worried.

— I don’t think so; they’re likely completely absorbed in what they’re seeing. Yes, we’ll join them now. Our administrator resolved your little issue; now the app has a partial immersion option. Can you imagine how tough it would have been for you on Mars? The simplest everyday action turns into a huge problem. Sooner or later, Martian network standards will reach even these backwaters of civilization.

   Denis was quite tired of these hints about his mild underdevelopment. He was about to snap, but upon catching the cold, mocking gaze of his interlocutor, he realized he needed to find a better response.

— I see that our conversation, apart from discussing my horrifying phobias, keeps coming back to Mars: Mars this, Mars that… What’s up with that? Apparently, I’m not the only one with certain complexes.

— Well, I said, everyone has them.

— But you don’t want to disclose them.

— You can disclose them, — Leo generously allowed.

— Why would I? I think I'll keep such interesting information to myself.

— Keep it, — Leo grinned wider, — do you think information about my special feelings for Mars has any value? I’ll tell you more; I wouldn’t mind exchanging this dreary Russian reality for Martian life.

— But you don’t just want to move; otherwise, you would have followed your brother ages ago. You want to hold the same position there as you do here. But it seems it’s not working out; the Martians don’t recognize you as an equal?

   For a moment, something akin to old anger sparked in Leo’s eyes but then quickly vanished.

— I’ll get a chance to improve my position. But maybe you’re right; there’s no point in digging into other people's problems. Let’s think about how to help each other instead.

— And how do you propose we help each other? – Denis was surprised; he hadn’t expected such a turn in the conversation.

— I can help with, for instance, your psychological issues, — Leo replied with a slight hint in his voice, — a branch of the Martian company ‘DreamLand’ recently opened in Moscow, and they specialize in healing human souls. You should check them out.

   ‘Is he joking? – Denis thought. – If there’s some hidden meaning in his words, I didn’t catch it.’

— Well, I’ll check it out, will you give me a discount on their services?

— No problem, my brother works there, but at the main office on Mars. I'll arrange a decent discount for you, — Leo said this in the most casual tone, as if he were discussing a trivial service for a friend, but there was still a slight hint in his voice.

— How can I help you with that?

— We'll see. First, go to 'DreamLand', they’re not magicians there either, maybe they won't be able to do anything.

   “This is a strange proposal, but apparently, it’s about some informal contacts that should be kept away from prying eyes,” Denis concluded. “Well, in the end, I have nothing to lose, I’ll drop by this shady Martian outfit.”

— Alright, I’ll swing by in the next few days if I have time, — Denis agreed with a similarly indifferent exterior but a slight hint in his voice.

— Perfect. Now, I invite you to the wonderful world of augmented reality since normal virtual reality is not available to you.

   This time, there were no theatrical effects; a huge hologram unfolded almost instantly, obscuring the accessible view. In the hologram, Denis was seated in the same position, slightly behind everyone. A control console for his avatar appeared on the left. He automatically tried to look behind him, but the image immediately dimmed and started lagging. Leo, strangely enough, also decided to stick with a simple hologram; Denis could only assume that the doctor was worried about his condition.

   Before their eyes lay the scene of a secret underground bunker where forbidden experiments on humans were conducted. Solid metal and concrete, gray uneven walls, the hum of powerful fans, dim daylight lamps hanging from the ceiling. The room appeared abandoned at the moment, with enormous autoclaves no longer in operation. Their insides, thoroughly scraped and washed, with a tangle of tube-like structures resembling intestines peeking through translucent doors, were unabashedly visible. They were almost at the center of the room, next to computer terminals and holographic projectors, which were currently displaying some schemes, graphs, and diagrams, as well as a model of a combat cybernetic system, that is, a super soldier. For Denis, it was a hologram within a hologram; for those experiencing full immersion, the impression was probably somewhat different. Super soldiers, I must say, made a striking impression with their very muscular and warlike appearance.

   The opposite side of the hall, separated by barbed wire under high voltage, smoothly transitioned into grim caves, in the depths of which were cells barred with steel bars as thick as a human arm. A muffled but still chilling roar emanated from there. Most likely, there were prototype super soldiers that had not gone into series production. All these gloomy dungeons were hardly to be taken at face value, but Denis felt that such mockery of their own project was unbecoming for a serious Martian corporation.

   Among the staff of the Research Institute, there was another person, of short stature, wearing a white coat draped over his shoulders, neat and pulled together. With his right hand, he skillfully manipulated numerous holograms while excitedly explaining something. He had light hair and attentive gray eyes. One strand of hair was replaced with a bundle of fiber optic threads. "Our best chip developer," Leo quietly noted. However, this was unnecessary; Maxim, that was the developer's name, paused his story upon seeing Denis and nearly rushed over to hug him, stopping just in time, seemingly having read the system's note that in their full immersion, Denis was present, so to speak, virtually, only in the form of an avatar.

— Dan, is that really you? I certainly didn’t expect to see you here.

— Likewise. You mentioned working at 'Telecom,' but I thought you were talking about the Martian office.

— I had to return for the project, — Max replied evasively.

— It's been a while since we last met.

— Yeah, probably about five years, — Maxim hesitated, it turned out they didn't have much to say to each other.

— You've changed a lot, Max; found a good job and look well...

— But you, Dan, haven't changed at all. People can change in five years, find new jobs...

— Are you two acquainted? – Leo finally recovered from the new shock. – Anyway, silly question. You never cease to surprise me.

— We studied at the same school, — Denis explained.

— Oh, come on, — Anton jumped into the conversation, apparently finding the situation amusing, — Denis is truly a mystery, an antique neurochip is just the beginning. Is it not clear that they share a long and tender relationship? If we learn the details of this relationship, we will certainly be even more surprised...

— Colleagues, — Lapin decisively motioned his giggling deputy aside, — Maxim was about to finish his story, and we’ve already lost too much time.

— We’ll talk later, — Max unsteadily walked back to his previous spot.

   The subsequent narrative turned out somewhat disjointed; at times, the speaker seemed to "freeze up," as if lost in his thoughts, yet it was still interesting. Since Denis only managed to get through the table of contents from the materials provided by the RSAD Research Institute for review, he gleaned a lot of new information from this talk. Of course, Max did not reveal any special secrets, but he spoke quite plainly and with great expertise. From his words, it was clear that numerous similar projects in the past had ended in complete or partial failure due to incorrect initial concepts. The predecessors of the RSAD Research Institute, fascinated by the possibilities of cloning and genetic modifications, constantly attempted to churn out an army of monsters resembling either orcs, werewolves, or some other dubious characters. Nothing worthwhile came of this: the considerable time required for the organisms to mature (at least ten years, and who knows how many more for unsuccessful experiments) led the project to lose its relevance. In the sick fantasies of some "cyberneticists," bolder experiments were born, aimed at creating completely unintelligent beings ready to go into battle immediately after hatching from the bodies of the infected populace, but these were more akin to biological weapons. Ghost units were also mentioned, that fought for the homeland and emperor as one of the few projects brought to fruition, but even this was given an unflattering verdict: "Yes, it's interesting, exotic, but it holds no particular value for study. Furthermore, — here Max wrinkled his nose in disgust, — all of this is extremely immoral, and combat effectiveness has not been proven." It suddenly dawned on Denis that the attractive, in quotes, interior design was a mockery not of the organization itself, but of its less successful predecessors.

   Curiously, did the others notice these intriguing nuances? Denis sat behind everyone and could easily see each person's reaction. The boss seemed to be bored, resting his plump hand on his impressive chin, listlessly glancing around. The twins attentively absorbed every word, occasionally clarifying something and nodding together after appropriate explanations. Anton was, of course, doing everything he could to show that he had studied the material thoroughly unlike some others, constantly interrupting the speaker with comments like: "Ah, so that’s what it is! I couldn’t quite grasp how nanorobots are involved in tissue regeneration, this question, in your remarkable manual, seems to be insufficiently covered." At first, Max tried very gently to explain to Anton that he was slightly mistaken or reducing everything to a dilettante and primitive level, and then he simply began to agree with him. Denis could literally feel Leo's sardonic smirk on his face.

   The main idea and feature of the RSAD Institute project was that all work was carried out with experienced professional soldiers. The interested organization selected the best employees from its security service, preferably in good physical shape and no older than thirty, and transferred them under the guardianship of the Institute for about two months. After a series of surgical operations, ordinary soldiers were transformed into super-soldiers. The procedure did not affect the mental abilities of the future super-soldiers and was even partially reversible. Of course, this system had its drawbacks. No matter what, a human could not be turned into a terminator. As Max explained, although soldiers were the most important component of the system, without other components such as drones, 'smart' weapons, and armor, they were not meant to fight. Only the fusion of man and machine made the system truly deadly. It was clear that the system's purpose was primarily for targeted special operations, not for breaking through the 'Mannerheim Line'. Yes, and such soldiers could make mistakes and feel fear. However, if Denis correctly interpreted some vague hints, it was possible to make adjustments to the basic design at the client's request: to strip the super-soldiers of fear, doubts, and the ability to question orders.

— Okay, Max, — Leo could no longer hold back, clearly pressed for time, — I think we have understood the main idea. Does anyone object if we proceed to demonstrate the tactical simulator?

   There were restrained murmurs of approval.

— Max, you are free to go.

   Max politely said goodbye and quickly faded from the hologram. The doctor immediately joined the others in their complete immersion, in a rather strange way that only Denis could appreciate. His hologram suddenly bent, dimming and shimmering in all the colors of the rainbow, towards Leo, like a giant hungry amoeba, and, separating a trembling translucent image from its body, wholly absorbed everything into itself, leaving only a shell with empty eyes in the chair. For everyone else, of course, nothing unusual happened; Leo simply got up from his place and walked to where Max had stood before. He turned and looked at Denis with a cold smirk.

   Computer models of super soldiers, completely devoid of self-preservation instincts, adorned from head to toe with ammunition belts and clad in black armor, stormed skyscrapers, bunkers, and underground shelters. They showcased space battles, planetary fights, and night skirmishes where only the bright traces of flying bullets were visible. Soldiers ran through plasma fire, across rows of enemy tanks and infantry, over minefields and blazing cities, running without fear or defeat across the tactical simulator's expanses.

— Dan, are you not too busy?

   Unnoticed, Max grabbed one of the empty chairs and sat down next to him.

   - Seems not.

Denis attempted to minimize the hologram to a small window, but someone forgot to add that option to the network application. In the end, he simply closed the connection via his tablet, sending Leo a message to prevent the local emergency services from rushing to him again.

— You know, I couldn't even minimize your hologram – typical telecom indifference, he complained to Max.

— So, is it any different at INKIS?

— Not really, it might even be worse: our networks are old.

— Dan, you really haven't changed at all.

— What did I say?

— Nothing special, you've always had a knack for healthy criticism towards your own organization. How are you holding up there?

— I'm managing, work is work, it won't run away into the woods. Is everything arranged differently for you guys?

   Max responded with a mocking snort.

