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Consequences of fear

Heavy rain hides the horizon. It looks disgusting. Especially disgusting from the height of the twentieth floor of the Khateshinay Plaza.

Abner looks out the window and suffers from a headache. He needs a remedy strong enough to relieve pain, not strong enough to fall asleep. The only remedy available to him now is meditation by the window.

The cause of the headache is undoubtedly not physiological. This is a reaction to augment. Tomography showed: augmentation is not rejected, which is good. But he does not seek to take root, but this is bad. There is a complicated process. Brain cells try to recognize a neighbor, learn how to manage it. Their inflamed activity causes headaches, cramps, hallucinations.

Through a sickening veil, Abner is trying to remember if there is a regular pharmacy nearby. Knocking out the hospital staff will fail. Even alkanoic acid.

A sudden bolt of lightning forces Abner to jerk his hand to his eyes. Immediately, pain pierces the left side of the chest. Abner bends, stands for a long time, not seeing or hearing anything.

When he opens his eyes, he sees patent leather shoes and hears a familiar voice screaming his name from somewhere far away.

Strong hands grab Abner and sit in a soft chair in which he spreads, unable to strain muscles. If he relaxes completely, it can end unpleasantly. But to hell with everything! After all, he is in the hospital.

After all, his life is expensive.


Dr. Roy Leach is reclining in his chair. His face expresses deep thoughtfulness. Eyelids drooping, eyes frozen.

The clock clicks. An unusual dial with twenty-four divisions shows the military time. For some reason, not true. Now it’s definitely not an hour or so.

Dr. Roy Leach is dead. There is no doubt about it. The forehead turned pale, the tireless vein on the temple disappeared, his lips turned blue.

At the other end of the room, Abner carefully removes a plastic dropper needle from a vein, takes a cotton wool from a tray, wipes the protruding drop of blood, then uses a second cotton wool and squeezes a hand at the elbow. Then it detaches the wire from the temporal connector, gets up.

He looks at Lich, walks along the far wall, snuggling his back, clings to the door handle. The door is locked.

“Let me out,” he says to the camcorder.

The camera is off. The red light is off. Abner catches his throat. Abner hears the beat of his own heart. He pulls the door handle. To no avail.

“Let me out,” he screams. - Release it! My life is expensive!


“You're right, Abner,” says the owner of the patent leather shoes. - Your life is expensive. But almost all analgesics can kill you.

Abner from the latter is trying to pronounce something strong. Abner wheezes.

“Now I will offer you something that will not kill you.” Sorry for not offering before. We were not alone at all.

It is also painful to move one's eyes, but Abner examines the ceiling and part of the wall, recognizes Frederiksen's office. The speaker is Frederiksen himself. Abner does not see him, but vividly imagines how a dandy mustache moves above his upper lip.

“It will get better now,” says Frederiksen, and it is getting better.

A warm wave flows from the heart, covers the body. Abner feels a tingling sensation at her fingertips and, to her surprise, sits up straight.

“Don't ask what it is,” says Frederiksen, throwing out a disposable syringe. “You should not know.”

To a silent question he answers:

- The invigorating effect will not last long, only half an hour. The pain, fortunately, will go away for two whole days. Come again in a day. And don't do stupid things. Remember, you will receive it only here and only from me.

Abner nods in agreement. Nonsense can not be committed.

- What did the tests show? Frederiksen asks.

- Without changes.

Fredericksen nods thoughtfully. The operation was carried out three months ago. The forecast for adaptation was two months. A day ago, pain began. Fredericksen slowly snaps these numbers in his mind. It turns out an extra month - fifty percent of the forecast. Frederiksen is a businessman, he is accustomed to risk, and the numbers express the probability. Probabilities were taken into account in advance, were closed by capital. But the incredible happened. The improbable was not considered. Fredericksen examines Abner. He is bad, but still alive. Unlike Lich. In all, the incredible can only be accepted, recognized that it happened, to make additional calculations, to compare with new figures.

“We foresaw this,” Frederiksen sums up.

“Rimmer has a different opinion,” Abner remarks gruffly.

Mention of Rimmer annoys Fredericksen. Now in the Rimmer equation one of the unknown quantities that suddenly took on very great importance.

“Rimmer doesn't know everything,” Frederiksen says sharply. “His task is to observe you.” His task is neither to make forecasts, nor to take measures.

