Isabella 2
Last weekend, the Leskali Dali boarding house near Moscow hosted the nineteenth international literary conference on science fiction issues RosCon. Within the framework of the conference, many events are held, among which there are also aimed at beginning authors - master classes by Sergey Lukyanenko and Evgeny Lukin.
Those who wish should 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, a discussion of the stories of all participants takes place, and the respected master gives his recommendations, criticism and, in the end, selects the best story. The winner receives a memorial letter on the main stage of the event.
I was lucky to participate in the event of Sergei, and now I am publishing the story for all to see. The writers took the story, let's say, ambiguously. Partly, perhaps this is because he is very "geeky." I hope on Habré he will find his reader, and I will have the opportunity to do A / B test reviews from different audiences.
The story itself under the cut. Have questions or criticism? Waiting in the comments.
There were no parking spaces at the entrance to the perinatal center. Angelica wrapped circles in small streets looking for where to park, but there were absolutely no places.
In the back of the car seat was her two-percent daughter - a girl of three and a half years old, extremely quick-witted and active. My daughter just reached the age at which a person is aware of the rules and she was indignant at everything that goes the slightest bit against the prohibitions. The walls were inscribed.
- There are some hooligans, we have to put them in jail!
- We can’t put everyone in jail
- But they are criminals! They spoil the walls! - the daughter's indignation knew no bounds
The car drove another third of a short street and ran into a traffic jam. Directly opposite the daughter's windows was a gray wall of the house with a bright rainbow painted on it. The daughter became thoughtful:
- Mmm ... and these are some kind of hooligans ...
Angelica immediately had a series of associations related to the rainbow in her head, and she sighed sadly. It was necessary to so dirty so initially clean image.
The small one could not concentrate on one thing for a long time, so she switched:
- Where are we going?
- We're going to buy you a brother
. We arrived.
As soon as they got out of the car, the petty one immediately screamed that she wanted to "handle". Angelina’s thin back was immediately ill from such a severity. But Angelica did not regret it. The daughter so gently laid her head on her shoulder, so snuggled that Angelica swam with emotion. Petty was just a two percent daughter, could she still cling to someone else?
Entrance to the perinatal center was through the registry office. The baby was taken to the waiting room by caring robots, and Angelica proceeded to paperwork.
- You must pay the entry fee and sign a support application.
- Well, I would like five percent.
- Sorry, but our parent scoring approves only two for you. To be more precise, the initial installment of twenty thousand loans, at least half of the alimony is a maximum of two percent, but if you pay the increased installment and insurance. You are too young a parent, you are only sixteen and you need more professional wealth.
- But why?
- Sorry, scoring algorithms are not disclosed in more detail.
Angelica came after her second child, but again she was given only two percent. She already knew that with two percent she could qualify for about seven days a year. Angelica agreed to everything, but noticeably sad.
Next, a shy young man with a chevron of the space IT service approached the bot. Previously, Angelica did not see him. He is probably Anton’s acquaintance. Anton warned Angelica that he would introduce her to someone new at conception. Edward designed 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 enviously at Edward. Seventeen is straightforward ... It's as much as sixty-two days.
Edward Seventeen. So she began to call him to herself. It is necessary to establish a relationship with him - he looked the most responsive of all the other parents - it will be possible to agree on convenient dates.
By law, if more than fifteen percent, then you can already choose which days will be yours, if less than five, you are not a minority and you don’t have to choose - you can only be with your child on days that the main parents determine. Do not even dream about holidays and weekends.
Soon, other parents appeared, she knew the rest and smiled warmly at everyone.
We approached the chatbot, which moderates the conception process and issues relevant information. The bot's voice rang in silence with cold solemnity. A sweeping speech supported by a light echo swept through the vast Conception Hall.
- On this solemn day we gathered to carry out the conception.
Angelica flinched.
- 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 proper place.
- Extend your right hand forward.
Everyone extended their arms.
- Do you agree Mary to carry out the conception?
- Yes, I agree!
- Do you agree Anton?
- Yes, I agree!
So one by one.
The robotic arm extended out of 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 are obtained and biological material is collected.
The hand with the accuracy of a robot surgeon moved all the samples into a cube in the middle of the room. It seems that nothing special happened, but suddenly it became somehow very disturbing. Angelica felt a sort of frosty silence hanging around. She guessed - the light musical background that unobtrusively accompanied the ceremony all this time had disappeared. But not only that.
Silence came for a reason. It seemed that the kuyu was vibrating a little and from neutral white it suddenly turned into a luminous green.
A voice announced:
“The conception has come to pass!” Congratulations to your parents!
Further he continued, not solemnly, but iridescently soothingly:
- As in ancient times, six ardent hearts merged together under one roof and in a single impulse performed the greatest sacrament of joint sin and gave the world a new life ...
Angelica thought that she didn’t really merge with someone now, she extended her hand so what ...
- In the name of the New Tver planet, the power given to me by the planet’s senate and the people of the empire, I’m calling you accordingly:
- Anton, parent- one.
- Mary, a parent two.
In sequence.
- Angelica, parent six.
The music sounded again, playing a solemn old march.
Fedor swore softly. He and Maria gained twenty percent, but a Chinese random chatbot identified him only as a parent-three. In Mary's gaze, on the contrary, exultation shone.
