Last weekend, the nineteenth international literary conference on science fiction “RosCon” was held at the Lesnye Dali boarding house near Moscow. The conference hosts many events, including those aimed at budding authors - master classes by Sergei Lukyanenko and Evgeniy Lukin.
Those interested need to send a story. The organizing committee conducts initial moderation for compliance with formal requirements, and also selects the required number of stories for each master class.
As part of the master classes, the stories of all participants are discussed, and the respected master gives his recommendations, criticism and, in the end, chooses the best story. The winner receives a commemorative certificate on the main stage of the event.
I was lucky enough to participate in Sergei's event, and now I am publishing the story for everyone to see. Writers perceived the story, let's say, ambiguously. This may be partly because he is very geeky. I hope it will find its reader on Habré, and I will have the opportunity to do an A/B test of reviews from different audiences.
The story itself is below the cut. Have questions or criticism? I'm waiting in the comments.
ISABELLA 2
There were no parking spaces at the entrance to the perinatal center. Angelica walked in circles through the small streets, looking for where to park, but there were absolutely no spaces.
Behind her, in a child seat, sat her two-percent daughter, a three-and-a-half-year-old girl, extremely smart and active. My daughter had just reached the age at which a person understands the rules and she was extremely outraged by everything that goes the slightest bit against the prohibitions. Inscriptions were left on the walls of the houses.
- There are some hooligans here, we must put them in prison!
“We can’t put everyone in jail.”
- But they are criminals! They ruin the walls! — the daughter’s indignation knew no bounds
The car drove another third of the short street and ran into a traffic jam. Directly opposite the daughter's windows was a gray wall of a house with a bright rainbow painted on it. The daughter thought about it:
- Mmm... these are some kind hooligans...
A series of rainbow-related associations immediately flashed through her head, and she sighed sadly. It was necessary to dirty such an initially pure image.
The little one couldn’t concentrate on one thing for long, so she switched:
-Where are we going?
- We're going to buy you a brother.
Arrived.
As soon as we got out of the car, the little one immediately screamed that she wanted to be “handled.” Angelica's thin back immediately ached from such heaviness. But Angelica did not regret it. The daughter so tenderly laid her head on her shoulder and pressed her so closely that Angelica swam with emotion. The little one was just a two percent daughter, could she really cuddle up to someone like that?
Entrance to the perinatal center was through the registry office. The baby was taken to the waiting room by caring nurses, and Angelica went to fill out the paperwork.
— You must pay the entry fee and sign an application for alimony.
- Okay, I'd like five percent.
- Sorry, but our parental scoring only approves two for you. More precisely, the initial payment is twenty thousand loans, the minimum for alimony is half a percent - a maximum of two, but if you pay an increased contribution and insurance. You are too young a parent, you are only sixteen and you need more professional competence.
- But why?
— Sorry, the scoring algorithms are not disclosed in more detail
Angelica came for her second child, but again she was given only two percent. She already knew that with two percent she could claim about seven days a year. Angelica agreed to everything, but became noticeably sad.
The next one to approach the bot was a shy young man with a space IT service chevron. Angelica had never seen him before. He's probably an acquaintance of Anton's. Anton warned Angelica that he would introduce her to someone new at conception. Edward completed his papers. He was only a little older, but he was allowed seventeen percent. Perhaps they would have allowed more, but he asked for exactly seventeen. A very thoughtful young man.
Angelica looked at Edward enviously. Seventeen is really cool... That's a whole sixty-two days.
Edward is seventeen. That's what she started calling him to herself. We need to establish a relationship with him - he seemed the most responsive of all the other parents - and it will be possible to agree on convenient dates.
According to the law, if it’s more than fifteen percent, then you can already choose which days will be yours, if it’s less than five, you’re a minority shareholder and don’t have to choose - you can only be with your child on the days that are determined by the main parents. Don't even dream about holidays and weekends.
Soon other parents appeared; she knew the rest and smiled welcomingly at everyone.
We approached the chatbot, which moderates the conception procedure and issues relevant certificates. The bot's voice rang in the silence with cold solemnity. A pathetic speech, supported by a slight echo, rushed through the vast Hall of Conceptions.
“On this solemn day we gathered to carry out conception.
