Displaced person

1.

The day turned out to be unlucky. It started with me waking up in new surroundings. That is, in the old ones, of course, but now they were no longer mine. The red triangular arrow in the corner of the interface was blinking, signaling a completed relocation.

"Damn you!"

Becoming a migrant for the second time in a year is certainly a bit much. No luck.

However, there was nothing to be done: it was time to pack up and leave. I couldn’t afford for the apartment owner to show up – I could get fined for being in someone else’s place beyond the allowed limit. However, I did have a legal half hour.

I jumped out of bed, now a stranger to me, and pulled on my clothes. Just in case, I yanked the fridge handle. Of course, it didn’t open. The expected message appeared on the display: "Only with the owner’s permission."

Yeah, yeah, I know, now I’m not the owner. And good riddance, I wasn’t that keen on it anyway! I’ll have breakfast at home. I hope the previous owner of my new place will be kind enough not to leave the fridge empty. There have been stingy people during moves, but these days petty behavior is out of fashion, at least among decent folks. If I had known what would happen that night, I would have left breakfast on the table. But a second time in a year – who could have guessed?! Now I’ll have to endure until I get home. I could have breakfast on the way, of course.

In distress over the unexpected move, I didn’t even bother examining the new surroundings; I just input the destination into the GPS for my new home. I wonder how far it is?

"Please exit through the door."

I know it’s through the door, I know!

Before finally leaving the place, I patted my pockets: it was strictly prohibited to take someone else's belongings as keepsakes. No, there was nothing foreign in my pockets. Just a bank card in my shirt pocket, but everything is fine with that. Its settings changed during the move, practically at the same time. Banking technology, indeed!

I took a breath and closed the door to the apartment that had served me for the past six months for good.

"Call the elevator and wait for its arrival," the assistant displayed.

The neighbor from the apartment opposite stepped out of the opened elevator. She is always preoccupied with something personal. I've developed a fairly amicable relationship with this neighbor. At least we greeted each other, and a couple of times we even smiled at one another. Of course, this time she didn't recognize me. Her visual was set to see the old me, but now I had a different identifier. Essentially, I had become a different person, having nothing in common with my former self. My visual was set similarly – I would have never guessed who the woman was if she hadn’t unlocked the door to her apartment with a key.

The guide was silent as a grave: greeting a former acquaintance was not advisable. She apparently guessed everything and also did not greet me.

I entered the elevator, descended to the first floor, and exited into the yard. I had to forget about the car – it, like the apartment, belonged to the rightful owner. The lot of the displaced is public transport; this had to be accepted.

The GPS blinked, indicating the way to the bus stop. Not the metro – I noted with surprise. This means my new apartment is nearby. The first encouraging news of the day – unless, of course, the bus route goes all the way through the city.

"Bus stop. Wait for bus No. 252," the guide reported.

I leaned against the pole and began to wait for the indicated bus. During this time, I pondered what new circumstances the fickle fate had prepared for me: apartment, job, relatives, just acquaintances. The hardest part is with relatives, of course. I remember thinking in my childhood that my mother had been replaced. She answered a few questions off-topic, and there was a feeling: there’s a stranger in front of me. I caused a scene with my father. My parents had to calm me down, realign my visual, explaining: from time to time, people's bodies exchange souls. But since the soul is more important than the body, everything is fine, dear. Mom's body is different, but the soul is the same, loving. Look, here’s mom's soul identifier: 98634HD756BEW. The one that has always been.

At that time, I was very young. It wasn't until my first soul transfer that I truly understood what RPD – random soul displacement – was. It was then, when I found myself in a new family, that it finally hit me...

I couldn't finish my nostalgic reminiscences. I didn't even hear the shout of the hint-giver, I just caught a glimpse of an oncoming car bumper out of the corner of my eye. Reflexively, I leaned to the side, but the car had already struck the post I had just been standing by. Something hard and blunt hit me in the side – it wasn't exactly painful, but I instantly lost consciousness.

2.

When I came to, I opened my eyes and saw a white ceiling. Gradually, I began to realize where I was. In a hospital, of course.