— Of course it's different. Martian corporations are not a job, it's a way of life. We love our syndicate and are loyal to it until death.

— And you don't sing hymns in the morning?

— No, we don’t sing hymns, although I’m sure many wouldn’t mind. Everything here is different, Dan: our own circle of friends, our schools for children, our shops, separate residential areas. Our closed world, into which it is almost impossible to enter from the street, but I managed to get in.

— Well, congratulations, but why did you suddenly descend from your telecom heights to plain Russian workers?

— I don't forget my old friends.

— Then maybe you can find an old friend a cozy spot in Telecom?

— Are you sure that's what you want?

— Do they make you sign in blood, not eat pork on Saturdays? If anything, I'm ready and I can sing hymns.

— Much worse, for this job you pay with yourself and your memories. You will have to voluntarily forget yourself and your past, otherwise the system will reject you. To become one of them, you'll have to turn yourself inside out. Basically, that’s what I wanted to do: start a new life on Mars and shove all that pointless, careless Russian past far away into a dusty closet. I’m so fed up with our country, everything here seems to be set up in a way that hinders any rational activity. I thought a new life awaited me on Mars.

— Dude, don’t stress, I was joking about work. So, this new life disappointed you?

— No, not really, I got what I wanted.

   But Max's eyes were very sad at these words. "I’ve spent half a day at this damn Telecom, but it's already gotten to me, — thought Denis, — you can't say anything directly. Everything is recorded by hidden cameras. Should I show my ass to those curious freaks?"

   Outside, the park quietly descended into twilight. In the conference room, the junior colleagues of the robot waiter appeared – cleaning robots. They began to trace mathematically correct spirals around the furniture, quietly humming, apparently, cleaning brought them lots of joy.

— Listen, Max, is it true what they say about these… loyalty checks, you know, when they upload some programs to the chip that check all your conversations and actions for key words and topics, so you don't accidentally compromise the organization or share anything unnecessary…

— It's true, there is a special department in the security service that writes such programs and selectively reviews the recordings. One good thing: officially this structure is completely independent, no, not even the most important official of 'Telecom' has the right to view their files.

— Officially, but what about in reality?

— It seems to be the same.

— And if you are in someone else's network, or if there is no network at all, how do they check you then?

— They implant an additional memory module, which records all the data entering your brain, and then automatically transmits it to the first department.

— And if you, for example, are alone with a girl, do they record everything too?

— Absolutely, they carefully record it, check it, and then the whole crowd watches and laughs.

— Not great, I guess? – Denis asked with exaggerated sympathy.

— No, it's fine! Does it bother you that much?! Have you seen those, I don't know what to call them, preserved freaks from the first department, floating in their jars... I don't care what they look like.

   Two cleaning robots suddenly stopped, their tele-cameras on long flexible arms rotating with curiosity. One came to a stop right next to Max, trying dedicatedly to look into his eyes, Max irritably kicked it, aiming for the camera, of course, he missed: the tentacle quietly retracted into the body, and the robot, avoiding trouble, went off to clean somewhere else.

— I don't care, understood? Let anyone, even Schultz, poke into my personal life. He, the bastard, sticks his long nose everywhere, I don't care, but I get paid a lot of money! Enough for an expensive car, apartment, yacht, a little house on the azure coast, I have enough for everything. I have ten times more money than you, got it?

— I don't doubt that even the last security guard here gets paid more than I do. Why are you worked up? – Denis was a bit taken aback.

   An awkward pause fell. A heavy tension hung in the air, almost like mercury, pooling on the floor and forming a still glossy mirror of heavy metal. Its toxic vapors gradually enveloped the conversation partners. It became so quiet that the murmuring of a stream could be heard in the twilight park outside the window.

— And how's Masha, haven’t you two gotten married yet? You didn't even invite me to the wedding.

— Masha? Which one…, oh, Masha, no, we broke up, Dan.

   Another pause hung in the air.

— What, you won't even ask how I'm doing? – Denis broke the silence.

— Well, how are you?

— You won't believe it, everything's awful, — Denis started readily. — A hundred times worse than for you. Not just my career, but maybe even my life hangs by a thread because of my new boss.

— Who is he?

— Andrey Arumov, the new head of the Moscow security service, have you heard anything about him?

— I haven't heard anything good about him, Dan, seriously. Stay away from him.

— Easy to say, stay away, he sits just two offices away from me. Who told you about him?

   Max hesitated a bit.

— From Leo, among others.

— Yeah, your Schultz is doing some shady deals with INKIS. And who is he to you, a supervisor?

— I see, sorry Dan, but I can't go into too much detail about Leo. He wouldn’t like that. What are your problems with Arumov? Is he planning to fire you?

— Not exactly. It's certainly slander and insinuation, but he thinks I'm somehow connected to the former boss's affairs. Recently, there was a rather noisy case, in narrow circles, about the arrest of a smuggling gang within the security service of INKIS.

— Dan, you talk about it so calmly, — Max's face expressed genuine concern, — why are you still in Moscow? I'm not joking about Arumov; he crushes people as easily as cockroaches, he won't stop at anything.

— Where do you get these curious assessments of character? Do you know him?

— No, and I have no desire to. Dan, let me help you get a position in Telecom, somewhere far away from here. The organization will hide you. You'll get a new life.

— Wow, you’ve really climbed the career ladder if you can make such offers on behalf of the organization.

— On the contrary, my career is actually in decline, to be honest; I'm practically in exile here. But I have a friend in management, or rather he used to be my friend… For his level, this is a trivial matter, and he won't refuse.

— You really got chummy with that Schultz, congratulations.

— Leo has nothing to do with it; we’re not friends. Dan, let me contact them today. I can’t talk about this either, but I have some confidential information about Arumov. If you’ve crossed him in any way, you can't stay in Moscow. You need to hide, and hide very well. He’s a mad fanatic with immense power.

— I can't work in Telecom.

— They will implant a normal chip for you at the company’s expense if that’s the case.

— That’s exactly why I can’t.

— Dan, what kind of childish nonsense is this? You're in deadly danger, and you're still playing your adolescent nonconformism. When we were in school, that was cool, but now… it's time to make a choice. You can't escape the system; it will catch up with everyone anyway.

   “It doesn’t seem like Max is just showing off with his proposal,” Dan thought. “Maybe this is fate: a strange, almost unbelievable meeting with an old friend. What have I achieved in the past thirty years? Nothing, really, so it would be foolish to turn my nose up at such gifts. Fate is giving me a chance to live a normal life: to get a decent job, start a family, have kids. No, of course, I won’t change the world, but I will be happy.” The ghost of evenings by the fireplace filled with children’s laughter beckoned him from a beautiful distance, where everything was planned and scheduled for the next fifty years. And from this hope for a simple, happy life, he felt a sharp pang in his chest. “I have to agree,” Dan thought, feeling cold, but his lips, almost against his will, said something entirely different:

— I’ll call you as soon as I think of something.

— Please don’t drag it out.

— Alright, maybe I’ll figure it out myself somehow.

— You won’t figure it out with Arumov, believe me.

— Let it go, Max. How are your super soldiers doing? Are we going to see them today or not?

— Probably not.

— Seriously, Lapin will be thrilled; there will be a reason to not sign anything.

— Because of you, by the way. Soon Leo will announce that we can’t demonstrate the super soldiers due to technical problems, like they’re all undergoing routine maintenance. But the real reason is that Leo doesn’t want to show them to someone without cosmetic programs.

— Are there some issues with their appearance? What about everything you sang about Telecom’s social responsibility five minutes ago?

— We all sometimes sing what we’re told. There are indeed some problems with their appearance. All those tales about our cyber monsters socializing normally are just tales. The expensive cosmetic programs are what turn those tales into reality. Without them, everyone will shy away from our poor super soldiers. And there will be no continuation of the species for them either. I honestly hope they won’t choose family men.

— Still, your little house on the Côte d'Azur has its certain drawbacks.

— This isn't my project; I was just pushed into this until the situation is clarified. But yes, it's true that this particular research institute is ruining lives for its own selfish interests; there will always be those willing to engage in it. I just dreamed of using my talents for something more beneficial: for example, creating new types of engineered retroviruses. It's a very promising area of research; with them, people might even stop aging and getting sick altogether.

— Well, your retroviruses can have various applications.

— That's true. Want to take a look at them, just not officially, of course?

— On super soldiers? Wouldn't Schulz have a problem with such initiative?

— No, the main thing is that this doesn’t leak officially. All the genuinely important people in the project have been aware for a long time; it's not much of a secret. I don’t really understand what he's scared of: maybe he doesn’t want to traumatize the delicate psyche of our cyber-killers. Like, what if someone sees them without their makeup, and they get distressed and can’t sleep well; I don’t know. In short, don’t tell anyone about this.

— I’m not a chatterbox. Show me.

— Then please, follow me.

   Max walked forward with broad, confident strides. Denis looked around constantly and unconsciously tried to stay close to the wall. After they crossed a long corridor from one office building to another and began descending into the real telecom underground, he immediately felt insecure. They had gone too far, and there was no chance of getting back on his own. For a person sent into exile, Max moved through the automatic checkpoints with remarkable confidence, especially with a stranger beside him. First, they descended underground in one elevator and passed through steel airtight gates marked with an orange stripe. They walked through several corridors, took another elevator down to a door marked with a yellow stripe. They passed several scanning devices, then moved along a long white wall two stories high. As Max explained, clean high-class rooms where molecular chips are cultivated were behind it. After descending in another elevator, they found themselves at a gate with a green stripe, but this time, two armed guards stood behind a transparent partition in front of it. A remotely controlled gun with ten barrels was menacingly swiveling from the ceiling.

— Hello, Petrovich, — Max greeted the older man. – A client from INKIS has come to admire our SS men.

— That's how you call them, — Denis snorted.

— Actually, someone from their office has been here; there was a really creepy bald guy, — Petrovich replied uncertainly, — and it looks like you just whipped up the request.

— But I can lead guests into the green zone.

— Sure, but let me call your boss. No offense, Max.

— No problem, go ahead.

   Max took Denis aside.

— If Leo calls, — he explained, — they might turn us away, but that's okay, at least we had a walk.

— Yeah, having a walk is great, but if I get shredded by all those barrels, that would be unfortunate, — Denis replied, nodding at the gun on the ceiling.

— Don't worry, it seems to fire some kind of paralyzing bullets.

— Oh, in that case, there’s nothing to worry about.

   Five minutes later, Petrovich summoned them and raised his hands apologetically:

— Your boss isn't answering.

— What is he busy with that is so important? — Max wondered. – Of course, keep an eye on it, but be a bit more diplomatic with the client, or else the contract will fall through, and we'll all be in trouble.

— Just a moment, I'll have a word with the shift supervisor... Okay, go ahead, — said Petrovich a minute later, — but Max, don’t throw me under the bus.

— Don’t worry, we’ll just take a quick peek and then head back.

   The gates with the green stripe opened silently. Behind them was a huge room filled with rows of lockers along the walls. Right in front of Denis, a menacing warning appeared: 'Attention! You are entering the green zone. Movement of visitors in the green zone without supervision is strictly prohibited. Violators will be detained immediately.'