Angelica shuddered.
- Stand in a circle.
The laser drew a circle on the floor and marks on it where each of the future parents should stand. Angelica quickly found her initials on the floor and stood in the right place.
- Extend your right hand forward.
Everyone held out their hands.
— Do you agree to carry out the conception, Mary?
- Yes, I agree!
- Do you agree Anton?
- Yes, I agree!
So one after another.
A robotic arm extended from an inconspicuous niche in the ceiling and, with a barely noticeable needle, took a tiny drop of blood after each “Yes, I agree.”
Finally, all permits were obtained and the biological material was collected.
The hand, with the precision of a robotic surgeon, moved all the samples into a cube in the middle of the room. It seemed like nothing special had happened, but suddenly it became very alarming. Angelica felt a kind of frosty silence hanging around. She guessed that the light musical background that had unobtrusively accompanied the ceremony all this time had disappeared. But not only that.
The silence came for a reason. The kuyu seemed to vibrate a little and suddenly turned from a neutral white to a glowing green.
The voice announced:
- Conception is complete! Congratulations to the parents!
Then he continued, no longer solemnly, but iridescently soothingly:
“As in ancient times, six ardent hearts merged under one roof and in a single impulse committed the greatest sacrament of joint sin and gave the world a new life...
Angelica thought that she didn’t really merge with someone now, so she extended her hand, so what...
- In the name of the planet “New Tver”, the power given to me by the Senate of the planet and the people of the empire, I name you accordingly:
- Anton, single parent.
- Maria, parent-two.
In sequence.
— Angelica, parent-six.
The music began again, playing a solemn old march.
Fyodor cursed quietly. He and Maria scored twenty percent, but the Chinese random chatbot identified him only as a parent of three. On the contrary, Mary’s gaze shone with glee.
Angelica also received her certificate. Parent #6. Now she is a mother of two children. You can already be proud of this! It’s a pity that we have to wait at least two months for the baby itself.
- So, stop! There's a mistake!
Angelica's face was already filled with blood from indignation.
- Where do we get parent-seven in our certificate? There were six of us!
— Parent-seven is a DNA donor, correcting critical gene sequences to obviously correct ones
— I don’t understand, we pay for this, but he’s free?
- It has been proven that this leads to the birth of more intelligent and healthy children
- Well, don’t you at least want to introduce us?
- Don’t worry - parent-seven has long been dead - his sample DNA is stored in the Kostanay Center for Standard Weights and Measures... It has been well studied and is absolutely safe - therefore it is used to supplement the chains during the formation of embryos.
Edward came up:
- The state sponsors the birth rate, takes on up to twenty percent of the costs, and in return wants to get healthy and mentally developed members of society - so everything is beneficial.
- Well, this is some kind of cheat!
- Don't worry. — Edward turned to the chatbot: “Robot! How much overlap does our DNA have with the sequence of parent-seven?”
- Ninety-nine point nine percent.
- You see, we are almost not defective and almost nothing had to be corrected...
Edward smiled and therefore immediately stopped liking Angelica. She felt somehow uneasy about this intervention. How can a person who has been dead for a long time become a parent?
Edward saw Angelica's documents over his shoulder.
- Wow, this will be your second child? Do you love children that much? Why?
— Probably because I’m an orphan and was raised by robots?
Angelica turned her back to him and walked towards the exit. She firmly decided not to communicate with this vile guy anymore.
Train
Angelica had just turned eighteen. She is a young, pretty, purposeful girl. She has straight, combed blonde hair, long, below her shoulders. She was traveling alone. However, she didn’t have far to go. Three hours on the train, and you’re there. Marriage and a new life await her ahead.
Angelica was nervous. For the third time during the trip, she decided to check the documents that would need to be presented upon arrival. There were only two documents.
Certificate of registration with the coat of arms of the spacefleet, and personal instructions from a member of the spaceship crew with a mark on passing the exam with excellent marks.
The note said that starting tomorrow she was appointed as the wife of Lieutenant V.V. Venichkin, who lived there... That she was declared a wife from nine in the morning of the corresponding day and she needed to arrive at her husband’s location before this date. Marriage is appointed for the entire life of the spouses, except in cases... when there are no children in the first two years of marriage or one of the spouses dies. Seal of the Commissariat for Family and Marriage Affairs.