I glanced down and tried to move my limbs. Thank God, they worked. However, my chest was bandaged and a dull ache throbbed, while I felt nothing on my right side. I tried to sit up in bed. A strong, yet muted – apparently due to medication – pain shot through my body. But I was alive. Therefore, everything turned out alright and I could relax.

The thought that the worst was behind me was pleasant, but a lingering anxiety kept me on edge. Something was definitely not right, but what?

Then it struck me: the visual interface isn't functioning! The life stats were in the norm: they were dancing oddly, but then again, I had just been in a car accident – deviations from the norm were to be expected. At the same time, the hint-giver wasn't working, meaning there wasn't even a greenish glow. Usually, you don't notice the glow because it’s always on, in the background, so I didn't notice it right away. The same applied to the GPS, entertainment, identity scanners, info channels, and personal information. Even the panel of basic settings was dimmed and inaccessible!

With weak hands, I felt my head. No, there were no visible injuries: the glass was intact, the plastic casing was snug against my skin. So, it was an internal malfunction – that's a relief. Perhaps it's just a simple glitch – rebooting the system should get everything working again. I need a bio-technician; there’s surely one in the hospital.

In pure automation, I tried to activate the distress beacon. Then I realized: it wouldn't work - the visual display was broken. All that was left was to sound the alarm, can you imagine! - just like in the Middle Ages.

“Hey!” I shouted, not really hoping anyone in the corridor would hear.

They wouldn't hear in the corridor, but the person in the neighboring bed started moving and pressed the call button. I didn’t know such a relic technology had survived. On the other hand, there had to be some kind of alarm in case of a technical malfunction of the biosystems. That makes sense.

The call light above the door blinked invitingly.

A person in a white coat entered the room. He glanced around and accurately made his way to the one in need, which was me.

“I’m your doctor, Roman Albertovich. How are you feeling, patient?”

I was a bit surprised. Why did the doctor give his name - doesn't my identity scanner work?! And then I realized: it really doesn't work, that’s why the doctor had to introduce himself.

It felt ancient and beyond comprehension. I couldn't identify the person with the scanner, so I was essentially talking to an unknown person. It felt creepy at first. Now I understood what robbery victims feel when an unknown person approaches them from the darkness. Such cases are rare now, but just twenty years ago, technical means to disable identifiers existed. Illegal, of course. Good that they were completely eradicated. Now, experiencing such horror is only possible due to a technical malfunction. Like in my case.

These gloomy thoughts raced through my mind in an instant. I opened my mouth to respond, but my gaze was stuck on the dimmed hint panel. Damn, it’s not functioning - I can’t get used to this! I’ll have to respond myself, live.

There are unrefined people who can’t utter coherent phrases without a hint panel, but I wasn’t one of them. I often communicated on my own: as a child - for fun, later - realizing that I was capable of formulating more deeply and accurately. I even enjoyed it, although I never went to extremes.

“My side hurts,” I articulated my feelings without the help of automation.

"You have a scraped patch of skin and several broken ribs. But that's not what's bothering me."

The doctor responded noticeably faster than I did. What, is he reading subtitles? Any fool could manage that.

The doctor had an aging face with an excessively large nose. If only the visual editing worked, I would have reduced his nose, smoothed out a couple of wrinkles, and lightened his hair. I don’t like thick noses, wrinkles, and dark hair. Probably wouldn’t hurt to adjust his figure as well. But the visual editing wasn’t working – I had to observe reality in its unedited form. Quite a sensation, I must say.

"Naturally, that doesn't bother you, Roman Albertovich. The broken ribs concern me. By the way, my visual editor is also broken. Most interface elements are muted," I said, almost effortlessly.

The intelligence of a person conversing freely without a teleprompter could not fail to impress the doctor positively. But Roman Albertovich didn't flinch a single facial muscle.

"Please provide your soul identification number."

He wants to make sure I'm of sound mind. Isn't it obvious yet?

"I can't."

"Don't you remember it?"