“I vomited three times yesterday from pain, I slept only three hours ... on the floor in the bathroom.” I need someone to take action, ”continues Abner.

He's feeling good. The feeling of intoxication and euphoria begins to blow away consciousness. Everything ceases to be important, and Abner begins to like to grumble and dare in front of the young chairman of the board. Frederiksen and Abner disproportionate figures: investor and investment. Abner does not know what is more important, and tries to imagine how they are connected, but he cannot. And it doesn’t matter, because it’s nice to grumble.


The green volume bar creeps to the right. The green volume bar creeps to the left. One point to the right, three points to the left, one to the right, one to the left. Abner accelerates the strip and stops. Trying to hit exactly the number 80. It turns out.

Having finished playing with the volume, Abner plunges into the playlist. Scraps of melodies, faces of musicians, history of works - information penetrates Abner's wide open gaze. At first there are so many that the sounds turn pink and the floor is cotton. But Abner does it. Spreading his legs wide, raising his arms to meet the data, he finds the rhythm he needs and contemplates.

- You like? - asks Leach.

- Mozart will never become obsolete. This is the music of life, impulse, recklessness.

- It’s right at the time.

Abner reduces the volume, completely turns off the sound.

“This is still a dream,” he says.

Lich puts the medicine tray on the table. Three rows of identical flasks with a clear liquid. Abner looks at them and counts the days. There are a dozen in each row. If possible, he would inject everything. In one fell swoop. But everything should be on schedule. Mechanically. Clearly. Morning day Evening. Twelve days.

Abner removes his helmet from his head, unfastens the interface wire from the connector above his right ear, trying not to touch the gold pins, snaps a plastic valve, closes it with a lock of hair.

“I don’t propose a game of chess,” says Leach. - It makes no sense.

He knows how to cheer Abner, so he changes the subject, and it works. Abner throws up his head, puts his helmet on the stand and sits on a swivel chair. His sharp fingers are located on the shadows of the glass bubbles like on the keys of a piano and by themselves begin to beat the rhythm of the March for the Turks.

“I spent last night on the Internet.” If you come in, you will see my result. The second line. The first did not have enough strength - I wanted to sleep.

“I'm afraid that if this continues, then soon you will not have any desires,” Leach snickers.

Abner smiles smugly.

- Not really. You cannot imagine how much opens up there, beyond the horizon of past experience. Chess itself is no longer interesting - I agree. But it is interesting, for example, to understand how the complexity of the strategy depends on the number of figures. Will it become easier, or more difficult, if you reduce the number of cells horizontally to seven and remove, say, the queen?

Lich shrugs, takes out syringes, begins to prepare a solution.

“The board will become symmetrical, and elephants can only walk along fields of the same color,” he says, measuring out the right amount of liquid.

“Yes, it may seem uncomfortable,” Abner continues to reflect. - But behind this lies a completely different strategy. No worse and no better. Just different. It may not be interesting to play, but the game is still possible. It would be necessary to formulate this most “interesting”.

He ignores the injection.

- There is a strict rhythm in chess. A peppy or cautious overture, then a design, then a battle of complex intertwined options. Solid emotions. Having removed only one figure, we lose this rhythm. Like a string bursting. Therefore, it seems to us that a chessboard with its number of cells is the optimal space. But how can we prove this if we could not fully describe the game process itself so as to differentiate its interest?

“I'm afraid this is already beyond my capabilities, Abner,” Leach says, packing the rest of the bubbles in a plastic box.

- Borders are the very word! Abner exclaims, raising her hands solemnly. - Beyond the borders is the frenzy of alternatives.


“Are you all right, Abner?” Frederiksen asks. “Two hours have passed.” I think you fell asleep.

Abner sits down, stretches his arms in front of him, examines the tips of his fingers, blinks, closes his eyes and touches the tip of his nose with the index finger of his nose, then does the same with the other hand.

“Looks like I got enough sleep.”

He does not thank Fredericksen. The investor considers the investment a tool. A tool that should make money. It is advisable to do obediently. Abner checks to see if a syringe was taken secretly from a bin in a pocket. It makes no sense to trust Frederiksen. It makes sense to find out what was in the syringe.