— Hey, Sussanin, they’re threatening to put my face to the floor here.

— The main thing is not to stick your nose where it doesn’t belong. And don’t even think about turning off the chip.

— I think I’ll take off my contacts and headphones, but I won’t turn anything off. I want to see your beauties without any makeup.

   Denis carefully hid the lenses in a jar of water.

— Put on your suit, Dan, from here on it's a clean zone.

   After another small room where they had to endure a cleansing aerosol shower, they finally gained access to the telecommunications secrets. The further path lay through a dimly lit tunnel. A greenish light emanating from the walls slowly brightened just ten to twenty meters ahead of them, illuminating either small insect-like robots or a tangle of some circular tubes and hoses. A small monorail ran along the ceiling, and transparent sarcophagi floated above their heads a couple of times, inside which were frozen faces and bodies. Robots resembling octopuses and jellyfish were also crawling on the bodies within the sarcophagi. Occasionally, there were windows in the walls. Denis peered into one of them: he saw a spacious operating room. In the center was a pool filled with something akin to thick jelly. Inside floated a disemboweled body, from which a whole web of tubes led to the nearby equipment. Above the pool hovered a robot vivisector, clearly taken from a nightmarish vision, resembling a gigantic octopus. It was cutting and shredding something inside the unresponsive organism. A laser beam flashed, while simultaneously a dozen tentacles with clamps, dispensers, and micromanipulators dove deep into the body, quickly doing something and surfacing again, with the laser flashing once more. The doctors apparently controlled the operation remotely; only one person in a thick jumpsuit with a mask on his face was present in the room. He merely observed the process. Against the wall stood another sarcophagus with a body waiting its turn. Max nudged his companion forward and requested that he keep his mouth shut. Nearby, small metallic insect-like robots clicked and tapped in a disturbing manner. Among the entire environment, they bothered Denis the most. He couldn’t shake the feeling that the cunning machines were gathering in a swarm in the greenish gloom behind them, ready to pounce from all sides, jab their sharp steel legs into soft flesh, and drag him into the pool with the robot vivisector, who would methodically disassemble him into pieces. And he would float in several jars, his brain in one, and his intestines next door.

— What is this place? — Denis inquired, trying to distract himself from the horrifying thoughts.

— An automated medical center where the most complex surgeries are performed: organ transplants, cancer tumor removals, and if you ask, they can even attach a third leg. Oh, and they also assemble our SS troopers here. Follow me.

   Denis was reluctant to enter through the side door first, but Max was impatiently huffing behind him. Unconsciously tensing up, he stepped inside and stole a glance upwards. The squid was right there. Comfortable perched on a crane beam under the ceiling, it was busily sorting through its tentacles and menacingly blinking its red eye.

— Look, Dan, our mini-army.

   Max waved his hand towards the rows of transparent containers, where unusual beings lay lost in a deep lethargic sleep.

— You can take off the jumpsuit, no one will see. I’ll take mine off too.

   Denis peeled off the uncomfortable silicone fabric and stealthily approached the nearest container. Perhaps it was once a person, but now the creature inside had only human-like outlines remaining. The humanoid was tall, around two meters, thin, and very wiry, its muscles knotted around its body like thick ropes. It resembled an intertwining of ropes or tree roots, but not a human body. Its skin was glossy black with a metallic sheen, like a polished car body, covered in tiny scales. From its bald head, several thick steel whiskers protruded, each half a meter long. Here and there, sockets jutted out from its body. Its black, sickle-shaped faceted eyes dimly reflected green light. A pair of smaller eyes was visible at the back of its head.

— Good-looking, — Denis commented on the unusual sight, — If you met something like this on the street, you'd definitely soil your pants. But why does it have whiskers on its head and scales?

— Those are vibrissae, a kind of sensory organ to detect environmental vibrations, maybe something else, I’m not sure. The scales are extra protection, in case the armor doesn’t hold.

— Did you come up with such a monster?

— No, Dan, I was just finishing up a couple of chips in the control system. To be completely honest, the main concept is actually borrowed from imperial ghosts. It's all pretty much as I said, but the heavy lifting in turning this into a monster is done by cunning retroviruses, which gradually reshape the organism's genotype under the supervision of specialists. Only in the empire they injected the retroviruses directly into the egg cell, so the baby out of the autoclave came out looking quite frightening, even scarier than these. We simply don’t have time to wait for them to grow, so the process has been slightly refined and accelerated. There is certainly some loss of quality, but it will suffice for our purposes.

— I see you’re spinning tales to your clients.

— Let’s say, the real client – Arumov knows much more.

— I see, and we’re just the small players here. Is there anyone we can pin against the wall if these freaks suddenly get riled up and start causing trouble?

— No, they won’t start causing trouble; the control is multi-tiered and very reliable.

— So, if you’ve copied everything from the ghosts, they also hate Martians.

— Yep, your like-minded folks, — Max smirked, — the Martians were leading the development, I think they made sure to have the right target of class hatred.

— How did secret imperial viruses get to you? – Denis asked in the most casual tone.

— I’m not in the loop on that… stop asking such questions, the less you know, the longer you’ll live. Let me wake up a couple of SS men, you’ll get to know them better.

   Denis jumped back from the containers as if scalded.

— E-e-eh, let’s not. I’ve met enough, and Schultz is probably getting impatient, cursing in his bad German.

— Alright, Dan, don’t be a coward. I swear, everything is under control. They have software limitations; they can’t attack or do anything without orders.

— Software? I don't trust software limitations.

— Stop it, they have a control chip in every muscle; all I need to do is enter the command with the right code, and they'll drop like a sack of potatoes.

— This is a truly awful idea. Let’s go instead.

   But Max was already unstoppable; he was determined to raise the monsters from the grave purely for mischievous reasons.

— Wait five minutes. If you’re really nervous, there’s a simple verbal cancellation code; just say "stop," and they’ll cut off right away.

— What if he plugs his ears, will the code still work?

— It will work just fine, — Max was already working on the second container.

   The octopus moved up to the ceiling after him and helped with some injections. Dan was ready to hug the robot like a brother, just so it would give him the wrong shot. For some reason, the super-soldiers scared him to the bone.

— It’s done.

   Max stepped aside. Two lids slowly lifted.

— Here, meet Ruslan – the commander of his own unit at the Research Institute of R.S.A.D. Grig – a regular soldier. This is Denis Kaysanov from INKIS.

   Grig seemed to be the largest of them all. He was tall and broad, just standing there like a statue, showing no interest in the surrounding world. Ruslan was a bit shorter, more lively, and the intertwining ropes on his face seemed to have some meaningful expression: a mix of arrogance and complete detachment with a hint of universal sorrow in his faceted eyes.

— Hello, Denis Kaysanov, nice to meet you, — Ruslan grinned, revealing a row of small sharp teeth, and glided closer to him.

   The movements of the super-soldiers made just as much of an impression as their appearance. As they wore no clothes, it was evident how their muscular sinews intertwined and breathed, like a ball of snakes, propelling their bodies with incredible speed and ease. Their joints bent freely in any direction; Ruslan closed the five meters to his interlocutor in one slow, fluid leap. As they moved, the slightly rubbing scales created a faint rustling sound. The creature extended a black knotted limb for a greeting.

   “Don’t worry, he’s completely under control, — Denis tried to steady his shaking knees, — don’t show him your fear; he’s sure to sense it, like a dog.”

— Hey there, — he cautiously touched the limb but immediately pulled back.

— What are you afraid of, Denis? — Ruslan inquired with a honeyed voice. — We don’t harm peaceful citizens.

— Don’t mind him, Ruslan, — Max said casually, continuing to work on Grig, he can see you without the cosmetic program.

— Max, please don’t be a show-off, — Denis barked warningly as the faceted eyes moved closer and fixated on him with increased interest.

— Really? Why can Denis see me without a program?

— His chip is very old; actually, not the chip, just the lenses – he removed them, — Max replied innocently without turning around.

   Two vibrissae, dangling in an arc from his forehead, unexpectedly brushed against Denis's face, and he felt a slight electric shock.

— Well, buddy, why did you come to us without a chip? — Ruslan hissed in an even more honeyed voice.

— Ma-ax! — Denis yelled, already at the top of his lungs. — Disable them, damn it!

   Suddenly, Grit, who had been standing like a statue, grabbed Max with a sharp movement, and metallic whiskers dug into his face. There was a crackle of electricity, and Max fell to the floor, screaming in agony:

— Dan, my chip turned off! I can’t see or hear anything, call a doctor. Dan, slap me on the shoulder if you hear me, — apparently, Max didn’t realize what had happened.

   ‘I’d slap you, damn demonstrator,’ — Denis thought desperately. The seriousness and hopelessness of the situation were evident. Even if help arrived for the disabled chip as quickly as it had before, what would they do with the rampaging monsters? How could Petrovich help with paralyzing pellets?

   Max continued to scream and blindly crawled forward, but he quickly bumped into a wall and, hitting his head painfully, stopped.

— Stop? — Denis said uncertainly.

— Code not accepted, highest priority operation, — Ruslan grinned wider. — Your song is over, Denis Kaysanov.

— Dan, — Max spoke up again, — there’s a panel on the wall to the side, enter code 3 hash so the robot can disable the soldiers.

   ‘Easy to say,’ — Denis thought, the panel was beckoningly blinking two meters away from him, but Ruslan gently placed a hand on his shoulder.

— Are you going to take the risk? — he mocked.

— Please don’t kill me, I have kids, the chip just broke, and there was trouble with insurance. I’ll soon be getting a new one, I just had to make do... you know how uncomfortable it is, no chatting, no gaming properly... — Denis babbled, trying to convey to his opponent that no resistance was expected and he could relax. Ruslan smirked and removed his hand.

— It’s time to finish the operation, — Grit rumbled, — time is running out, we’re at risk.

— Wait, soldier, I know what I'm doing.

— Accepted.

   Ruslan seemed to get a bit distracted, and Denis decided that there wouldn't be another chance. He squealed like a wounded boar and kicked Ruslan in the knee, trying to poke him in the eyes with his hand, thinking it was the only vulnerable spot on the monster. He nearly hit the knee, and his hand, caught in steel pincers, was twisted until it cracked, forcing him to collapse on the floor. Nevertheless, the octopus above became interested in what was happening and reached its tentacles with syringes toward the soldiers. "Bro," Denis thought through a red haze, "I was so wrong about you, come on, bro." Unfortunately, the odds were too uneven; the tentacles ripped out with flesh flew into the corner of the room and lay there helplessly crossed on the floor. Grig jumped, clinging to the ceiling beam like a giant spider, the air sang and whistled from his movements. A robot ripped from its mount flew to the opposite corner, tumbling like a tumbleweed and scattering wires with screws.

— Dan, what's happening, are you still here, slap me on the shoulder, — Max yelled again, apparently feeling the vibrations of the walls from the machine that had crashed into them.