"I had an accident half an hour after the move. I didn't have time to memorize it. If you need my identification number, scan it yourself."

"Unfortunately, that's not possible. The soul identifier is absent from your body. It can be assumed that at the moment of the accident, it was located near the chest area, and it was scraped off along with the skin."

"What do you mean near the chest area? Isn’t the chip implanted in the wrist? And my wrists are intact."

I lifted my wrists above the blanket and wiggled them.

"Chips are implanted in the right wrist along with ports, yes. However, separate floating structures are currently used. After installation, the ports remain in the wrist, while the identifiers begin to move freely throughout the body according to the program embedded in them. The goal is to make illegal disconnection impossible."

"But... I remember my old identifier before the move. 52091TY901IOD, write that down. And I remember my previous name and patronymic. Zaitsev Vadim Nikolaevich."

The doctor shook his head.

"No, no, that won’t help. If you’ve relocated, Zaitsev Vadim Nikolaevich is already another person, you understand. By the way, your visual aid is operating in limited mode due to the absence of a soul identifier. The device itself is fine, we checked it."

"What should I do?" I wheezed, lifting my broken ribs.

"The Department of Unidentified Souls will determine where your soul has moved. This will take time—about a week. You’ll have to go for dressings in the mornings. All the best, patient, and get well soon. Sorry for not addressing you by name. Unfortunately, I don’t know it."

Roman Albertovich left, and I began to grasp what was happening. I lost my identifier, which means at the moment I am an unidentified soul. Brrr! Just thinking about it made me shiver. And the visual aid isn’t working. There's no hope for its restoration—at least for the next week. Indeed, what an unfortunate day—it hasn’t started well at all!

And then I noticed a person in the neighboring bed.

3.

The neighbor was looking at me, not saying a word.

He was almost an old man, with a messy hairstyle and a beard that was sticking out in faded clumps. And the neighbor had no visual aid at all! Instead of glasses, I was looked at by bare living pupils. The dark circles around his eyes, where the frame used to rest, were noticeable, but not too much. It didn’t seem like the old man had just freed himself from the visual aid—it was more likely that this happened a few days ago.

"Broke it during the accident," I realized.

After a long silence, the neighbor spoke, rather snidely for an introduction.

"What are you afraid of, dove? You didn't cause the accident yourself, did you? My name is Uncle Lesha, by the way. And you don’t know your new name, do you? I’ll call you Vadik."

I agreed. I decided to overlook the familiar ‘you’ and ‘dove’, after all, he was an injured person. Moreover, in bandages, I was helpless myself: it hadn’t been long since I was hit by a car. And besides, my ribs were beginning to hurt—apparently, the analgesics were wearing off.

"What are you afraid of, Vadik?"

"It’s unusual to be unidentified."

"Do you believe in that?"

"Believe in what?"

"That souls fly from one body to another."

I choked. It turns out the old man is quite crazed. Judging by his appearance, this was to be expected. Meanwhile, Uncle Lesha spoke without stopping, hardly thinking, though he also didn't use a cue card. Nice job, though.

"This is an established scientific fact."

"Established by whom?"

"By the brilliant psychophysicist Alfred Glazenap. Haven't you heard of him?"

Uncle Lesha laughed heartily. At that moment, I pictured the famous photograph where Glazenap is putting horns on another famous psychophysicist—Charles Dupré. If old Glazenap could see the senile old codger I’m observing, he would have strengthened his disdain for humanity.

"So what, your brilliant psychophysicist established?" Uncle Lesha sputtered with laughter.

"That souls move from body to body."

"You know what I'll tell you, Vadik..." The neighbor leaned confidentially from the bed towards me.

"What?"

"A person has no soul."

I couldn't think of anything better to ask than:

"Then what moves between bodies?"

"Who the hell knows?" muttered Uncle Lesha, shaking his goatee. "How should I know about souls? I can't see it."

"How can't you see? You see it in the interface, in your own data. That's your soul identifier."

"Your soul identifier is lying. There's only one identifier. That's me! Me! Me!"