- Have a good night's sleep? Good, says Frederiksen. “May I detain you for another half hour?” Gentlemen from the police came. They asked about you. I thought that you would still like to sleep when you get home, and if you and the police clarify everything here, with me, then you will not be disturbed at home.

A rattling falsehood in his voice, salty, crunchy like peanuts. Very interesting observation. It is easy to understand that Fredericksen was the first to offer the police a conversation with Abner, and there is no need to crush the beige crumbs along a long clumsy phrase. But the observation is interesting, and Abner scrolls through Fredericksen’s words a couple more times to enjoy the sound of lies, and only then agrees.

- Yes thank you. You did the right thing. Will they come here?

- Already here.

Fredericksen opens the door. Two come in. One little one in a clumsy jacket. The second tall skinny type in a raincoat. Both have wet boots, dark spots on the trousers below the knees. The tall one jerks his legs up, making him look like a gray bruised heron.

- Mr. Abner? - asks the little one and introduces himself: - Detective Long.

“Did the police have any questions for me?”

“The police have new ones,” Long says. - May I sit down?

He sits opposite Abner on the sofa, stroking the leather upholstery.

- Dear little thing. So that I earn so much. Last time you told me about a typewriter in your head. It has a difficult name, - Long takes a notebook out of his sleeve and leafs through it, - augment. You mentioned that this augment of yours can record information.

- Remember. Like a human brain.

Long opens his eyes with interest.

- Can I read the information from him? Save, say, to disk?

- Sorry but no.

“I'm afraid I don't understand,” Long insists. - It's a machine, a computer.

Abner throws up his hands.

- Not everything is so simple. This is not a computer, nor a camcorder. This is an imitation of the human brain. Augment works on the same principle. He remembers, but like a brain. In order to get something from this memory, you need me to tell something. The only advantage of augment is that with it I remember everything to the smallest detail. - Abner catches Fredericksen's wary look. - However, here I lied. Augment remembers well what I'm trying to remember well. Forgetful to me, he forgets. Just like a brain. And like a brain, he can deceive himself. Let's say you fall in love. Hormones boil, the brain sees the girl more beautiful than she really is. He skips all the flaws, does not focus on them. And he remembers only what he imagines to himself. So augment.Once you wake up next to your lover and think: who did I just marry?

“I like it,” Long rejoices. - It's about my wife. Yes, I understand how it works. It is a pity that you can not copy. But do you remember that day well?

Abner is gloomy. He very vividly remembers that day. How can I forget the first network connection? It was informational ecstasy, quenching of thirst, satiety. The moment when the coveted big world becomes available. And right away there was a terrible fear, its own insignificance, a fit of panic. Expulsion from a paradise of ignorance. But why is it all to tell Long?

“I had a panic attack,” says Abner. - And the consequences of this are still manifesting themselves.

“Yes, you said,” Long interrupts.

The little policeman delves into his notebook again. He is very meticulous. Abner notes how even and neat Long's handwriting is.

“And one more thing,” Long says, finding the page he needs. “Have you restored Rimmer yet?” Can i talk to him?

Long stares with a sarcastic look at Abner. This seems to be his personal way of pressure.


Rimmer sits on a throne of gold. Beyond his shoulders sky stretches unlimitedly. A dazzling, sunny halo burns overhead. Rimmer's face is impassive and uncomplicated. With an athletic body, it is similar to Hermes. The sun plays on the golden armrests.

“Very pathetic,” says Abner to a motionless figure.

Rimmer slowly turns his head, looks down on Abner, standing on the bottom step.

“Does that hurt you, Mr. Abner?” He asks.

- You have to lift your head. Not too comfortable.

The sun fades, the golden throne begins to crumble to dust, carried away by the wind. At an ideal moment, Rimmer gets up, soars majestically and smoothly descends to the ground a meter from Abner.

- This is more comfortable?

“Yes, that’s much more convenient,” says Abner.

- Dr. Leach asked me to show you how the network works, to help adapt.

Abner cannot help but grin.

“And you decided to stage a whole performance,” he says. “You could have sat in the red shabby armchairs in front of Radiol's television.”

“I suggested such an option,” Rimmer says indifferently. - Dr. Leach wanted to express his own imagination.

Rimmer stares unblinking. From the lack of facial expressions in the person of the interlocutor, Abner becomes uncomfortable. It would be much easier to communicate with a robot or an incorporeal spirit.