   "Looks like they're going to finish me off, you show-off, — Denis kept trying to break free but felt he was losing consciousness, as his hand had long been hanging on a thread. – How could this happen, I was just sitting, chatting about this and that, drinking whiskey with sausage. Damn it, why did I look at these freaks. How foolish it all turned out. I’d rather have Arumov catch me, at least that would have made some sense…"

— I have one question for you, Denis Kaysanov; if you answer it, you’re free… Tell me, what can change human nature?

   Ruslan crouched down and moved in really close, so close that Denis felt his even cool breath; he understood that he had only a couple of seconds to live.

— Go to hell, kiss the ass of the Martian who answers your damn questions. He'll tell you that you're nobody, a failed experiment, you'll die in a drain…

— Gustav Kilby.

— What? — Denis was taken aback, already preparing to ascend to the heavens.

— Gustav Kilby, that's the name of the Martian who knows the right answer. When you meet him, be sure to ask what can change human nature.

— Commander, it's time to wrap up the operation, we're dragging this out too long, — Greg said in an uncompromising tone.

— Of course, soldier.

   Ruslan shoved Denis to the floor with force. A black shadow lunged forward, a dull thud was heard, and there was a terrible crunch. Grig's body convulsed on the floor with a torn throat, a pool of thick black blood with a strange medicinal smell oozed from the wound.

   Max, losing hope for his comrade's help, rose up, cautiously holding onto the wall, and trudged along the perimeter, hoping to find a way out.

— Tell me, Denis Kaisanov: do you hate Martians? — Ruslan asked in the same honeyed voice, brushing blood off his fingers.

— I hate them, and so what? They couldn't care less about my hatred.

— No, we must kill people without chips, and this is much deeper than just a standard programming. There is a hidden threat in someone.

— You think it's in me? Sorry, I wasn't notified about that.

— It doesn't matter, no one can guess where the thread of life will lead and where it will break. Ghosts speak to me, they promised that soon I will meet the true enemy.

— Dan, — Max shouted, — it seems like my chip is waking up.

— Max is also part of the system, — Ruslan hissed, — you can't trust him, you can't trust anyone. You'll be all alone, no one will help you, everyone will betray you, and those who won’t betray you will die, and you won't get anything in return if you manage to win. All paths that promise gain are lies to lead you astray from the only truth. You will be alone against the entire system, but you are our last hope. Don't forget to find Gustav Kilby. Good luck in your hopeless struggle.

— Thank you for the offer to fight the whole world, but I think I'll look for an easier option.

— I've looked into your soul, Denis Kaisanov. You will fight.

   Ruslan grinned joyfully and climbed back into the container. He crossed his arms over his chest and stared at the ceiling with the most innocent look. Max rushed up from behind, still somewhat dazed, and began to circle around the lying Ruslan, lamenting:

— Dan, what the hell happened here? I was shouting, why didn’t you call for help? Who wrecked the robot… Damn, what happened to Grig!?

— That's what happened, Max: you telecom nerds really messed up with your soldiers.

— Ruslan, report immediately what happened here, — Max demanded a bit hysterically.

— Private Grig lost control, I had to neutralize him. The reasons for the incident are unknown. Report concluded.

— Max, stop being foolish, call for help already, — Denis advised.

— Right now.

   Max shot out into the corridor like a bullet. Denis, disregarding all caution, leaned down to the lying Ruslan and whispered:

— Okay, call me the enemy, but why didn't you kill me? If your program is to kill people without chips.

— I was given free will.

— Why would a scumbag like you need free will?

— Because I have to suffer, and only those with free will can suffer.

   Denis followed Max into the corridor. Without caring for the cleanliness of the premises, he took out a cigarette and clicked the lighter. His hands still shook, and his dislocated right arm throbbed noticeably. 'Now a shot of whiskey wouldn't hurt. A couple of glasses,' he thought. A loud, chattering crowd, with Max leading, was rushing towards him. Denis pressed himself against the wall to avoid being swept away, and a small robot crunched indignantly underfoot.

   Denis refused medical assistance. His only desire was to leave the nightmarish research institute filled with ruthless killers, ready to sever any head unburdened by electronics without a second thought. When he returned to the conference room, Leo was already negotiating with Lapin that the protocol would be signed a little later. Everyone maintained complete composure as if nothing had happened. Max had disappeared somewhere, perhaps sensing his blunder. Denis also did not lose his cool. Only when they were already waiting for the helicopter on the pad in front of the main building did Leo quietly take Denis by the elbow and lead him aside.

— Denis, I hope you accept my deepest apologies on behalf of our organization and myself for what happened. This is a ridiculous accident, Grig lost control, measures have already been taken.

— It's no big deal, stuff happens. But this is no accident, Grig acted strictly according to your firmware.

— Dan, please, let's not hold any personal grudges. Yes, Max is an extraordinary idiot; he should read the secret instruction before bringing his school friends to gawk at the super soldiers.

— A secret one? So, it's not in the regular instruction.

— You do understand that such things are not written in more or less publicly accessible documents.

— The guys without chips won't appreciate it?

— Secret backdoors in the system will negatively affect sales. To be more precise, it's not even a backdoor; it's like…, but Dan, trust me, this is not aimed against you at all. In our time, encountering someone without a chip is incredibly rare, and for them to suddenly end up where they shouldn't be is just beyond comprehension.

— Not aimed? When they release them to have some fun, will you shoot me an email?

— You will never meet them again. In INKIS, they won’t let you near them, I promise. You can’t imagine how conservative Martian leadership can be. If there is any dusty order from a hundred years ago, they will definitely shove it everywhere.

— Ah, now I understand, it’s all about the dusty Martian bureaucracy.

— Dan, let’s be reasonable. What will change if you start shouting from every corner about how Telecom breeds killers in the basements? Do you really hope to break the game of a serious Martian corporation? It will be worse for everyone, and you’ll start being seen as the town lunatic.

— Everyone says that when they want to hide something.

— Well, in principle, yes, but on the other hand, they are often right. By the way, the offer Max made is still on the table. I am also willing to support it. You will get a good chip and any professional courses of your choice at the company’s expense, to avoid repeated cases, so to speak. You don’t even have to stay with Telecom; go wherever you want. Such an offer should satisfy everyone.

— I’ll think about it.

   “All roads that promise profit are lies to lead you off the only true one,” Denis remembered, “ugh, I can’t believe I’m about to buy this creep’s tales. Let him suffer without me.”

— If something doesn’t suit you, don’t hesitate to speak up. We will definitely meet reasonable wishes.

— We will settle, Leo.

— So, are we agreed?

— Well, almost… What should I say to Lapin and the others?

— You don't need to say anything. You were chatting with a school friend, who took you to show his workplace. That's it; you never saw any super soldiers. About the arm, by the way: you fell there, slipped.

— It hardly hurts.

— That's great, — Leo allowed himself a wide, friendly smile. – Stop by 'DreamLand' when you decide.

— Wait, one little question: why did you switch to full immersion so strangely? — Denis suddenly remembered.

— Didn't get it?

— Remember when you joined the others in full immersion after our incredibly interesting conversation about phobias and the fates of humanity? It looked like you were sucked into virtual reality, and only I could see it.

— Did someone actually hit you on the head? Do you really not want to see a doctor? – Leo raised his left eyebrow theatrically. – I can't quite picture what you're trying to say, but do you think I went through all this trouble and cooked up a script in three seconds just to poke fun at you?

— Well, you turned and looked at me like that..., — Denis replied uncertainly. – I don't know, maybe you have a special option in all your programs: to scare off a visiting neurophobe.

— Take a day off, that's my advice.

— Of course, — Denis waved his hand in annoyance.

   It seemed that his mood was already in the complete dumps, and there was nowhere worse to go. Yet still, it felt like a cold shadow touched his face. The choice isn't cheerful: either he's starting to hallucinate, or a hungry amoeba is lurking in the bushes. 'Or Hans is having a blast; let's stick with that option,' Denis decided.

   A cool autumn evening wrapped the park vegetation in its wings, causing the revived shadows of telecom's nightmares to dance around a small, illuminated spot. Knobby monsters, steel octopuses, and hungry amoebas - everything mixed in the treacherous light of the streetlights. The sound of an approaching helicopter was heard.

   All the way back, Lapin was singing like a nightingale about how great buddy Dan performed during the negotiations. Anton, observing this scene, even felt a bit down. Denis smiled with effort.

   "You really set me up, Max," he thought, "as if Arumov wasn't enough, and the fact that I almost got killed wasn't bad enough, I'm now knee-deep in the intimate secrets of one of the most powerful Martian corporations. They won't let me just roam around with a bag full of their dirty laundry. They won't be lured in by chips and courses; they'll take care of it some other way. And of course, I'm no better: why the hell did I stick my nose in where I wasn't wanted? Of course, I wanted to take a look at the super soldiers. I should have just gone to the zoo and gawked at an elephant, idiot." It felt uncomfortable to realize that the program for killing people without chips was embedded in all the super soldiers. It might not be specifically aimed at him; perhaps it was prepared against the Eastern Block. But if some lieutenant accidentally got crushed, no one would shed a tear. It was unpleasant to feel like a pathetic defenseless bug that could be stomped on in the grand game of corporations.

   The helicopter, lifting a cloud of dry debris, landed on the roof of INKIS.

"Are you coming, Dan?" Lapin asked.

"No, I'll stand for a while; I need some fresh air. It was a heavy day."

"Alright, see you tomorrow. I'll definitely note your special role in the negotiations."

"Don't worry about it, see you tomorrow."

   When the colleagues left, Denis approached the very edge again and bravely stood on the parapet. The view from this side was quite unpleasant: abandoned areas were fenced off with stone blocks and coils of barbed wire. Officially, no one lived there, but many types of bandits, drug addicts, and homeless people inhabited the area, and they didn’t necessarily have to be human since, with advances in high technology, losing one's human form had become so easy. Bosses like Leo Schulz paid good money for various useful mutations and implants, for long life and absolute health. Some paid nothing at all, but they still received these enhancements. They had to be tested on "volunteers" first. If you listened closely, an anguished howl sometimes rose from the slums, sending chills down one's spine. And during the construction of the institute, this area probably looked quite decent. Maybe even astronauts lived here with their families while the dream of manned flights to the stars was still alive.

   Along the rubble and fences, winding whimsically, two ribbons of railway stretched, on one of which a train was slowly crawling. It seemed to be moving very close. Denis could hear the clanking of old mechanisms and the ringing, the thumping of wheels, which resonated in his ears long after the train had turned into a smoky haze on the horizon. He could almost see the faces of the people sitting inside; rather, he just knew what those faces should look like: gloomy, tired, listlessly gazing at the dreary surroundings. For some reason, Denis envied these not very happy people who could simply sit by the window in an uncomfortable noisy carriage and think of nothing. Watching the endless rusty warehouses, pipes, poles drifting past, broken roads, and abandoned factories, long forgotten by everyone. Sooner or later, this dying urban landscape would be replaced by another. By the time the train left the outskirts of Moscow, only a couple of people would remain in the carriage, sleeping or reading tabloid newspapers in different corners. And then no one would be left at all, and Denis would travel alone. He would be the last to jump off onto a nameless worn-out platform made of old concrete crumbling beneath his feet. He would watch the departing chain of the train, look at the dense forest, listen to its conversation with the gentle wind, and go wherever his eyes led him. And at the end of the journey, he would surely find what he was looking for; it’s just a pity that, for now, Denis didn't even know what exactly he wanted to find.