Below in small print there were conditions about termination of the contract, deportation and fines in the event of no offspring, and a bunch of other things. This was part of the standard agreement and did not frighten Angelica.
The instructions were dramatically monstrous. She regulated everything - the daily routine, the distribution of responsibilities, how to cook, how to wash, everything...
The instructions even contained paragraphs about marital duty and literally read:
According to your physiological parameters, the following sequence of actions will be the most productive: the woman should undress, kneel down, lower her head and moan quietly until the man carries out the actions according to his instructions and reports that the marital duty has been fulfilled. After this, you need to lie down for ten minutes with your legs raised and then wash thoroughly. Repeat every day.
This contradicted everything that Angelica still knew about procreation; theoretically, of course, she knew about such an archaic ancient rite as sex, but sex as a method of procreation contradicted all her life experience. Almost all of her friends had already become mothers, but none of them could even think about this method of reproduction.
Angelica had read about sex in history books, but she didn’t think it was that simple. The ancients paid too much attention to this, but wrote very vaguely - in the instructions for astronauts everything was much clearer.
Angelica looked again at the cover of the astronaut textbook. In the picture, the spaceship towered over the city. Of course, it was huge, but you still couldn’t fit a perinatal center into it. He's healthy too.
Angelica continued to reread what she already knew. The special training course for astronauts no longer seemed as overwhelming to her as at first. Roughly speaking, she was expecting another high-order mathematics, but here was some kind of physics. She can handle it!
Train
Trams... The train brakes sharply and many things fall from the shelves. It’s unclear what happened, people are running along the train screaming “Accident!” A robot conductor flew into the carriage. He was very small, like a tennis ball, hovering in one place - shouting the line:
- We need a programmer!
He instantly moved to another point and repeated his call:
- Comrade passengers! Is there a programmer among you?
As it turned out, despite its size, it could be very loud when necessary.
The dynamics of his movements resembled the flight of a hummingbird. The conductor, as he moved, wheezed a little with a tiny motor that could not be seen.
- We need a programmer!
It doesn’t immediately dawn on Angelica what she needs, but she finally responds:
- I! Programmer of the third category. Specialization: small technical and household robots.
The guide hovers next to her in obvious confusion.
— We have problems with the robot controlling the locomotive. I don't know if you can handle it...
Angelica understood his doubts. The locomotive robot is the prerogative of programmers of the first category, because a train is a highly dangerous vehicle.
Angelica is just a boarding school graduate with a focus on subject programming.
Angelica ran after the conductor to the locomotive. Leaving a train idle far from a city is dangerous on this planet. If you don't fix the locomotive, you may end up in a storm or be surrounded by herds of wild scotosaurs, and then you can only get through them with external support. Therefore, if she can help even a little, she should help.
- Stop!
In another carriage, the conductor found a senior programmer of the first category and the work was immediately entrusted to him. Angelica breathed a sigh of relief. They immediately forgot about her, and she was immediately left alone.
I looked around.
There were no windows on the train, and it was highly discouraged for anyone to go to the surface of the planet far from cities. Today was a fine day, but even now it was felt that there was not enough air, but there were enough other impurities and you could lose consciousness and crash at any moment. But it was very beautiful. Angelica saw something she had never seen before and it took her breath away. She even rejoiced at such a rare opportunity to see the world from this point.
The red gas giant hung above the horizon in these morning hours, blocking the entire lower part of the horizon. There was no heat from it, but everything around was filled with pink reflections of the energy seething on it.
How much space was visible from the road to the city - all of it was built up with one-story barracks or greenhouses dug two-thirds into the ground, where the energy of the star was transformed into potatoes and cucumbers. Most of the residential buildings had already been abandoned and looted; only the central part of the settlement remained inhabited.
A little further away, outside the city, the huge carcass of a spaceship towered. It was wide and of unimaginable height. He was scary. Too gigantic and ridiculously cut. With a worn casing from which some piece of ceramic seemed about to fall off. In some places, scaffolding still remained, and this made the spaceship even uglier and larger.
- Soon he will fly away and there will be nothing left here at all.