Uncle Lesha thumped his fist on his chest.

"Not all identifiers can lie at the same time. It's still technology. If one identifier lied, there would be people with the same souls or people without a defined body. You just confuse your body with your soul. But these are different substances."

We continued our conversation without cues. Trained eyes still skimmed the non-working panel, but my brain no longer waited for the required reply; it generated it independently. There was definitely a thrill in this—half-prohibited, making it even sharper and sweeter.

"Imagine," Uncle Lesha said after some thought, "that the identifiers lie in agreement."

"How's that?" I was surprised.

"Someone is pressing the button."

"So you’re saying they don't capture the mutual movement of souls through wave interference but just reprogram themselves?"

"Well."

"A conspiracy, perhaps?"

I started to grasp the point at which the old man had turned.

"Exactly!"

"But why?"

"For them, Vadik, it's profitable. Switching people around at their own whim – is that really a bad thing?"

"But what about modern scientists? Hundreds of thousands of papers on the RPD – random soul relocation? Are they all conspirators?"

"There's no such thing as a soul, my boy!" the old man shouted, losing his temper.

"Stop calling me 'my boy,' Uncle Lesha, or I'll ask to be moved to another room. And people do have souls, just so you know. Throughout history, poets have written about the soul – even before the RPD was discovered. And you say there's no soul."

We both leaned back on the pillows and fell silent, relishing the absurdity of our opponent.

Wanting to smooth over the ensuing pause – after all, I had to spend several days in the hospital with this person – I shifted the conversation to a topic that seemed safer to me:

"Did you get into an accident too?"

"What made you think that?"

"Well, how else? You're lying in a hospital room..."

The old man grinned.

"No, I refused to wear my visual. And the punk who came to settle into my apartment was shown the door. And when they arrested me, I broke the visual right at the police station. Now they'll be restoring it, then fixing it tightly to my head, in a budget armored version. So I won't be able to take it off again."

"So you're an extremist, Uncle Lesha?"

"Of course."

I stared wide-eyed. For extremism in our time, they would give up to 8 years.

"But don't whimper, Vadik," the old criminal continued. "You got into a regular accident, you didn’t do anything. They won’t keep you long at the Department of Unidentified Souls. You'll get released."

I struggled to turn on my side and looked up. The window was barred with metal grating. Uncle Lesha wasn't lying: this wasn't an ordinary district hospital, but the hospital section of the Department of Unidentified Souls.

What a stroke of luck I had!

4.

Two days later, Roman Albertovich informed me that my soul identifier was set up.

"The chip was made; we have our own equipment. All that's left is to implant it."

The procedure took less than ten seconds. The biotechnician wiped the skin fold between my thumb and index finger with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball and injected the chip. After that, he silently left.

The muted interface flickered a couple of times and came to life. In the week since the accident, I had almost forgotten how to use the prompt and other modern conveniences. It was nice that they had come back.

Recalling the unfortunate experience, the first thing I did was check my personal information. Sergey Petrovich Razuvaev, shower ID 209718OG531LZM.

I tried to remember.

"I have one more piece of good news for you, Sergey Petrovich!" - Roman Albertovich announced.

For the first time since we met, he allowed himself a slight smile.

Roman Albertovich swung the door open, and a woman with a five-year-old daughter entered the room.

"Daddy! Daddy!" - the girl shrieked and rushed into my arms.

"Careful, Lenochka, Daddy had an accident," - the woman managed to warn.

The scanner showed that this was my new wife, Ksenia Anatolyevna Razuvaeva, shower ID 80163UI800RWM, and my new daughter, Elena Sergeevna Razuvaeva, shower ID 89912OP721ESQ.

"Everything is fine. How I have missed you, my beloved ones," - the prompt replied.

"Everything is fine. How I have missed you, my beloved ones," - I decided not to contradict either the prompt or common sense.

"When you moved, Seryozha, we were so worried, - my wife began, tears in her eyes. - We waited, but you didn't come. Lenochka asked where Daddy was. I said he would come soon. I said that, but I was shaking with fear."