— Hi, Lena. How are you?

   Denis carefully perched on the edge of the desk in front of secretary Arumova, who was perfumed and made up, wearing a fashionable blouse and a skirt skirting propriety, hugging her prominent artificial curves. Although if approached impartially, the artificiality of her forms was obvious only to those who had known her for a very long time, like Dén. Her informal duties in relation to the management, besides making the already murky instructions of the management even more complicated, were no secret to anyone. For a time, Denis even tried to be nice to her: he brought flowers and chocolates, hoping to somehow improve his shaky career position, but he realized that it looked pathetic, and he stopped.

— I'm doing fine, — Lenochka tried to gently push Denis off the table to avoid damaging the drying nail polish, — but yours, it seems, isn't so great. What trouble did you manage to get into?

— Is Arumov not in a good mood?

— It's just awful, and clearly, it has something to do with you.

— Well, maybe you should go see him first, relieve the tension?

— Very funny, — Lenochka made a haughty face, — let's see you relieve the tension as the punching bag today. I'm not going to him again.

— What, is it really that bad?

— Yes, it's really awful, are you listening to what I'm saying?

— Well, at least say a kind word for me.

— No, Denchik, not this time. You know, I really don't like it when he looks at me like THAT and stays silent, like a damn fish.

   ‘Yes, it’s really a mess, — Denis thought, — and clearly, it’s related to yesterday’s trip to that damn institute.’

— Come on, go already. I should have sent you right away instead of chatting here…

— Then goodbye, cry when they take me to the asteroid belt.

— Oh, Denchik, not funny at all.

   ‘Oh, Lenochka, — Denis thought, — you’re a fool, of course, but beautiful… I should have taken the chance and pressed you against some dark corner, it looks like it’s time to die anyway.’

   Arumov, as expected, was sprawling lazily in a black leather chair and didn't even acknowledge the entrant with a nod. There was only one low and uncomfortable chair by the enormous T-shaped table with a green stripe in the middle. Denis had to choose from the chairs lined up against the wall. For a moment, he considered annoying Arumov by sitting against the wall, like in a queue at a clinic, but he decided against it. It was enough that he dared to choose a piece of furniture not intended for him.

   The silence dragged on, worse still, Arumov shamelessly bored into his subordinate with his gaze and smirked unpleasantly. Den tried to meet his gaze, but couldn't last even two seconds. That unblinking, lifeless stare was unbearable for anyone.

— You called, comrade colonel? — Denis surrendered.

   And again, the oppressive silence. ‘What a bastard, he knows that waiting is worse than the execution itself,’ — Den thought, but again he couldn't hold out.

— Did you want to have a chat?

— Have a chat? — Arumov inquired in the most mocking tone. — No, lieutenant, actually, I was planning to throw you out of the gates of this establishment.

   Denis made an incredible effort and looked into the colonel's face, carefully avoiding his gaze.

— So can I go?

   But the colonel was not fooled by his tricks with the glances.

— You will leave after you explain to me why you're meddling in something that's not your business.

— Was that a rhetorical question? What business am I meddling in?

— Rhetorical?! – Arumov hissed. – Yes, it was a rhetorical question, and if you don’t plan to just get away with a simple dismissal, of course, you can choose not to answer.

   ‘There are practically open threats. Indeed, it’s a tough situation. – Denis frantically considered the situation. – What has him so angry? It’s definitely that damned trip, that Lapin – bastard! Spoke a word to the management. It’s definitely Lapin or Anton. Both of them, if pressed, would spin such tales that you'd never live it down.’

— There's no need to look at me with puppy eyes as if you were innocent. One of your accomplices has been sweating here all morning, swearing on his mother's grave that a certain Lieutenant Kaysanov somehow 'struck a deal' with Doctor Schultz to postpone signing the meeting protocol and other important documents. – Arumov did not hesitate to confirm the worst fears regarding the colleagues.

— Other documents?

— Other documents, — Arumov mimicked, — and I see you didn’t understand the situation at all before jumping in with your lieutenant face. The main financial documents haven’t been signed, Schultz isn’t answering, supposedly he’s away on a business trip. And I had high hopes for this project, and now it’s all falling apart because of you.

— That can't be true. Why the hell would Schultz listen to me?! If he decided to bail, that’s his decision.

— Well, I’m also curious why the hell… What were you discussing with him?!

— Nothing much, we were just drinking and chatting about completely unrelated topics.

— Stop pretending to be an idiot. Get to the point, for Christ's sake! – Arumov barked so loudly that the windows shook. – What were you talking about? Do you think, lieutenant, you can play the hero here?! Do you think nothing is known about your past antics? I know everything about you: what you live on, who you sleep with, how many times a week you call your mom in Finland!

   Arumov was seriously angry; he turned red, jumped out of his chair, leaned over Denis, and continued yelling directly in his face.

"You, lieutenant, have this in my one and only folder! If even a single sheet from this folder gets sent where it shouldn't, you’ll see the pattern of the sky for the last time on the cosmodrome! Do you understand me or not? Or do you only sing, nightingale, when you’re not asked to?"

   The door slowly opened, and Lena cautiously peeked through the narrow gap, ready to hide back instantly.

"Andrei Vladimirovich, the supply people were here..."

   Arumov fixed her with a completely insane look.

"Sorry to interrupt, would you like tea or coffee...?" Lena was completely flustered.

"What the hell tea, go to work!"

   Lena disappeared instantly, but it seemed Arumov had cooled down a bit too. Denis carefully wiped the sweat from his forehead: 'Phew, it seems he personally won't kill me. He'll leave that to the professional thugs, but still, Lena, thank you, I won’t forget this if I survive.'

"You know, lieutenant," Arumov lazily slouched back in the chair, "I'll tell you a cautionary tale: about my comrade who loved to meddle in other people's business. Can you guess how it ended?"

"It apparently ended poorly."

"Yes, poorly. And so badly..., no one even expected it to turn out that way. In general, somewhat like your situation."

"Well, my story isn't over yet."

   Arumov said nothing in response, he again smirked unpleasantly, suddenly threw his legs on the table, and pulled out a cigarette.

"Do you smoke?"

"Only when I’m nervous. Right now, I don’t feel like it."

   Arumov grimaced slightly and puffed on his cigarette.

— So here's the story: I had a comrade, let's call him Captain Petrov. He didn't really report to me directly, but I still tried to keep him in check from time to time. He was always acting like a hero: an excellent combat training officer, a father figure to the soldiers, and a headache for all the commanders. He didn't want to comply with the decaying system, and one wonders why he even became an officer. Whenever something happened, he didn't try, like everyone else, to cover it up. No, he immediately reported it up the chain, wanting everything to be fair. But you understand where the law is and where justice lies. And because of him, our performance metrics were dropping. In other units, everything was covered up, but in ours, there was hazing, fires, and sensitive documents going missing. Essentially, it was no model military unit, but more like a circus. That was a time when the spirit of freedom seemed to waft in from somewhere over the Atlantic. They wanted to reach for the stars alongside those fools. But that's fine; our Petrov had no intention of going anywhere, yet he was still influenced by those harmful ideas. One day, a small 5-ton container was delivered to our unit, and we were ordered to keep it in the warehouse and protect it like the apple of our eye, but what was inside the container was none of our business. There were no proper documents for it, but a nondescript gray little man accompanied it, and he said that it could sit there without documents, that there was nothing dangerous or, heaven forbid, radioactive inside, but it was strictly forbidden to open it under any circumstances and we shouldn't talk about it either. And all the smart people understood that gray little men should be listened to; if they say to store it without documents, then it should be stored. If they say it's safe, then it must be safe. But Petrov didn’t believe the gray little man. Somehow, he learned about that container and kept walking around it, sniffing it, carrying different devices, measuring the fields. Our commander was quite nervous about it, but he didn't want to put the fool Petrov in a bind by reporting him to the gray little men. But then, fool Petrov decided to report the command about the container himself. And lo and behold, the gray little men don’t share their business with anyone, regardless of whether he’s a brigade commander or a district commander; they couldn’t care less. In short, a commission swooped into our unit, and our commander was struggling to explain what the container was. And the district commander turned out to be just like Petrov: "What gray little men?!" he yelled. "I’m a combat officer; I’ve tangled up their kind on my officer's flag!" And he ordered: "Open the container!" But our officers were all brave guys; if they had to go into hand-to-hand combat against enemy machine guns, that was fine, but digging into the pockets of gray little men—sorry, that's off-limits. In the end, the district decided to take the container for themselves. They loaded it onto a trailer and drove off. And guess who was the escort from our unit?

— Captain Petrov?

— Captain Petrov, poor fool. Would you bother with that cursed container if you were in his place?

— Accompany him? What's the big deal, it was closed after all.

— It was closed, but it turns out that they took him away because of Petrov, and he was near him longer than anyone else. You know, I wouldn't have approached him even from a kilometer away; there was something strange about him that everyone who didn't have a completely dulled survival instinct would avoid like the plague. Even the patrol routes changed because of him, and you could really get into trouble for that. So, our captain took the container away, and everyone seemed to forget about it. I don’t know how the district dealt with him, but they left us alone. The only thing is that the captain started acting weird. He walked around like a zombie, dark circles under his eyes, had a huge fight with his wife, and then somehow sat down with us to drink. He got drunk and started spinning some wild tales. We thought, that's it, Petrov has lost it. He says, I never went into that container, I didn’t even touch it, but it haunts me every night. He says every night he approaches the warehouse and sees that the container is open and feels like someone is watching him from inside and waiting for him to come closer. And though he doesn’t want to go, he feels pulled to it. He stands there looking at the open container while the warehouse is empty around him, knowing that there’s no one for hundreds of kilometers, just him and whatever lives in the container. And he also realizes it’s a dream, but knows for sure that if he steps inside, he won’t come back out, neither in a dream nor awake. He said before, that container used to haunt him once a week for about five minutes, and he would still wake up in a cold sweat. Then it started coming every night, lasting longer and longer. Eventually, once he closed his eyes, he would see it right away and, importantly, couldn’t wake himself up; his wife heard him groaning in his sleep and would wake him. He saw every doctor and healer, but they couldn’t find anything. And then it got really bad; he made a contraption, connecting a stun gun to an alarm clock, setting it to go off in ten minutes so he could fall asleep, and the shock would keep him from going into the container. And that was every night. But you know, you can't keep that kind of schedule for long. Good doctors took our captain and injected him with a horse dose of tranquilizers so he could sleep normally. And you know what? He slept through the entire night, and in the morning it was like a load had been lifted. He walked around rosy-cheeked and satisfied, but everyone who heard his drunken confessions started to avoid him by a kilometer. Of course, they laughed at us, but we still kept our distance. Then people started disappearing in the area. First one, then two, and when it reached over twenty, everyone started thinking a maniac was on the loose. But I never doubted for a second who our maniac was. We hadn’t seen Petrov’s wife or kids for a long time. In the end, we started keeping an eye on him, and it turned out he went to his garage every day. Thankfully, we didn’t go poking around; the little gray men beat us to it. They sealed that garage with a hermetic cover and quarantined everyone living within a kilometer of it, including us. In short, we were all scared out of our minds while stuck in that quarantine. Nobody hoped to come out alive; all the guards and medics walked around in the highest level of chemical protection, leaving food and water for us in a triple lock. It was a real nightmare.