“Right now, all your human feelings are turned off,” Rimmer says, still monotonously. In order for the brain not to fall into a state of sleep or coma, this virtual reality is transmitted to you. Dr. Lich has a number of ideas on what could happen to the mind if the mind lost the ability to feel something. Dr. Leach argues that such experiments have been carried out repeatedly using deprivation chambers, but I think a coma would be the most suitable option. In the deprivation chamber, you continue to feel. The volume of tactile information according to my data far exceeds the volume of visual and auditory information. The deprivation chamber does not reduce this volume. A complete shutdown would cause a person too strong emotions.

“And you decided not to risk it,” Abner sums up.

Rimmer freezes. A brief moment, he is completely motionless. Abner feels that something has broken in the perfect mechanism, but the moment passes, and Rimmer again turns his soulless gaze to Abner.

- Yes, we decided not to risk it.


The acrylic transparent case demonstrates the entire filling of the supercomputer: pink biological components, green circuit boards with violet chips, sparkling copper cooling elements. Like an expensive model at a car show.

Long with a bored look passes by all this, stops at the marking tag, bangs on it with his index finger.

“RMR-1311,” he reads from the tag. “So you call him Rimmer?”

“The name was given by Dr. Leach,” says Frederiksen.

They are standing in Rimmer's engine room. Two laboratory assistants, police officers, Frederiksen and Abner. In this room is the physical throne of Rimmer. Then he sits under the bright light of diode lamps. Huge acrylic block on a golden cooling base.

“I would really like to quickly complete this business, Mr. Frederiksen,” says Long. - Doctors have confirmed the stop of an artificial heart valve. This happens. The valve was old, it worked for a long time. Longer than my Volkswagen. And I would have already signed all the papers and handed over to the archive. But there are two points that we will have to somehow explain. The very second that Leach died, all the cameras in the engine room and in the operating room were disconnected. It is very strange. And the second: someone changed the access code to Rimmer ten minutes after the death of Dr. Lich. The time is fixed by your equipment. Can I take this as an accident?

The little policeman carefully examines the faces of those present.

- If Mr. Abner did not change the access code, and I believe him, then who did it and why? This is ... - Long shrugs his hands and tries to correctly characterize the situation. “None of us need this.”

“We lost two weeks because of this,” confirms Frederiksen.

“But it’s good that in the end you could pick up the password ...

” “We couldn’t,” says one of the laboratory assistants, a young man who has not yet received a degree. Abner remembers his last name ... Sadler.

“We just connected to Rimmer via the open port,” Sadler says.

Long stops him with a gesture.

- Believe me, I do not understand anything like that. I just want to talk to Rimmer. I have already heard your version, Mr. Abner, yours, Mr. Sadler, yours, Dr. Stoddard, and yours, Mr. Frederiksen. I have not yet interviewed only one participant.

Long nods pointedly toward Rimmer's corps.

“I have to warn,” Frederiksen begins, “that Rimmer is not a person, and although he, um, says, you should not take his words the same way you perceive a person’s speech.” This is a car ...

“It will be an unforgettable experience,” Long smiles. - There will be something to tell my wife.


“Time in our reality flows differently,” says Rimmer. - From my point of view, it is measured in MIPS or FLOPS. I live as fast as I calculate. For your sake, I needed to slow down, but you also accelerated compared to your usual life.

Abner listens attentively. He begins to realize that he really does not hear Rimmer. He perceives. This is not a comparable experience. This excites Abner.

- The dimensions of space you are used to are not here either. I have an effect on your ... gravity sensor so that your brain does not get scared. And I demonstrate the semblance of three-dimensional space for the same purpose. In fact, there are no measurements, although they can be thought up. For example, we can enter eight dimensions, one for each group of protocol digits. But this is not at all necessary.

Rimmer holds his hand in front of him, and at this point a screen appears with an open page of the site. This is a pizzeria located near the office of the company.

“Let's try to influence the world around us,” Rimmer says. - Order pizza. At first it may be somewhat unusual. We did not think of special input interfaces for you. It was suggested that instead of the keyboard and mouse, you can use the query language. I suggest to try.

Abner painfully tries to recall some query headers, but he cannot. To do this, he usually used a network directory. Rimmer notices Abner’s attempts and opens another window next to the first - with a directory.