Using the restored capabilities of the interface, I lightly adjusted Ksenia's face and figure to resemble the wives who had been with my body before. I didn't create exact copies — that was considered bad form, which I completely agreed with — but I did give her some features of similarity. It made it easier to settle into the new place.

Lenochka didn't require any adjustments: she was youthful and fresh as a pink petal without any alteration. I only changed her hairstyle and the color of her bow, as well as pressed her ears closer to her head.

Welcome back to the family, boy.

"Who knew that the car's brakes would fail?" - the prompt remarked.

"Who knew that the car's brakes would fail?" - I echoed.

A well-behaved boy.

"I almost went crazy, Seryozha. I called the emergency services; they said: no such person has been reported, information is missing. Wait, he should show up."

Ksenia finally couldn’t hold it in and burst into tears, then spent a long time wiping her happy, tear-streaked face with a handkerchief.

We talked for about five minutes. The prompt provided the necessary information by analyzing my soul's behavior in the previous physical body using neural networks. After that, it delivered the required lines, and I read them out loud, unafraid of making mistakes. Social adaptation in action.

The only deviation from the script during the conversation was my reference to Roman Albertovich.

"What's the deal with the ribs?"

"They'll heal, no need to worry," the doctor waved his hand. "I'll go prepare the discharge papers."

My wife and daughter also stepped out, giving me the chance to get dressed. Grumbling, I got up from the bed and got ready to leave.

All this time, Uncle Lesha was watching me with interest from the neighboring bed.

"What are you so happy about, Vadik? It's your first time seeing them."

"The body sees them for the first time, but the soul does not. It senses a kindred spirit, which is why it is so calm," the prompt replied.

"You think this is my first time seeing them?" I boasted.

Uncle Lesha laughed as he usually did.

"Why do you think men's souls only move into male bodies, and women's souls into female bodies? The age is roughly preserved, as is the location. Right, buddy?"

"Because the wave interference of human souls is possible only within gender, age, and spatial parameters," the prompt recommended.

"But male and female souls are different," I observed thoughtfully.

"Are you aware that there are people who do not reincarnate at all?"

I had heard such rumors, but I didn’t respond.

In essence, there was nothing more to talk about — we had covered everything in the week. I grasped the simple old man's rationale, but convincing a maximalist was not an option. It felt like Uncle Lesha had never held a professor's position in his entire life.

However, we parted on amicable terms. They promised to deliver the visual aid for the old man tomorrow — hence, he would undergo implantation surgery the day after tomorrow. I didn't bother to ask whether Uncle Lesha would be sent to prison after the operation. What do I care about a random neighbor in a hospital ward, even if this isn’t a hospital, but a Department of Unidentified Souls?!

"Good luck," I read the final words of the prompt and stepped towards my wife and daughter, who were waiting at the door.

5.

My confinement in the Department of Unidentified Souls was behind me. My ribs had healed, leaving a winding scar on my chest. I was enjoying a happy family life with my wife Ksenia and our daughter Lenochka.

The only thing that poisoned my new life were the seeds of doubt that my old maximalist Uncle Lesha had sown in my mind—may he be cursed. These seeds would not let me rest, constantly tormenting me. They needed to either be nurtured carefully or uprooted. After all, I was quite often moved among scientific workers – I had gotten used to solving personal problems through logical self-analysis.

One day, I came across a file about the history of the RPD: old, in an ancient and now unused format. I couldn’t resist reading it. The file contained a review report presented by some official to a higher authority. I was amazed at how government officials could write back then—clearly and in detail. I had the feeling that the text was composed without the help of a prompt, but that was impossible, of course. The style of the report simply did not quite match the style typically produced by linguistic automation.

The information contained in the file was summarized as follows.

In the era of syncretism, people had to exist in dark times when the soul could not be separated from the body. It was believed that the separation of the soul from the body was only possible at the moment of physical death.

The situation changed in the mid-21st century when Austrian scientist Alfred Glazenap proposed the concept of the RPD. The concept was not only unusual but also incredibly complex: only a few people in the world understood it. Something based on wave interference – I skipped this excerpt with mathematical formulas, unable to comprehend them.