Angelica shuddered; she did not notice how other people got off the train. Next to her stood a stooped man with a face black from dust. A worker from a space construction site or from a mineral quarry, Angelica guessed. The man took a long sip from the bottle he had in his hand. For a moment he seemed quite old to her.
The worker noticed her glance.
— Do you remember how they started building it?
- No, I wasn’t born yet then
- Nobody remembers anymore. This was supposed to be the lead ship of the whole series. There were plans to reach a rate of two ships per year... - the man’s gaze became completely extinguished.
He took another sip and stared at the bottle of Isabella in his hands. "Isabella" brand of local wine. Tastes like glass melt mixed with a little honey.
“Everything was doomed from the very beginning, but every year it only became sadder. As a result, we always had a lot of “Isabella.” We drank it in the evenings and weekends, and when the melancholy became unbearable, we began to drink it in the mornings. Gradually, this very word “Isabella” migrated on board the ship - it became its name.
— I thought this was an advertising contract?
“Then this is an advertisement for hopelessness.”
Angelica wanted to say that this is actually the only chance to get out of here, and she is one of six hundred boys and girls selected to fly on this ship, what hopelessness is he talking about? But she didn’t dare... What are a few hundred people for several millions who will stay here forever?
Angelica saw the film that was shown to the first settlers.
It said that this star system is located at the optimal point - exactly in the middle of two large star systems. It was said that there would always be travelers moving past and they would have to stop to resupply and rest. This is the “new Tver” the announcer in the film joyfully announced. Angelica did not know such a name as “Tver” to appreciate the temptingness of the offer, but the announcer’s voice was captivating with its enthusiasm.
— We are between two capital systems, everything depends only on us!
- Yeah, we’re in a hole with one cinema and a dumpling shop, in which there is absolutely nothing to do.
In the video, the planet itself was described as a rosy prospect, but in fact, the prospect died almost immediately after the film was finished.
Even in the first generation of colonists, new engines appeared, or rather, new principles of movement, once again a changed understanding of distances in space. This dramatically changed the attitude towards the Planet. Now it was a useless, forgotten unfinished building. Not even a province, but an almost uninhabited refuge of eccentrics.
This was the case two generations ago before Angelique and it remains the same now. Everyone who could ticked away from here.
Angelique coughed. Of course, she has resistance to this atmosphere, but still she cannot breathe such air for a long time.
“It’s good that I’ll fly away from here soon,” she thought. “It’s scary, of course, what’s out there in the distance, but it’s better to take a risk than to regret for the rest of your life that you didn’t try.”
She returned to the train interior, waiting for it to be repaired, hiding behind the air filtration apparatus.
Husband's house
When Angelica woke up, she was at first frightened by the unfamiliar place, but then she remembered where she was. She is at her husband's house. Judging by the sounds outside the door, he had finally come home.
Angelica quickly got dressed, tidied up her hair and carefully looked out the door.
Husband. Yes, after nine she could call him that, he stood in front of the mirror and tried on the shirt she had brought. There was a tradition, carefully written down in the instructions, that upon first meeting a girl would give a shirt of her choice.
She really liked the way he looked in her. The husband had a good figure, he was tall and muscular. All the girls who were selected for the flight studied photographs of the men who would be on the ship. Until recently, it was unknown which pairs the ship’s computer would split them into, and the girls spent hours looking at photographs of all the candidates in a row, wondering who they would like to be their partner. At that moment, Angelica decided that perhaps she was lucky.
The shirt that Angelica gave was pink with a nipped waist. The husband turned around in front of the mirror this way and that with a satisfied expression, but never turned to face Angelica.
- Do you like it?
- Yes, great shirt, I like it. Wasn’t there one like this for men?
The husband took off his shirt and threw it on a chair, dressed in his usual lieutenant uniform.
Angelica handed her husband a small plastic card.
- What's this?
- This is the dowry.
- A dowry is good.
The husband scanned the card and became gloomy.
- Is this so little?
- There are all the scholarships for the entire time I studied at the boarding school, I spent practically nothing, I haven’t started working yet, that’s all I’ve saved up...
The husband made a sour face, but immediately attached the card to his mobile phone to credit them to his account.