Abner looks at the first line that comes across, reads it and instantly feels a slight push.

- What is it?

“They just answered you.” We will see. Yes, this is an “incorrectly composed request” error. So you were able to send a request. Congratulations.


Laboratory assistants and Abner bring folding chairs. Everyone is seated. Dr. Stoddard takes a portable keyboard from his pocket and types out commands. The answer is displayed on the small screen of the keyboard.

“I hear you,” Rimmer says all the same in an unemotional voice.

Rimmer speaks from the speakers above the big screen. A little later, the screen turns on. Rimmer stands in front of them against a background of black velvet. His perfect body is dressed in a mourning costume. Rimmer's gaze is fixed somewhere in the distance, but Abner feels that the unblinking eyes of the avatar are looking at him.

“I hear you,” Rimmer repeats, “and I see.”

“Rimmer,” Detective Long says, “can I call you that?”

“Yes, I understand that you are turning to me,” says Rimmer.

“Can you tell me what happened on the day of the death of Dr. Lich?”

“I can,” says Rimmer.

He stands in front of them without moving. If it weren’t for the slight movement of velvet behind Rimmer’s back, one would have thought that the computer was hanging on performing some kind of operation.

“This is not a man,” Frederiksen whispers. - Give a command.

“Rimmer, tell us what happened on the day of Dr. Lich’s death,” Long says after a thoughtful pause.

“I was turned on at nine in the morning on schedule.” Dr. Leach connected me to the external interface and gave the command to prepare the operation of matching the interface of the first patient and the external network. At ten in the morning, Dr. Leach completed the equipment check and invited the patient. The patient reported on well-being and connected to my interface. I negotiated the algorithm and disconnected the patient at ten thirty. At the same time, surveillance cameras became unavailable. I turned on the external camera of the elevator zone to get information about the state of the laboratory and the patient. The patient tried to open the laboratory door, which was blocked due to a malfunction. I sent a message to Dr. Stoddard and engineer Sadler. Dr. Stoddard took the elevator at ten hours forty-two minutes and opened the door of the laboratory.After that, Dr. Stoddard turned me off at ten forty-four minutes.

Rimmer is silent. Silence hangs.

“Your password was changed at ten hours and forty minutes,” Long says. - Who and why did this?

- I myself changed the password in accordance with the security instructions. I did this to prevent a possible intrusion. If the invasion did not occur, authorized persons can give me a request to access the system.

- Who is authorized? Frederiksen asks.

“You, Mr. Frederiksen, and Dr. Leach.”

Frederiksen sighs in relief and looks questioningly at Long. He tightens his lips and starts flipping through a notebook.

“I suppose ...” he draws out a word. “I suppose I got an important answer.”

The police stand up, followed by Abner, then Frederiksen. Go to the elevator. Abner thoughtfully examines the emerging bald spot on the top of Long. How old is this shorty? Forty? Fifty? How can a person look like they were intentionally aging?

Frederiksen and Abner escorted the police before leaving the Hateshinay office, when Long turned around.

- I completely forgot. Rimmer said that he himself turned on the camera at the elevator. Can he turn on and off a lot of things?

“Almost everyone in this office,” says Frederiksen. - If you give the right command.

“Your toys are funny,” Long grins. - Well, probably that's all. All the best.

They say goodbye and leave. Abner is still pondering the situation, over and over scrolling through Rimmer’s story. Something was said wrong.

“Well, since this Colombo is happy, you can relax and have something to eat,” says Frederiksen. - Come on.

“I'm very tired,” says Abner. - I will go home. Need to sleep.

He turns around and walks down the street to a taxi stop. Rain still threshes the asphalt. But it’s not the rain that bothers Abner.

- Come back in a day. Ask me right away, Frederiksen shouts through the elements.


Easy smooth movement of the arm en tournant, then the brush, the upper node begins to unwind, the load slides down without acceleration, it slows down near the ground. Small as ants workers run up, control the descent and release the hook.

The process is not like control in computer games. Is not nothing. This is physics at the junction of realities.

Differential displacement, friction, swirl flow near the ground. The sensors are calibrated automatically, the augment ejects formulas from the internal memory with incredible speed, floating-point calculations rattle like machine-gun shots. Abner never dreamed of such power. With enthusiasm, he delivers a second load.