In addition to the theoretical justification, Glazenap presented a scheme for a device to identify the soul – the stigmatron. The device was exorbitantly expensive. Nevertheless, five years after the RPD was discovered, the first stigmatron in the world was built—funded by a grant from the International Innovation and Investment Fund.

Experiments on volunteers have begun. They confirmed the concept proposed by Glazenap: the effect of RPD is real.

By pure coincidence, the first couple to exchange souls was discovered: Erwin Grid and Kurt Stigler. The event made headlines worldwide: their portraits graced the covers of popular magazines. Grid and Stigler became the most famous people on the planet.

Soon, the star couple decided to restore their soulful status quo by performing the world's first body relocation following their souls. The situation was made even more piquant by the fact that Grid was married while Stigler was single. Perhaps the motivation behind their actions wasn't the reunion of souls but a banal advertising campaign, yet soon that became irrelevant. In their new surroundings, the relocated individuals felt much more comfortable than in their previous ones. Psychologists around the world were taken aback – literally went into a frenzy. The old psychology collapsed in an instant, to be replaced by a new progressive psychology that took RPD into account.

The global press launched a new information campaign, this time in favor of the therapeutic effect tested by Grid and Stigler. Initially, the focus was on the positive aspects of relocation, with no mention of negatives. Gradually, the question began to be posed in moral terms: is it right that relocation requires mutual consent? Is one party's desire alone not enough?

The film industry seized on the idea. Several comedic series were produced that played on the funny situations arising from relocation. Relocation became part of humanity's cultural code.

Subsequent studies revealed numerous couples that had exchanged souls. They established characteristic patterns for the relocations:

1. typically, the relocation occurred during sleep;
2. the couples exchanging souls were exclusively male or female, with no mixed cases recorded;
3. the couples were approximately the same age, with no more than a year-and-a-half difference;
4. couples were usually located within 2-10 kilometers of each other, although distant exchanges did occur.

Perhaps, the story of RPD would have quieted down here and then completely ended as a scientific curiosity without any practical significance. But soon after that—in the mid-21st century— the visual interface was constructed in its almost modern form.
The visual interface changed everything.

With its emergence and subsequent widespread adoption, it became clear that resettlers could be socially adapted. Visual interfaces had individual interfaces tailored to personalities, making resettlers indistinguishable from other citizens, who also read lines from prompt panels. There was no noticeable difference.

As a result of using visual interfaces, discomfort for resettlers practically disappeared. Bodies gained the ability to follow the relocated souls without any noticeable damage to their socialization.

Legislation—first in several countries, then internationally—was supplemented with clauses on mandatory soul identification and mandatory relocation in case of a recorded RPD, achieving the desired effect. The number of psychoses in the updated humanity began to decline. What psychoses? If your life can change any night—it’s possible for the better?!

Thus, relocation became a vital necessity. People found peace and hope. And all of this humanity owed to the brilliant discovery of Alfred Glazenyap.

‘What if Uncle Lesha is right?’—a crazy thought occurred to me.

The prompt panel blinked but didn’t report anything. Probably a random glitch. The interface captures thoughts directed at it and ignores the rest. At least, that’s how it's stated in the specification.

Despite the absurdity of the emerging hypothesis, it needed to be contemplated. But I didn’t want to think. Everything was so pleasant and measured: work in the archive, hot borscht that Ksenia would feed me upon my return…

6.

Before dawn, I awoke to a woman's scream. An unfamiliar woman, wrapped in a blanket, was screaming, pointing at me:

‘Who are you? What are you doing here?’

But what does unfamiliar mean? The visual adjustment didn't work, but the identity scanner showed that it was my wife Ksenia. The details were the same. But now I was observing Ksenia in the guise I first saw her: at the moment when my wife opened the door to my hospital room.

"What the hell?" I swore, without even glancing at the prompt panel.

When I looked, the same phrase was glowing there.