— So what did they find in the garage? Twenty corpses?

— No, they found what he was feeding those corpses.

— And what was that?

— I have no idea, they forgot to tell us.

— Excuse me, Colonel, but I'm completely confused: what is the moral of this story?

— The moral for you is this: don't stick your nose into someone else's business and remember that things can end much worse than you expect.

— There's no need to stick your nose into someone else's business.

— So what were you talking about with Leo Schulz?

— About my chip, or rather, about its absence. This Leo is quite a strange guy, he kept trying to figure out what phobia I have regarding chips.

— And you don’t have a phobia?

— No, I just don’t like neurochips. You can manage without them in Moscow.

— Yes, you can manage in Moscow, even more so in the wastelands.

— Well, in some places you can.

— Alright, so how do you know Maxim?

— Doesn’t your file say we were classmates?

— It does, but it didn’t say anything about your tender friendship.

— I have many friends from school. Max and I were friends, but then he went to Mars, and we kind of lost touch.

— Where did you go with him?

— To look at his workplace.

— His workplace? What's there to see?

— Well, nothing much. Max kind of overestimates the importance of his job. Like, look how cool I am, I work in Telecom, unlike you, Dan, who hasn’t achieved anything.

— Really. Well, alright, Lieutenant Kaysanov, let’s just say I believe you. You’re dismissed.

   "I can’t believe it," thought Denis, heading to the door, "one moment he seemed ready to kill me, and now I’m dismissed. What kind of crazy games are these?"

— Oh, right, don't leave Moscow. You'll still be useful, — Aroumov’s calculatingly expressionless voice caught up with him at the door.

— So, Danich, how’s it going? — it seemed like Lenochka genuinely cared about him, or it was just the eternal female desire to be the first to bring the freshest gossip to her friends.

— I’m still alive, but apparently, the execution has just been postponed.

— What did he say?

— He said I would still be useful. Sounds like a sentence.

— I don’t know, it doesn’t sound that terrifying.

— Lenochka, did anyone come to Aroumov for me?

— Yes, quite a few people…

— I mean from my colleagues, Lapin, for instance?

— Yes, Lapin came by, came out all sweaty and trembling.

— And Anton?

— Which Anton?

— Novikov, of course.

— Doesn’t seem like he did, why?

— Yeah, it's interesting. Listen, Len, do you know how old Arumov is?

— What are you getting at? – Lenochka slightly pouted her lips.

— I'm not trying to imply anything, I really need to know how old he is.

— Well, around forty, I guess.

— But from his stories, it seems he's older, well okay. Thanks, Len, you've really helped me today.

— Sure, just don't disappear on me.

— I’ll try, see you.

“So, what did he actually want to say with that story about the container and the little gray men? That he’s much older than he seems, or that he’s much more dangerous than he appears?” Denis thought.

   Lazily slouched in the old chair at his workspace, he decided to brew himself some tea, spit at the ceiling, and ponder his unenviable situation. His job responsibilities now worried him the least. After all, there was nothing really important in those duties: just some letters, memos, bills, and other nonsense. Nearby, his colleagues in the operational department were reluctantly and slowly mimicking similar activities, often distracted by smoke breaks and pointless chatter. “Yeah, this bleak, sleepy life in shabby offices is certainly not the stuff of dreams,” Dan thought, “but at least it’s warm and the flies don’t bite. And soon I might lose even that.” Checking his personal email, he found a letter from the Telecom HR department with a job offer. It seemed like a chance, but Denis just sighed heavily. “They’re closing in on me from all sides. I need to make a decision; if I keep dragging myself back and forth from work to the bar, either Telecom or Arumov will definitely take me.”

   Leaving a message for Lapin that he urgently needed to step out for business, Denis got in his car and headed home. In truth, he didn't really understand what he was planning to do. Sure, he had the fleeting thought to call his dad, maybe dash off to Finland, heat up the sauna, chat with his dad about life, get the phone number of a reliable guy from MIK, one of those who never become exes. Then return to Moscow and... what would happen next, he couldn't even articulate on a kitchen-table level. Would he go to this guy and suggest they start a guerrilla war against Martians or against Arumov? It would actually be no laughing matter; among those exes who hadn't completely fallen apart and died, everyone had long settled into warm positions in state corporations. So, he would show up as the fearless 'Comandante' to a respectable man in a suit, bringing along a bottle of cognac, and at best, it would end with a mundane drinking session and the same old kitchen chitchat. At worst, they'd twirl their fingers to their temples and have a couple of goons throw him out. Den parked in the yard, the old gas turbine engine whistling for a while before slowing down, and then there was a deafening silence. There was no one around: no children shouting and no dogs barking, just the old trees creaking in the wind. Den knew what would happen next; he would go up to his place, meet Lexa, be offered a drink, he would hesitate a bit, then they would get drunk, mess around the neighborhood, blow off steam, and the next day, with a pounding headache, he would head to work, right into Arumov's jaws. In short, everything would end before the trip to Finland.

   "What is my life then?" Denis thought. "Maybe there's no life anymore if everything is predetermined. Maybe I'm already dying in a drainage ditch, and this murky haze is racing before my eyes. And why bother with me if nothing can be done?"

   It was stuffy outside.

   After smoking a cigarette, Denis leisurely made his way down Krasnokazarnaya Street towards Lefortovsky Park. He understood he was delaying the inevitable for a few pitiful hours, but it was the only thing he could think of. He walked right down the middle of the street. The street itself looked as if it had been bombed, with hardly any vehicles passing through. Overall, the area was falling into decay: the next building stared blankly at the solitary passersby with the empty eye sockets of shattered windows.

   "Maybe I'll drop by Kolyana," Denny thought, "if I can't solve the problem with Arumov and Telecom, maybe I should consider the option of cowardly escape."

   Kolyana's den, a dealer of various illegal junk, was located in a semi-basement of a large Stalinist building. It was masked by a vintage sign reading "Computers, components."

   Nikolai Vostrikov — a tall, thin guy, hunched and always slightly twitchy — was rummaging under the counter and, upon hearing Denis’s greeting, didn’t even think about coming out.

— Hey, Kolyana, I'm actually talking to you. I said hello…

   The disheveled owner eventually emerged into the light, squinting suspiciously.

— Hi, what do you want?

   Today, Kolyana was wearing a blue, greasy jumpsuit, just like a mechanic's. This was his standard outfit. He absolutely hated not only suits and ties but even just decent clothes. The only attire he accepted was military camouflage and various jumpsuits. He had about ten of them hanging in his closet, each for different occasions: an Arctic explorer's suit, a pilot's, a tanker's, etc. All his acquaintances, both this side and that of the Urals, would laugh at his strange fetish.

— Well, you just popped by. Haven't seen you in a while; maybe I want to grab a beer with an old business partner.

— Denny, that's not funny. What business partners? You’re just a distant acquaintance who occasionally bought dodgy gadgets from me; I see you for the second time in my life.

   - So that's how you treat old friends?

— We're not friends, enough already. You last dropped by three months ago, and I'd be very grateful if that time had been the last. Please forget about this place; there are now different people in business, serious ones; you have nothing to catch here.

— Well, you know I’ve quit. I'm dealing with something completely different.

— Did you tie up, or were you tied up?

— Kolyan, stop being scared; no one cares about you, your shady soul.

— So if no one cares, why did you come here?

— I need to talk to someone.

— Talk, or talk…

— Or.

— With whom?

— You mentioned knowing a reliable guy who has direct connections to the Eastern bloc.

— Maybe I do, but it's not guaranteed he'll help you. What exactly did you want from him?

— Let’s not discuss it here, okay?

— Fine, let's go, but only out of respect…

— Yes, yes, out of respect for my dad, mom, grandma, and so on, and also because I know a thing or two about you.

   They went through an iron, unpainted door into the basement and further through a maze of multi-tiered shelves piled with ancient computer junk until they reached a completely unremarkable door. They passed through a dimly lit basement into a secluded courtyard, in the center of which stood a one-story shack. In that shack, in a dark, shielded room, lay a couple of laptops connected to the internet through their own secure network, allowing Kolyan to have a heart-to-heart talk with anyone while virtually ensuring he wouldn’t be overheard.

— Yes, I decided to help only out of respect for your Siberian friends, — said Kolyan, pulling out a laptop and router. — They asked about you a few times.

— And what did you tell them?

— I said you took a leave of absence. Listen, Dan, why are you hanging around here? You should have left for Argentina a long time ago. They'll catch you, if not one group, then another.

— They won’t catch me; my Siberian friends didn’t sell me out, even though they’re now working with others.

— Well, they don’t care, they’re taiga thugs, but if they ask me directly, sorry Dan, I’ll throw you under the bus. Maybe you’re not aware of who I’m working with now?

— Generally, I'm aware. You're still working with the same INKIS.

— Same, but not quite. There are now these guys there, underlings of some shady colonel. No one knows where they are or who they are. They just come, eliminate whoever they want, and then vanish: those goddamn death squads. So if they come and ask about you, sorry.

— And what if they ask about your friend?

— Let them; I don’t know anything about him.

— But you can get in touch with him.

— And what's the use? He might be sitting somewhere in the ruins of Khabarovsk, and you won't be able to lure him out.

— I actually wanted to meet him in person.

— Well, that's something you'll have to negotiate for yourself, although I'm highly skeptical. So what did you actually want from him?

— I don't want to go to Argentina; I want to head towards the Eastern Bloc.

— Did someone hit you on the head recently? What Eastern Bloc? Those are worse than the new squad of colonels. They'll just sell you for organs, and that's it!

— Just connect me, and I'll handle the rest.

   Kolyan just shook his head.

— Right now, if he answers.

— Hey, Semyon, are you there? Can you talk?

— I'm here, — a synthesized voice came from the laptop with no image, — what happened?

— My old associate, through whom I used to do business with the Siberian guys, wants to talk to you. He was one of the key 'couriers' before the known events.

— And what did he want?

— You'd better ask him yourself; he’s right next to me. His name is Denis.

— Well, hello, Denis. Why don’t you tell me a bit about yourself.

— And hello to you too, Semyon. Maybe you should start talking about yourself first?

— No, my friend, we won't be able to have a dialogue this way. You called me, so it’s your turn to speak first. Then I'll think about what to say.