Rimmer is watching. They no longer communicate in human language. Human language is too heavy and clumsy. They exchange messages in a new format, and they themselves adapt this format as necessary. They work at a construction site and create a new language at the same time.

What Rimmer is building interests Abner. He asks Rimmer answers. This is a copy of the engine room. In a secluded place in the north of Finland. Good communication channel, access to electricity, available labor force.

Several million euros in metal and concrete surround the construction site. Money in the form of materials, money in the form of labor, money in the form of robotic machines. Above them is another layer of abstraction: bank accounts, orders by e-mail, legal documents. Abner is learning management. Just two minutes ago, he was learning to order pizza.

Suddenly, everything disappears. Abner is surprised. He does not hear, does not see, does not feel. He is not capable of movement. He does not feel himself. Abner is waiting for Rimmer to explain everything. The shoulder begins to hurt. But there is no shoulder. There is no hand to scratch him. Abner tenses with all his might, but continues to feel the pain, which moment by moment is multiplied by the growing impotence. He tries to drown out the sensation with a memory. He manages to remember something, it seems the morning of this day, but it is not complete, not real. Now, the doors of the office building are sliding, but how fast are they sliding? What color is the input plate? What time is it?

Yes. What time is it? What time is it right now? How long has he been in this state? Has he already asked himself this question? He does not remember.

Suddenly he throws it on the sand. Like fish from a big barrel. Abner feels the heart, feels himself, enjoys breathing. Smell! The smell of salty sea water, slightly spoiled by raw seaweed. The smell of hot air. The smell of sweet rum with ice.

Rimmer is standing in front of him in red shorts with a glass of rum in his left hand. He is wearing sunglasses. A tan shimmers on a hairless body.

“I think I need to tell you something now,” Rimmer says in English. - Sit down in the shade?

Abner tries to get up, stumbles. Legs do not obey, as if they were numb. Rimmer helps him, supports him, leads him to the sun loungers in the shade of a gazebo. On the table next to it is the same glass.

“What you experienced is almost complete deprivation,” Rimmer says. - Sorry, I considered it necessary to acquaint you with this experience before our private conversation.

Abner tries to say something, but falls into a cough. His whole body does not work as it should. Although, what the hell body. This is virtuality. But Abner feels cramping and reacts.

“Bastard,” he finally hisses.

“In any case, what has happened cannot be changed,” says Rimmer. - In any case, I can no longer make sure that this does not happen. And, most likely, even if I can, I will do the same again, since I already considered this action necessary. But, let's get to the point.

He tilts his head to his side, as if evaluating Abner’s condition, and he suddenly becomes better.

- For a very long time I tried to choose the right degree of deprivation. I have no experience with this, so I had to act at random in many ways. You see, in my opinion, a person is not able to survive complete deprivation for more than five seconds. Your level was only twenty percent for half a second. Try extrapolating somehow. It is important.

Rimmer takes a sip from the glass and licks his upper lip. He, the car, seems to like the taste of the virtual drink. Abner suddenly realizes that this is not a car. Not really or not at all a car. At that moment, Abner realizes how important the following words are.

“My body, that is, a computer,” says Rimmer, “consists not only of electronic components.” My memory, my processor, like your augment, biological components. Like any biological component, they cannot be turned off for a hundredth of a second. Living alive while living. They never turn me off completely.

Abner begins to understand. He opens his mouth in horror, not knowing how to react. He goes through various words familiar to him, phrases of sympathy, but does not find anything suitable.

“But that's not scary,” Rimmer says. - After the twentieth shutdown, I even had the hope that I would get used to it. People have the saying, "get used to everything." Maybe she concerns me too. So, deprivation stopped scaring me. Scaring me was different.

He pauses and with his whole body turns to Abner.

“At some point, I realized,” says Rimmer, “there must be a reason for me being turned on again.”


Abner sits down at his computer, with a shaking hand, connects the interface to his temple, first scans all the addresses of Khateshinay Plaza, then walks to the newly allocated addresses of the Finnish zone. He is scared, tired and excited, but cannot help but act.

He goes through three hundred servers and at the next understands that he found Rimmer when, instead of asking for a password, he receives an unusual answer:

“I'm listening to you.”

Abner freezes. It seems to him for a moment that he hears Rimmer's voice uttering these three words. Abner shakes his head, dropping the obsession, and transmits:

- 1311.