- Okay, what did you cook?
Cooking a dish is another ritual that a girl needs to do when she first meets her.
- Borsch.
— Borscht is good.
The lieutenant trotted into the kitchen like a hungry pig.
- What kind of borscht is this? There is meat in the borscht, and this is beetroot and cabbage soup...
- Well, there is no meat in our daily ration, there is only a bouillon cube.
— It’s not in the ration, but they somehow bring it to others, the family saves it for such an occasion.
- I don’t have a family, I’m from an orphanage...
There was an unpleasant pause; the lieutenant-husband ate, trying not to show any appetite.
- You didn’t meet me.
Angelica hinted that her husband also did not perform the ritual perfectly.
- You are late.
— There was an accident, the neural network of the locomotive became unbalanced, it became afraid of shadows from large cobblestones and could not move further, we had to connect a programmer to retrain its entire visual module. You should have seen how masterly he did it!
“There will always be excuses,” the husband retorted, instantly making Angelica guilty again.
Having finished the soup, the husband immediately got ready to leave the house.
— I’m off to training, bye.
- Till.
Left alone in someone else's house, Angelica did not know what to do with herself. The day lasted a very long time. She tried to read something, clean something, study something, but everything fell out of her hands.
The worst thing was the uncertainty - when will my husband return?
She decided to call him. The mobile phone picked up the phone. My husband had a very fashionable mobile phone, too expensive not to be a show-off. Of those that were delivered in batches from the mainland. A black ball moving almost silently around the room. Like a bumblebee, the size of a tennis ball, without wings, and follows her husband everywhere. Like that conductor from the train, only serving as a personal assistant.
The cell phone answered the call and turned on the broadcast of the tatami, where the husband in wrestling shorts was tightly entwined with another wrestler and was so passionate about the fight that his cell phone could not tell him that someone was calling. The mobile phone made circles over the tatami trying to show itself. Finally, the husband saw him, but waved him off.
- Then we’ll talk!
But he didn't call back.
My husband came in the evening, a little under the table. Celebrated a friend's birthday at a bar. He smelled, of course, of “Isabella.”
- Wife, do you have instructions?
- There is.
- Well, let's go.
***
Angelica didn't like following the instructions. Fizra-fizroy, but still not quite. The worst thing is the smell that lingers in the nostrils. The smell of a stranger. It did not go away even after a day. "It's some kind of mistake!" - was spinning in Angelica’s head. This cannot be so, the flight lasts thirty years, during this time you need to give birth to at least three children, otherwise only old people will fly to the new world. But I can’t live like this for so long!
Nevertheless, this lasted two weeks, the husband spent all his days with friends or at work, and only devoted time to her in the evening for the procedures prescribed according to the instructions. Moreover, they became longer and longer.
Two weeks later, Angelica exploded.
- I'll leave you!
- Go away, the next ship will be built in a hundred and fifty years, if it is built at all.
- You don’t need me at all! You only need your friends! Why do you need a family then?! Do you even know what family is?
- Actually, you don’t know what family is. I had and still have normal parents, but you’re from an orphanage—you just have no idea how to behave. You spent your whole life in a group of girls and robots - how do you know how to behave with a man!
As a result, Angelica emotionally lost this battle and ran into the bedroom, threw herself on the pillow and roared fiercely for several hours.
The passage about parents hurt the most. Angelica roared like a beluga. She didn't even have any special thoughts at this time. She simply processed helplessness and loneliness into rivers of tears and crying.
***
The next evening, the husband came for Angelica and, as usual, demanded that the instructions be followed.
“Wife, it’s time to start, why aren’t you in bed yet?”
He seems to have gotten a taste of it and got involved in their slow-paced life over these weeks.
- Fuck off.
- But the instructions? — The husband was amazed, like a kitten at the sight of a ball.
- I studied her well. Daily - optional. Sanctions are only for the absence of children in the first two years. No others. So go to sleep.
The husband rushed to protect his assets:
“If you don’t like something now, you just need to continue, and you’ll get used to it.” At first I wasn’t very happy, but I made an effort on myself and now I’m determined to strictly follow the instructions, even the points with an asterisk for excellent students. You studied mathematics, didn't you? It has been mathematically proven that the matching algorithm works perfectly. Albinsky's theorem! You and I are an ideal couple, you just don’t understand yet...