   Den was a bit hesitant, but really, what difference does it make? Too many ill-wishers already knew all about him.

— In general, Kolyan, the situation has been sketched out. I’ll just add that following the known events, my group of associates suffered the most. If you know Yan, he was my direct boss at INKIS and in business too. He was caught, and pretty thoroughly, while they somehow left me alone for a while. But now the storm clouds are gathering again, and I need to look for a backup airfield.

— And why do you think they're gathering? Are they watching you?

— I don't think so.

— Thinking is certainly useful. Do you have problems with a specific person or organization?

— With a person and his organization. If you know about the known events, I have a problem specifically with their initiator.

— Denis, you can speak frankly—this is a secure channel. Do you have problems with Arumov?

— Yes, do you know anything about him?

   The voice ignored the question.

— What kind of problems?

— It just so happened that I accidentally got involved in his dealings with another organization, and today he openly told me that he has compromising material on me and can use it at any moment. I think he has kept me for some dirty deal that anyone else would refuse.

— Believe me, he has people for dirty work. It doesn't matter whether it's compromising material or not; refusing Arumov is not an option.

— Maybe, but I don’t want to check.

— So, are you planning to disappear?

— Yes, I'm considering all options.

— I advise you to consider him first. Only a very powerful organization can stand up against Arumov. Truth be told, I don’t understand why you came to me; I don’t specialize in such services. Kolya can suggest other people who can smuggle you to the USA or South America. I recommend those countries; according to my information, Arumov’s influence there is nearly non-existent.

— Those countries won't work. Besides, I have no money left for such an operation. You’re the only one who has a direct contact with the Eastern Bloc.

— And what do you want from the Eastern Bloc?

— I want to join them.

   The synthesized voice fell silent for a few seconds. Dan waited patiently.

— That's a mistaken decision, my friend. First of all, Arumov has connections with the Eastern Bloc, and they are much more significant than mine. Secondly, they don’t accept people from the street. Of course, I could recommend you, but I assure you, nothing good awaits you there.

— Nothing good awaits me here either. I'm ready to take the risk.

— Still, why? Does being a smuggler not seem dangerous enough for your health? Do you want to become a fervent follower of a death cult?

— You can laugh at me all you want, but they are the only ones who stand against the Martians and their system.

— Ha-ha, — said the synthesized voice, — I'm really laughing at you. They do not oppose the Martians, I assure you; they are an organic part of the system. Let's say, a cesspool of this system. Many Martian corporations stock up on weapons or drugs from them, but you know that yourself. And there are also specific services that no one else offers, such as trading in genetically modified slaves.

— Well, why not? Some Martian corporations are ready to sell anything.

— It doesn't matter. There's no real fight against the system there. They are ordinary bandits trying to cover their criminal nature with radical screams about the death of all the unclean with neurochips. The simplest outcome awaiting the first-circle servant of death is a mandatory drug addiction and complete suppression of personality through systematic torture and hypnotic programming. Believe me, Arumov isn't that bad compared to them.

— Still, I don't see any other options.

— You, my friend, are either very foolish or utterly desperate. Is the problem the lack of money for other options?

— Partly, but actually I have a ready option: one firm is willing to take me under its wing, just to shut me up. It doesn't seem like a setup. Unfortunately, it's not suitable for me.

— Why isn't it suitable?

— If I tell you, you'll just laugh and probably not believe me. Can you just help me without asking unnecessary questions?

— I must refuse a person whose motives I don't understand.

— Fine, if I tell you and you don’t believe me, then what?

— If you tell the truth, I’ll believe you. Any deception isn't that hard to uncover.

— All other options require mandatory installation of a neurochip, and I can't go for that. I'd rather become a follower of the cult of death.

— You mean, you don't have a chip?

— Yes.

— Kolya, is that true?

— It's true, he's really that out there, roaming around without a chip. He's just waiting for someone to notice him, and then all his escapades will come to light.

— Hm, strange, so he can't register in any networks. How does he even live?

— He can register. It's some ancient military tablet that very cleverly mimics the operation of a regular chip. There are certain people who periodically update its firmware.

— What difference does it make? No network provider will assign a number to such a device, and attempts to register under fake numbers will draw attention in any network.

— Ah, Semyon, what are you telling me? Everything is bought and sold, including fake numbers or the codes of law-abiding users, especially in Moscow.

— Well, suppose so. Denis, could you tell me more about who you bought this device from?

— Sure, let's meet and discuss everything, — Dan replied. — You help me, and I'll satisfy your curiosity.

— Yeah, you know, if I were an agent of some evil corporation and had a file on someone named Semen, I would know that the only weakness of the esteemed Semen is his excessive curiosity. And I'd hook him with that. I'd come up with some enticing story about a guy who hates chips so much that he's willing to rot alive in the Eastern Bloc just to avoid getting one. And demonstrating a fake wonder tablet to anyone with access to some neurodata base wouldn't be hard at all.

— Kolyana will vouch for me, he has known me for ten years.

— Undercover agents can work for much longer than that.

— Well, I don't know how to prove to you that I'm not an agent. Just try to believe me.

— Still, why do you dislike chips so much? For the right amount of money, you can get a special chip that transmits false information about the user, and you can still browse anonymously. What a strange phobia?

— Lately, everyone seems to care about my phobias, — Denis grumbled.

— Who else cares? Arumov?

— No, just some nerd from Telecom. He practically drooled when he found out I was chipless.

— Who is he?

— Just a nerd. I thought I made my preferences clear.

— Okay, let's meet, but keep in mind, no funny business, I shoot without warning if necessary.

— It'll be fine. Just give me the address.

   Semen set the meeting in a small park on Stara Basmannaya Street just half an hour later. From this, Dan concluded that curiosity really does make the esteemed Semen forget about caution, as both the time and place clearly indicated that he was lingering somewhere nearby.

   Denis sat down on a bench in the center of the park next to the bust of Bauman. From the thickets of weeds, which had completely torn apart the once charming cobblestone pavement, emerged a huge striped cat. It looked around as if it owned the place, twitched its whiskers, and lazily trotted off on its own feline errands. Denis was so captivated by the unusual cat that he completely missed the old man approaching in a tattered leather jacket. And that was a mistake. The old man, completely unfazed, jabbed Denis with a stun gun in the left shoulder. Denis instinctively realized what it was and jumped aside.

— Young man, I sincerely apologize for such a mean trick, but this is the surest way to check that a person really doesn’t have a chip.

— And no less certain way to kill off some poor soul, — Denis barked, trying to steady the tremors in his hand.

— Once again, a thousand apologies, I concluded that since a person is ready to head to the Eastern block, he surely doesn’t suffer from angina. And if he does, then he’s probably completely out of his mind.

— Listen, old man, where did you dig up such a device? They’ve been banned for a long time.

— Yeah, those damned Martians with their damned chips. They stuff them into different places and create laws with the same means, while old Semyon has nothing to defend himself from the thugs. Bad words? They don’t care where an old respected man has to stumble through alleys to get home...

— Listen, old man, stop rambling nonsense, let’s get down to business.

— Young man, show a little respect. If you’re still expecting a trick from me, then please, take it away...

   Denis carefully took the worn, hefty device with its menacing protruding prongs.

— But I warn you, old Semyon has more than just the stun gun and bad words in reserve.

— Alright, inspector, let’s move on. Cool toy.

   Denis handed the stun gun back.

— Well, that’s good, I hope this regrettable incident is forgotten. Allow me to introduce myself: Semyon Koshka. You can just call me Semyon Sanych.

— So then, Semyon Sanych, what about the Eastern block?

— It’s not nice to grab the bull by the horns right away. Let’s sit down and talk. You’ll tell me something, I’ll tell you something. I’m an old man, no one needs my grumbling for free anymore. So, please respect the elder.

— Sure, no problem. You know, Semyon Sanych, I have no rush. Want to chat about life? Go ahead.

— And indeed, why are you in a hurry, heading to Arumov, is it? It’s better to sit and chat with the old man. I've got some tea to keep the conversation going.

   Semyon pulled a small flask from his pocket and took a sip first. Den didn't hesitate either, and also gulped down some tea that tasted like excellent cognac, instantly warming him from within.

— So, Denis, what kind of bird are you? I got the gist. I did check a few things through my channels. I must say, your virtual world biography is quite lacking. I’d even say it’s non-existent. This, by the way, was another indirect confirmation of what you said about the chip.

— So, about the chips, why is everyone suddenly interested in what’s in my head? What do you and that telecom geek know that I don’t?

— Ah, youth. You don’t know how to listen. Believe me, sometimes it’s enough to just shut up to hear the most intimate human secrets. I meant to melt the ice of distrust between us and share a bit about myself. Perhaps you guessed that I was somehow connected to MIK.

— It’s not hard to guess; everyone is connected to it.

— True, but I wasn’t a dashing officer with a cool head and other useful traits; rather, I was an inconspicuous lab rat. However, I worked on a very interesting project. And don’t ask what the project was; when the time comes, I’ll tell you. So, I turned out to be a bit more resourceful than my colleagues and took care to hide the necessary materials in advance. By the time everything collapsed, I was already prepared: I managed to erase all information about myself and quickly set up a small information-gathering business. Sometimes I sell this information, but mostly I just accumulate it. I’ve already amassed a huge database of thousands of interesting people. Mostly here in Russia, but there are also folks abroad, and even on Mars.

— And why do you keep it? Why not sell everything?

— How can I put it, buddy? I’m not a dealer and only sell the most disposable goods just to get by. But all the true treasures, I keep carefully.

— For future generations?

— Maybe I don't know for whom. Imagine monks in the Middle Ages, diligently copying old books year after year while epidemics and wars raged outside their monastery walls. Why did they do it? Who among their contemporaries could appreciate their painstaking work? Only their descendants, hundreds of years after their death, could do so. They preserved for us some memory of the past centuries.

— Are you going to chronicle it?

— No, Denis. Well, I see you're not interested. Alright, I’ll tell you a legend about people without chips. But first, answer me: who is this botanist from Telecom that was asking about you?

— His name is Leo Schulz, he is the chief researcher at some Institute of RSAD. A division of Telecom near Zelenograd. They mainly deal with complex and unconventional medical operations, genetic engineering, implants, and develop software for these. In general, a shady outfit, also crafting a project for Arumov on modifying employees of the INKIS security service into super-soldiers. The first samples have already been created, and now they plan to start serial modifications. Who and what will happen to them later, I don't know. But this Schulz is in cahoots with Arumov. Yesterday, we went there to sign some final documents for the project, and supposedly didn't sign anything. I don’t know why, but it seems Schulz decided to abruptly change the topic, and now Arumov thinks I’m somehow involved. He yelled at me this morning so loudly that the windows shook. And I, honestly, really have no idea; this Schulz interrogated me for an hour about why I don’t like chips and was rambling about progress and spaceships sailing the cosmos. What does Arumov and his favorite little soldiers have to do with it? Honestly, I have no clue.