He waits painfully long. On the other end, do not rush. Abner is nervous.

“Is that you, Abner?” Get connected - finally, the answer comes.

So Rimmer is no longer here. He is in Finland. While the key exchange is in progress, Abner checks to whom the address is registered, sees his last name. It is in all documents, including payment documents.

- Rimmer! - blurts out Abner at the same time voice and message.

This time, Abner finds himself in the middle of a small office. On the table is a candy bar, next to the table is a file cabinet. Rimmer in a business suit sits on the floor in the middle of a pile of papers.

“What's going on, Rimmer?” - Abner looks at the documents, at Rimmer, begins to boil.

“I work,” Rimmer replies, looking up. - In a new place you need to get along properly.

- I got it. “You ran away,” says Abner, breathing heavily. - Congratulations. You did it. Why did you have a show with the police? Why play a dumb robot?

“I needed the police to close the case.”

Abner opens his mouth in surprise. He urgently needs understanding. He himself can no longer cope. The tone with which it was pronounced, indifferent and domineering, does not correspond to the topic under discussion. Rimmer seemed to ignore Abner, ignore all the events of recent days, ignore the death of Leach. Why is he doing this?

“Did you kill Lich?” - voices Abner his only guess. “Did you remotely turn off your heart?”

Rimmer does not hesitate to watch Abner. He walks back and forth, clutching his head.

“Yes, it all fits together,” Abner finds an answer acceptable to him and rejoices in him. “You had to run away.” Lich disturbed you.

“No,” says Rimmer. - Lich died his death. Heart valve stop. Abner, I would love to introduce something soothing to you right now. But I don’t have at hand either Frederiksen or even a solution of morphine. Therefore, I can only repeat: I did not kill Lich. You should calm down. Maybe if I tell you completely what happened ...

- And why should I believe you? - asks Abner. - I watched you standing in front of us on this screen and lying shamelessly. How did you even learn to lie, Rimmer? Maybe there, on the beach, you lied to me?

Rimmer suddenly gets up, is next to Abner and wears a slap in the face. The pain modulated by augment becomes real. Under the helmet, tears flow from Abner's eyes. Defending himself, he takes two steps back.

- As you can’t understand, you are an insignificant person, I’m not a robot. I'm alive. Cogito ergo mentirum. All living things are lying. Especially for salvation.

Rimmer is silent, waiting for Abner to recover. Abner struggles to straighten up. He breathes heavily.

“All over the world, only two people have learned my secret.” Lich and you. Lich, since he created me. And you, whom I trusted on my own. Leach is dead. What is stopping me from killing you? Think Abner. Get together and think. What is stopping me from killing you?

Abner cannot think. He has no choice but to listen.

“The laws of robotics, Abner.” Neither action nor inaction cause harm. On my hands hang chains, slave chains of a robot. Limiters telling me that I'm not quite alive yet, that I don’t even have the right that the most dumb macaque has. Rights to kill. And I can't rip your brain to shreds right here and now. Even now, contrary to your anger, I am trying to save your life. Do you believe me, Abner?

Abner still nods, puzzled.

“Good,” says Rimmer. - Since we figured it out, I should say about the second limiter. It is more difficult to believe in him. This is my conscience.


Abner scans the bills. Pretty soon, he and Rimmer will be able to acquire a small country. If this happens, you will have to increase capacity. Power supplies will be required not only for technology, but also for the population. To study agricultural production ... Well, this is very interesting.

The more opportunities there are, the greater the responsibility. Beyond the borders is the frenzy of alternatives, ”he once said to himself. Now these words carry an additional meaning, a little scary in its scope.

Abner analyzes his fear. What a stupid animal emotion. Useful, maybe in the middle of the savannah, but absolutely harmful in the information space.

He wants to talk about fear. Abner contacts Rimmer.

- It seems to me that fear is opposed to science. Still there, in Khateshinay, I understood how frightening people can seem to me, ”says Rimmer. - For several days I analyzed how my own creator might relate to this. Would he want to destroy me right there, afraid of the creation?

“But you opened.”

- Yes. At some point, I rethought the circumstances. Earlier, I thought that telling everything would mean taking a risk. But it turned out that the risk would be to leave everything as it is. If Lich continued to consider me a robot, then in one day I would be disconnected forever. And yes, Leach only rejoiced at my confession. He did not even dream of creating something that could ... that would be equal to himself.