— Of course I studied mathematics, I’m a programmer! Don't tell me nonsense. The Albinsky theorem algorithm predicts an ideal match with 100% probability only when it works on complete data, and it is unknown what the recommendation made by the commissariat is based on. By the way...
Angelica suddenly fell silent and thought about something. The husband continued:
— Of course, the commissariat does everything based on the questionnaires that we filled out. Plus public data about us from government sources. Plus medical databases... This data is more than enough for the algorithm.
Angelica didn't listen to him, she went online and sent a bunch of requests. Suddenly her face darkened.
- What? — My husband was scared.
— I know several hackers, not personally, of course, but online. They have a database about all the inhabitants of the planet. Almost from the first generations of settlers. This is the most complete thing there is, if I downloaded it, I could load it into the recommendation algorithm myself and see who would be my ideal match.
- Come on, do you think the commissariat is wrong? Come on, come on, I will certainly be the answer!
- Maybe, but we can’t check, the base is paid, they don’t just give it away, if it weren’t for an old acquaintance, they wouldn’t even talk to me. And now I have no money at all.
Angelica looked her husband straight in the eyes. The husband came closer to the screen and looked at the price being asked, his eyes widening slightly.
- Well, let’s say I give you this money and it turns out that the algorithm will choose me again. Will you do everything prescribed by the instructions every day?
Angelica nodded silently.
- What if I ask for something special? Well, not every time, but at least sometimes?
Angelica nodded again, although with some fear in her eyes.
- Your husband is not a miser, my dear! Mobile phone, give her as much money as she needs for this purchase and we’ll close this issue!
***
They spent the next few hours setting up the environment to perform the necessary calculations. A database of information about people was downloaded, but it turned out to be significantly larger than Angelica expected. It took a long time to wait for the insane petabytes to download.
The husband got nervous and constantly tried to control the process, apparently afraid that Angelica would somehow manipulate the results, but she herself did not need this at all, she just wanted to know the honest truth.
The husband insisted that exactly the same algorithm be used that was indicated on the website of the Marriage Commissariat, exactly the same version. Despite the fact that there were already newer algorithms that were no different, in essence, but worked faster, Angelica agreed and downloaded the required version of the source codes of the recommendation algorithm from the commissariat repository.
The anticipation was so unbearable that she agreed when he dragged her to follow the instructions. So be it, anything to take your mind off it.
Finally everything was loaded and ready. Angelica started the calculations. The husband stood behind the back of the chair and watched her work. Controlling and enjoying. Still, when someone does a good job, it’s nice to watch. Especially if it's your wife.
The data was divided into uniform packets and spread across tens of thousands of computing cores. Matrices were multiplied by matrices, tensors by tensors, and scalars by everything. The digital thresher split real-world data, extracting from it the magic of hidden patterns invisible to the human mind.
Finally the machine gave an answer. The ideal match for Angelica is... The husband laughed. Neighed like a nervous horse.
- How can it be? What are you, a lesbian?
The ideal couple was a certain Kuralai Sagitova.
“I’ve lived all my life in a women’s dormitory, but nothing like this has ever happened there, maybe we made a mistake somewhere!”
“Ha-ha-ha,” the husband continued.
He found Kuralai's profile on the settlement's official social network. Unfortunately, the photo was taken in such a way that it was impossible to understand what the person actually looked like.
- Well, if there’s a photo like that, then it’s most likely as scary as a silver carp fish, who else would post something like that? Angelica remained silent because she actually had a photo of a kitten on her profile.
“Her legs are crooked, you can definitely see it!” — the husband stared and did not let up.
- Ha-ha-ha! Go to your scarecrow - can I give you money for a taxi?
- I don’t need anything! - Angelica got nervous.
Until late at night, Angelica checked the results. Is there an error somewhere? Her husband still periodically laughed at her and sent her to a mysterious stranger, but Angelica angrily refused. She couldn’t find the error in the calculations, but it was still too much for her.