It's always like this with wives. Is it really that hard to guess what moved me? The visual adjustments set to the soul identifier had shifted to default values, so it was impossible to recognize me by appearance. Unless, of course, Ksenia had used visual adjustments, but I didn’t know that. But couldn’t one guess about my movement? If you go to bed at night with one man and wake up with another, it means the man has been moved. Isn’t that clear?! It's not the first time you wake up with a moved husband, you fool?!

Meanwhile, Ksenia was persistent.

I rolled off the bed and got dressed quickly. By that time, my ex-wife had woken my ex-daughter with her screams. Together they formed a two-voiced chorus capable of raising the dead from the grave.

I exhaled only when I was outside. I entered the address into the GPS, and it blinked.

"Go left along the square," the prompt displayed.

Shivering from the morning cold, I walked towards the metro.

To say that I was choking with rage is to say nothing. If two movements in a year seemed like rare bad luck, then the third lay beyond the boundaries of probability theory. It couldn’t be a mere coincidence; it just couldn’t!

Could Uncle Lesha be right, and is the RPD controllable? The thought was not new, but it pressed down with its fundamental obviousness.

What contradicts Uncle Lesha's claims, actually? Does a person lack a soul? All my life experience, all my upbringing told me otherwise. However, I understood: for Uncle Lesha's concept, the absence of a soul was not required. It was enough to accept the syncretism of the ancients – an approach that holds that the soul is permanently tied to a specific body.

Let’s assume. A classic conspiracy theory. But for what purpose?

I was still in a state of active thinking, but the answer was known. Of course, it was for the purpose of controlling people. Court, confiscation of property – too lengthy and burdensome a process for the masters of life. It is much simpler to just move a person to a new place of residence seemingly at random, without any ill intent, based on physical laws. All social ties are severed, material well-being is altered – literally everything changes. It’s extremely convenient.

Why was I relocated for the third time in a year?

‘For the investigation of the RPD. With a bit of misfortune, it could lead to maximalism,’ flashed a thought.

The informant blinked but said nothing. I was horrified and sat down on a bench. Then I took off the headset and began to carefully wipe its lenses with a handkerchief. The world reappeared before me in its unedited form. This time it didn’t seem distorted to me; on the contrary, it was rather clear.

‘Are you unwell?’

A girl, ready to help, looked at me with concern.

‘No, thank you. My eyes hurt – probably, the settings are off. I’ll just sit here for a while and then take the device for repair.’

The girl nodded and continued on her young path. I tilted my head to prevent the lack of the headset from standing out to passersby.

Still, why this third, clearly unplanned relocation? Think, think, Sergey… Or Vadik?

The headset was in my hands, and I didn’t remember my new name – nor did I want to remember this time. What’s the difference, Sergey or Vadik? I am who I am.

I recalled how Uncle Alyosha used to pound his chest with his fist, shouting:

‘It’s me! Me! Me!’

And the answer came immediately. I was punished! Relocators are accustomed to the fact that in each new life, their material condition differs from the previous one. Usually, the difference was insignificant, although extremes did exist. Consequently, in my new life, my material well-being would be reduced.

I could check my bank account right now by putting on the headset, but caught up in thought, I didn’t bother.

I focused and put on the headset. In doing so, I tried to think about what the weather would be like next week. It would be nice to avoid rain: it’s inconvenient to walk under an umbrella, and shoes get wet afterward.

Following the GPS, I arrived at my new residence in a state of artificial sluggishness.

As I entered the elevator, I suddenly realized: whether my financial situation improves or worsens, it doesn't matter. The masters of life will achieve nothing. I don't know why, but one day the RPD will turn on them in an unpredictable way. Then these secretive and merciless beings will be swept off the face of the planet.

You will lose, inhuman creatures.

The elevator doors opened. I stepped out onto the landing.

"Enter apartment No. 215. The door is to the right," the guide informed me.

The GPS flashed, pointing the direction.

I approached the right door and placed my palm on the identification plate. The lock clicked open trustingly.

I pushed the door and stepped into a new life.

Source: habr.com