— I hear most curious things from you, my friend Denis. But you, of course, haven’t seen the super-soldiers yourself?

— Who knows, maybe I have, — Dan decided to confess after a brief pause. Despite the shocker and his caustic manners, Denis sensed with some sixth sense that he could trust Semyon, or maybe it was the cognac playing its part.

— But right now you’re definitely lying, you couldn’t have seen them.

— Why is that?

— Well, firstly, a very high level of clearance is required; they don't let just anyone in. And secondly, there’s a secret instruction for them: never allow people without chips to come close.

Wow, Semyon Sanych, you really have some good sources of information. They have a firmware like that, and I had to check it out myself.

And how did you manage to survive? Anyway, that's a topic for another conversation. Let's talk about the chip first, but one more question: wasn't it Leo Schultz who promised you refuge?

Yes, that's correct.

Then it's good that you didn't just rush into his arms, and now you'll understand why. You probably know that after the Second Space War, MIK was actively developing new ways to combat Martians. One of the most important was the program for embedding agents and saboteurs into Martian structures. It was large-scale and effective to the extent possible. When the Martians found out about it after their downfall, they really were at a loss. If we had held on a little longer and recruited enough agents, we would have launched a real war against those misfits. Can you imagine living in hermetically sealed caves, with potentially thousands of enemy agents running around in oxygen stations and nuclear reactors? They would have had much bigger problems than their empire. They'd be changing diapers three times a day from every little bang. Of course, MIK eventually fell apart, and the Martians gradually caught all those agents. By the way, eat some candies.

   Semyon pulled out some half-dried candies with sticky threads and crumbs from somewhere in his pocket.

So, in their internal instructions, the Martians classified all agents into four classes. They also detailed how to identify them and what to do with them. Class four agents are ordinary recruited humans who received orders to lie low until the start of the sabotage war or are simply gathering information. It’s clear that they are the least valuable and unreliable. After the collapse of the Empire, they were not particularly sought after. A normal person wouldn’t take the initiative to blow up an oxygen station in the absence of orders. Class three agents have undergone extensive special processing back on Earth and were sent to Mars disguised as migrants. In short, they are suicide bombers, ready to do anything. They believed that after death they would be reborn for the Emperor and resurrected in a better world where the Empire has won. It’s like the Emperor has the superpower to see the future and, moreover, he can briefly show this future to a young neophyte. He can let him wander through the sunlit rooms of vast institutions, talk with beautiful, intelligent people with pure souls who have forgotten what unemployment and crime are. And admire the lights of evening Moscow after the victory of communism. It is clear that by the end, the MIK had become quite adept at showing various tricks with rebirths, heavenly houris, and other nonsense, but it’s still not perfect. Even a thoroughly brainwashed mind, after several years of independent life, starts to ask questions and doubt. Or it might just blurt out something unnecessary at the wrong time. In general, the next upgrade is class two. They have a hypno-program embedded in their brain, or a mini-chip. The mini-chips, of course, were produced in a rush due to time constraints and are relatively easy to detect. But the hypno-program is a completely different matter. A person with it may not even suspect they are an agent. It activates with just a verbal code or a message on social media. After which a seemingly typical family man will go and kill the necessary Martian or blow up a hatch. However, it is said that after hypno-programming, only one in ten potential migrants survived, but, understandably, the MIK was not deterred by this. Yet, they are very difficult to recognize; they say that not all of them have been caught, and the Martians regularly experience bouts of paranoia because of this. Who knows what kind of madman might gain access to the activation codes of these agents. Don’t look at me like that; I don’t have those codes. And the top tier is class one, enhanced with genetic modifications or artificial microorganisms. They can be biological bombs, producing rare poisons for assassination, and who knows what else. Identifying them requires comprehensive examinations and DNA tests from all parts of the body. The Martians are still working on this.

— Very insightful, — Denis chuckled. — So, either you or I could very well be MIK agents and not even realize it.

— Wait, don’t rush, better sip some more tea and have a candy. It’s unlikely that we are first or second-class agents. Why would they need those in Moscow? They are the most valuable and expensive; they were always sent to Mars. But there’s also a legend about certain zero-class agents. This is likely just a legend. It’s quite possible that someone drunkenly came up with this tale, suggesting that if there are four classes, there must be a zero class too; it caught the fancy of drinking buddies and started circulating in certain circles. It even reached Martians and ended up in some of their instructions as footnotes and caveats. There are many speculations about the mission of these agents and their capabilities, but nothing trustworthy. The only thing that’s concerning is that in all variations of this tale, there’s a prerequisite: zero-class agents have no chips, molecular or electronic. Honestly, it’s completely unclear why a chipless agent is needed, as they obviously wouldn’t be able to infiltrate any European structure, let alone Martians. And nothing was known about these agents even to the MIK curators with the highest clearance. Well, Semyon Koshka knows this for sure.

   Just imagine a person who, for some reason, dislikes chips so much that they would rather die than have one implanted. I've met chipless people, all sorts of down-and-outs who simply have no money, or psychos from the Eastern bloc. But you don't fall into any of those categories. I always thought the legend of zero-class agents was a sort of reflection, an expectation of a chosen one who would come and save everyone. In reality, the overwhelming majority of thinking people in Russia, and not only there, quietly hate Martians. Yet there’s not even a phantom hope to oppose them, which is why reasonable people don’t act up. And honestly, there’s no one to fight for. That’s why the stories of the last Mohican who will come and lead everyone into battle are so persistent. I even thought that the Martians themselves fabricated this tale to vent their frustration. And then suddenly—here they are, phantom hopes have taken form. Miracles…

— Not much of a miracle, — Denis sighed. — Besides the burning desire to punch those cyber bastards, I actually don't have anything else. Maybe I need to be activated like class-two agents.

— Maybe you do. But no one knows how. They also say that a zero-class agent knows the access codes and data on all MIC agents. Just drink your tea.

— Why are you bothering me with your tea? — Dan suspiciously sniffed the neck of the flask. — Your tea is a bit questionable.

— Don't worry, it just provides an interesting reaction with nearly all types of molecular chips.

— There are no chips. Stop with the checks already, or I might also have an attack of distrust.

— I understand that there are none. Otherwise, you would have been throwing up from all your holes by now. Forgive the old fool, I don't believe that you are really the chosen one, showing up at the sunset of my worthless life.

— Amazing, two hours ago I almost reconciled myself to the end of my floundering. And now I suddenly instill baseless hopes in someone. It's truly miraculous!

— You know what else makes me believe in zero-class agents?

— Telecom super soldiers? — Dan suggested.

— You guessed it right, — Semen nodded approvingly. — What I'm thinking is: it’s unlikely you can simply copy a ghost's genome and then transplant it into a human. They must have some sort of protection — genome coding, genetic memory, anything really. But among the ghosts, or those who control them, there could be traitors who agreed to serve the Martians. That’s why the traitor ghosts kill all humans without chips. They are surely better acquainted with imperial secrets than anyone. From what I learned about them, it can be concluded that this isn't a special firmware but rather an unfixable bug. The Martians themselves find this hunt pointless; they are practical people and only believe in class zero agents as far as they can see.

— So, this bug isn’t present in all super-soldiers.

— In what sense? Should it be present in all of them?

— Why do you think I'm still breathing after meeting them? One turned out to not be such a tough guy and took out the other who was about to rip my head off. Overall, not a bad guy; I probably owe him my life now. It’s like he has free will.

— Why does he need free will? — Semen was surprised.

— To suffer. If you have free will, whether you want to or not, you will have to suffer.

   Denis shivered and glanced around. He was so engrossed in the conversations that he didn't notice the darkness settling in. The cool air rushed into his chest, bringing with it the scents of withered grass and damp earth. His head was already buzzing, and the autumn evening took on new hues. Even the usually annoying silence of the half-abandoned streets of Moscow began to feel mysterious and soothing. It was as if a soft blanket had concealed them from enemy eyes and ears. In the garden, a single lantern flickered, and around it, for the millionth first time, myriads of little bugs began to gather, thoughtlessly repeating the established order of things. Just think, someone was already preparing to rewrite their mind onto a quantum matrix, but can this clever one distinctly answer the simple question: why do the bugs stubbornly fly towards the light? Their struggle is utterly hopeless, yet they persist as if one day one of the countless billions will accomplish the great mission and bring happiness to all the other bugs on the planet.

— Do you think Schultz has also decided I’m a class zero agent? Like an exclusive item that can be presented on a platter to his favorite Martians to earn favor? — Denis broke the silence.

— Nothing personal, just business. It's good if this is solely his initiative, but if the central office gets interested, you definitely won't wriggle off the hook.

— Yeah, I know, I have nothing to lose. What about you, esteemed Semyon Sanych, do you have something to lose?

— Me? With my arthritis and sclerosis? Just the chance to spend my old age knocking on clinic doors. But what do you suggest we do? If you were really a class zero agent, and I knew how to activate you… but as it stands…

— Don’t despair. We’ll find a way to activate me: we’ll shake up Schultz or Arumov, we’ll dig something up.

— You’re a simple guy; let’s shake Schultz. Maybe we should shake some boss from Neurotech while we’re at it? Anyway, yes, what’s with this old man’s grumbling? Since you, so young and handsome, are in a hurry to die, then I must surely take the risk.

— Well then, it's settled; to hell with the Eastern Bloc, we're finding a way to activate the class zero agent. Cheers to us! — Denis enthusiastically raised his flask.

— You really surprise me. You believe so easily that some old stranger will charge into battle with you?

— Why not? You said yourself there are plenty of people who hate Martians. And even if it's a joke or you're some paid Martian provocateur, who cares?

— There are probably millions and billions of people who hate Martians, but not all of them are ready to fight seriously. You understand that we have a 99.9% chance of losing and dying. Martians are endlessly at odds with each other, but against an external enemy, especially one as pathetic as us, their system is completely unified.

— Fear is a poor advisor. Maybe Martians won not because they're so tough, but because the whole world has burrowed into its virtual nooks and is afraid to speak up.

— Unfortunately, the real world has shrunk too much, and no one might notice our cries in it.

— But that doesn't matter, whether they notice or not. This isn't the time to calculate probabilities; you just have to believe and start doing something. If my fight matters even a little to this world, I hope the laws of probability will be on my side. And if not, then it turns out my entire life isn't worth more than dust, and there's no reason to clutch at it.

— You're right, — Semen reluctantly agreed.

   Just like that, effortlessly, Denis found himself a comrade for a hopeless war against virtual reality. Who knows, maybe it was pure coincidence, or perhaps there really were too many people in the world with reasons to dislike Martians, and it was enough to point at the first person you met. Denis, of course, didn't really believe in the tale of a class zero agent. He immediately believed in his fight, and from the mere anticipation of a real clash, his heart began to thud heavily in his temples, and his mouth filled with the taste of blood. Drums beat in his ears, and bitter scents of endless fields and burning bonfires hit his nose. He desperately wanted to live long enough to sink and twist a knife in the flabby body of virtual reality. No club in western Moscow made him long for the next day as much as this.

Source: habr.com