Angelica rushed to read manuals for algorithms built on the basis of Albinsky’s theorem, and greatly improved her mathematical base. In particular, she learned that the algorithm selects “the person with whom you will be fundamentally happy.” Angelica didn’t know how to translate this literally, but she got the gist. The main thing is that there was no direct indication that a partner of the opposite sex was being sought.
No other explanation could be found.
***
It was a little morning and my husband, as usual, went to training, and then to work. Angelica was left at home alone.
What if it's true? What if there is no error? Angelica tried to imagine what it would be like to live her whole life with another woman. She even began to look for answers in the instructions; on the Internet there were extended versions of the cosmonaut’s instructions with additions and comments, which were recommended only for study by specialized workers, but were meanwhile freely available. However, nothing like this was covered there.
But there was a clause about infidelity, where it said “engaging in the specified activities with another man other than the husband is grounds for...” and then a list of punishments. That is, technically, according to the instructions, you can do whatever you want with another woman, it will not be considered cheating. It’s not that Angelica was going to, but she made a note in her memory.
After some time, Angelica found herself reading Kuralai’s blog. There weren’t many posts in it, but Angelica liked her way of thinking. Kuralai ironically described moments from the life of the colony; much seemed witty and fresh and at the same time consonant with Angelica’s own thoughts.
In two days the Isabella was supposed to take off. This, of course, was the main news of all media.
When Kuralai wrote about this, Angelica decided and wrote to her in a personal message that she was also flying and could tell about it. They immediately connected with the messages and chatted for half the day. Kuralai was interested in everything - she was delighted with Angelica’s stories, and Angelica was delighted, because she had never listened to her so carefully.
- Well, the perinatal unit is too cumbersome to put on a ship!
- What nonsense! Can you imagine how much food this whole horde of people needs, and how much space, and water? And all this should fly! It was possible to send only the installation and test tubes with DNA to the new planet, and the ship would be three times smaller.
- Why then?
- Well, first of all, we just can’t do it. We are a backward colony. Secondly, we don’t trust machines enough to send a population to another star that the machine will grow. What if the roof of the car falls off like that locomotive of yours that you were talking about? What kind of people will fly to another planet then? A woman is old school, reliable, rational - so let’s carry out your thirty-year plan.
- Wait, how can we not trust the perinatal center if we all come from it ourselves?
- Listen, you’re a programmer, we’ve been making machines for a long time that we don’t fully understand. We are satisfied that they work most of the time, and if they break, a programmer comes, but only if an error is noticed. And if the children grow up and turn out to be schizophrenic, it will be too late to come. Such a story happened, for example, on Ceres-3. The entire colony then died out.
- It’s still more effective. In the end, we are all from the perinatal center and it seems like nothing :)
- Ha ha, yes, of course, that's all. You seem to have heard enough of official propaganda :)
- But as?
- Yes! Come and tell me :)
Angelica did not expect everything to happen so quickly. She was confused. On the other hand, there were only a few days left before the start and it was apparently impossible to find out the truth otherwise.
Angelica got ready. I combed my hair, put on makeup, got dressed, and got ready to go out. I undressed and changed my underwear so that the bottom and top were the same color. When everything was fine, she looked at herself in the mirror. “Well, I’m definitely going on a date, although you’re just looking,” she thought and left the house.
Kuralai's house was on the very outskirts of the city. Even further than the outskirts, in a deserted but nice area. Getting out of the taxi, Angelica was confused. There was a whole farm here, there were animals in pens, and nearby there were greenhouses in which someone was walking. Obviously these were not robots, but humans.
Angelica carefully knocked on the door. Footsteps were heard outside the door and Kuralai opened the door. The girls stared, wide-eyed at each other.
- Mom, dad, look who came.
Two elderly people came out from the depths of the room and were stunned. Angelica stepped inside the room, stood next to Kuralai and it became clear that outwardly they were indistinguishable. Like identical twins. The same figures, the same faces, even the hairstyles are similar.
- How is this possible? — the question hung in the air without an answer.
- Mother, father?
- Sister?
***
Isabella's launch day. Angelica and her sister watch him from their parents' house on the far outskirts of the city. Two little girls are circling around Angelique. Most of the adults went to watch the launch from the industrial site on the territory of the cosmodrome; children were not allowed there due to increased radiation at the launch, so minority parents who were ready to sit with their children that day were worth their weight in gold.