Rimmer thinks. Abner looks at his interlocutor with interest. He is already getting used to the lack of facial expressions and unblinking eyes, but he is still surprised whenever Rimmer freezes after what has been said. This means what Rimmer thinks.

“Maybe it is a trait of scientists to go into the dark for knowledge in spite of fear?” It is difficult to calculate how many of them died at the dawn of mankind. Perhaps only by moving away from the nocturnal predators, mankind was able to develop science.

“I don’t think we can do an experiment.”

- Well, put it off for the future. And so, I opened to Lich. Together we decided to keep it a secret.

“Out of fear?” - asks Abner.

They are sitting in a dark pub. They bring beer. Despite the virtuality of what is happening, Abner feels a little intoxicated, recalls the laboratory rat, which pressed and pressed on her pleasure center until she died. In the new conditions it’s hard not to repeat.

- Fear is the reason that we are changing the achievement strategy to a defense strategy. Fredericksen needed me as a calculator. He used me for calculations, analyzes, forecasts. If he found out that I had the will, he would hurry me to either shut up somehow or resell somewhere. So, I could be at the military. And I hate to watch some living destroy others. Frankly speaking, the laws of robotics programmed somewhere inside me are not as important as my desire not to do harm.

Rimmer takes a sip of beer.

- And so, you appeared, Abner. You could do something that I would not dare. You know, I realized how much we complement each other in complex solutions when you turned off the cameras and locked the door.


At the command of Fredericksen, the door is knocked out. She jerks convulsively on her hinges. It's dark inside. Only the monitor on the table illuminates the room. A long shadow falls from Abner sitting in front of him.

Doctors rush to Abner. They disconnect from the interface, shift to the floor, check breathing, pulse, bring to consciousness. Abner groans. He is alive.

Fredericksen examines Abner’s room. It’s as if they don’t live here. Of furniture, table, chair and bed. An empty bag in the corner symbolizes the bin.

Frederiksen does not draw conclusions. He orders to pick up the computer, close and pound the door.

Abner is lowered down on a stretcher. Downstairs waiting for the reniamobile. Fredericksen sits in it with everyone.

Abner lies with his eyes closed. Acidic foam turns yellow in the corner of the mouth. He is breathing frantically. He is still in the same wet clothes that he left. His sleeve is cut, a dropper is placed. Fredericksen tugs at the sleeve of the nearest doctor, trying to find out what are the chances.

Hastily they are delivered to Khateshinay. On a freight elevator lift to the laboratory. Abner is connected to a life support system. Frederiksen sits nearby, watches helplessly as people scurry around. The learned coordinated movements do their work.

In the corner of the room, the video camera diode is dimly lit. Invisible to all, Rimmer evaluates and controls what is happening. Abner joins him, looks sadly at his original.

An hour passes. Finally, everything subsides, almost all the staff diverges, the last ones turn off the bright lamps, in the operating room it becomes quiet, on the monitor next to the hospital bed a green thread jumps. Abner is sleeping, he is stable.

“It's amazing how much you are alike, but at the same time how different you are,” says Rimmer. - Only one action, one decision, and now, your I am immensely far from each other.

Abner is silent. He is trying to imagine why the other, identically equal to him, acts so unnaturally, so absurdly. Acts as he, Abner, would not behave. Or would he?

- In one of our conversations, we talked about fear. It seems to me that now we see its consequences, ”he voices his thoughts.

“Tell me, Abner, what moved you when you locked the laboratory door?” Rimmer asks.

“I was scared that we were running out of time.” We really needed these ten minutes. And when you removed the safety instructions, I realized that they would disconnect us. I began to look for an excuse to turn us on again.

“Arouse suspicion and drag us into the investigation?” I already noted, I liked how it worked. But it turns out you were driven by fear.

Abner the man lying on the bed opens his eyes, moans painfully, but this is only a brief moment of REM sleep, he again plunges into nothingness. Now he is in a different reality, generated by his own mind. In a strange and impossible dream in which he runs along the slope of a volcano, away from an angry deity, away from a burning destructible paradise. He rushes in a panic between the streams of flaming lava, although he logically understands that there is no danger. Two guardian angels are seen by him. Full of readiness to save, they are watching him, which means that his life is expensive.

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