— We’re not at all at the epicenter of events, don’t you think?
- Whoever refused to play in the play should suffer because of bad seats in the auditorium...
“Ha-ha...” the sister laughed. “Don’t you regret that you refused to fly?”
The girls looked at each other and laughed.
— Will you stay with us or go to your place?
- If you leave, of course, I will stay. There are so many of us...
- Mom is crazy about you and about the girls, she will be happy.
On the horizon, the spaceship began warming up its engines. The entire sky over the city was covered with clouds, illuminated by the crimson light of the local star.
“I heard that yesterday they found two more “orphan types” like you. The Commissariat conducted an official investigation. It seems that the perinatal center, when it got twins, sent all the “extra” children to a boarding school due to a software error.
“There’s probably hell going on there right now.”
“Probably... They’re trying to find out if this bug was introduced here or if it came from the capital with it already...
The spaceship begins to roar its engines. The countdown is ticking on all monitors on the planet. The launch takes place tens of kilometers from the observation point, but the earth still vibrates and a distant rumble is heard.
You can hear the speakers on the stereo screen in the bedroom on the second floor of the building choking with delight. My father even preferred to watch such events in broadcasts with comments from specialists, and the girls wanted to see with their own eyes.
The pre-start countdown began, and the announcer became frantically delighted, like a ring announcer before a boxing match...
- This is a great day for all of us! Let's get ready for the journey back to coooooosmoss!!!
Finally, the spacecraft takes off from the ground and soars to a height of several kilometers.
Suddenly, a stream of fire hit the wrong place. It was as if a bright spark had splashed from the surface of the ship. From a distance it seemed tiny, but the gigantic bulk of the ship barely noticeably swayed to the side. The control system attempted to level the ship and succeeded easily. The left side engines received a signal to add a little thrust, the ship jerked in the right direction and leveled off for a second.
The engine exploded.
The fire spread to the fuel tanks, and they burst into flames. It boomed so loudly that it filled half the celestial hemisphere with fire.
The ship's hull breaks into several pieces and falls down onto the city. To residential areas, to the perinatal center, to the industrial site and factory, to farms, to the train station... The entire space around the wreckage of the Isabella is burning in a hell of oxidizing fuel. The catastrophe happens so quickly that absolutely all people are speechless.
The sister grabs Angelica, she grabs the children, the children scream.
They barely have time to sit down and close their eyes before they are covered by a blast wave. Overturning a car, tearing off roofs from houses, breaking trees and disappearing just as quickly as it appeared.
People fell head over heels to the ground, but, fortunately, no one was seriously injured. It was scary, the windows in the house were blown out and dishes were broken, the dust made it impossible to see anything further than ten meters, but the damage was nothing worse than broken knees. Elder relatives came out of the dilapidated house; apparently, they were also healthy. Angelica once again felt the children and asked if everything was okay.
The sister tried to peer into the distance, squinting her eyes, but could not see anything. She was shocked.
- God, so many people and nothing left!
Angelica also looked towards the disaster and now could not turn away.
“Something may still be left,” said Angelica and put one hand on her stomach and hugged her little girls with the other.
The mobile phone appeared unexpectedly. It was strange to see the cellular network functioning after such a disaster. The black ball made several circles around Angelica, making sure through the dust cloud that it was its owner and chattered as if nothing had happened.
— Message from the server of the automated multifunctional city services center. Since all the other parents died in the disaster that occurred twelve minutes and forty-five seconds ago today, your share in the parental status of both girls is now the largest. Taking into account the new circumstances, you now have the right to the title of single parent while maintaining the same amount of child support. Do you want to create an application for re-registration of status?
— Uh…
Angelica was speechless and looked at the babies. Did they now understand what was said or not? Looks like no. But robots, you are heartless machines... Angelica wanted to destroy the server that sent this message personally, but judging by the fact that it survived the disaster, it was hidden somewhere very deep underground...
- Sorry, Angelica, I didn’t understand your answer.
The polite tone of the mobile phone confused Angelica and her aggressiveness cooled down.
- No need for “single parent”, just write there... “mom.”
Source: habr.com