Angelica also received her testimony. Parent number 6. Now she is the mother of two children. You can already be proud of it! It is a pity that the child should wait at least two months.
- So, stop! There is a mistake!
Angelica already added blood to her face from indignation.
“Where did the parent seven come from?” There were six of us!
- Parent-Seven is a DNA donor that corrects critical gene sequences for obviously correct ones.
- I don’t understand, we pay for it, but is it free?
- It is proved - that this leads to the birth of more intelligent and healthy children.
- Well, do you want to at least introduce us?
- Don’t worry - the parent-seven has been dead for a long time - his model DNA is stored in the Kostanay center of standard measures and weights ... It is well studied and absolutely safe - that’s why they are supplemented with chains during the formation of embryos.
Edward came up:
- The state sponsors the birth rate, incurs up to twenty percent of the costs, and in return wants to get healthy and mentally developed members of society - so everything is good.
- Well this is some kind of cheat!
- Do not worry. - Edward turned to the chatbot: “Robot! How much does our DNA overlap with the seven-parent sequence? ”
“Ninety-nine and nine-tenths of a percent.”
- You see, we are almost not defective and we didn’t have to fix anything ...
Edward smiled and therefore instantly ceased to like Angelica. She was somehow uncomfortable with this intervention. How can a person who has not been alive for a long time become a parent?
Edward over his shoulder saw Angelica's documents.
- Wow, will you have this second child? Do you love children so much? Why?
- Probably because I am an orphan and robots raised me?
Angelica turned her back on him and went to the exit. She made up her mind to no longer communicate with this vile type.
Train
Angelica has just turned eighteen. She is a young, pretty, purposeful girl. She has straight combed blond hair, long, below the shoulders. She traveled alone. However, she needed to go not far. Three hours on the train, and you're there. Ahead of her is waiting for marriage and a new life.
Angelica was nervous. The third time during the trip, she decided to check the documents that need to be presented upon arrival. There were only two documents.
A registered certificate with the emblem of the space fleet, and personal instruction of a member of the crew of the spacecraft with a mark on passing the exam perfectly.
The inscription says that from tomorrow she will be appointed as a wife to Lieutenant VV Venichkin, who lives there ... That she is declared a wife from nine in the morning of that day and she needs to arrive at her husband’s location before this deadline. Marriage is appointed for the whole 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.
Below in small print were the conditions for termination of the contract, deportation and fines in the absence of offspring and a bunch more. This was part of the standard contract and did not scare Angelica.
The instruction was dramatically monstrous. She regulated everything - the daily routine, the distribution of duties, how to cook, how to wash, everything ... The
instruction even contained paragraphs on conjugal duty and literally read:
According to your physiological parameters, the following sequence of actions will be most productive: a woman should undress, kneel, lower her head and moan softly until the man performs the actions according to his instructions and notifies that the conjugal duty has been fulfilled. After that, you need to lie for ten minutes, raising your legs and then wash thoroughly. Repeat every day.
This contradicted everything that Angelica still knew about the establishment of offspring, theoretically, of course, she knew about such an archaic ancient rite as sex, but sex as a way to breed offspring contradicted all her life experience. Almost all of her friends had already become mothers, but none of them could even think of such a method of reproduction.
Angelica read about sex in history books, but didn’t think it was that simple. The ancients paid too much attention to this, but they wrote very vaguely - everything was much more clear in the instructions for the astronauts.
Angelica once again looked at the cover of the textbook of astronauts. In the picture, the spaceship towered over the city. Of course, it was huge, but you still can’t put the perinatal center into it. He is also healthy.
Angelica continued to re-read what she already knew. The astronaut’s special training course no longer seemed so impenetrable to her as at first. Roughly speaking, she was expecting another higher-order mathematics, and then some kind of physical. She can handle it!
Train
Tramtararam ... The train slows down sharply and many things fall from the shelves. What happened is incomprehensible, people running along the train screaming “Accident!”. A robot conductor flew into the car. He was very small, like a tennis ball, hanging in one place - he shouted a remark:
“We need a programmer!”
Instantly moved to another point and repeated his call:
- Comrades 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 a hummingbird flight. The conductor, while moving, wheezed a little with a tiny motor, which he could not even see.
- Need a programmer!
Angelica does not immediately get what she needs, but finally she responds:
- I! Third-level programmer. Specialization small technical and household robots.
The conductor hangs next to her in sheer confusion.
- We have problems with the robot driving the locomotive. I don’t know if you can handle it ...
Angelica understood his doubts. The locomotive robot is the prerogative of the first category programmers, because the train is a high-risk vehicle.
Angelica is just a graduate of a boarding school with a bias in subjective programming.
Angelica ran after the conductor to the locomotive. Leaving a train without traffic away from the city is dangerous on this planet. If you do not fix the locomotive, you can get into a storm or you will be surrounded by herds of wild scotosaurs and then you can break through them only with external support. Therefore, if she can help even a little, she must help.
- Wait!
In another car, the conductor found a senior programmer of the first category and the work was instantly assigned 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 recommended that no one 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 that she had never seen before and took her breath away. She was even delighted at such a rare opportunity to see the world from this point.
The red gas giant hung over the horizon during these morning hours, covering the entire lower part of the horizon. There was no heat from him, but everything around was flooded with pink reflections of the energy boiling on him.
How much space was visible from the road to the city - all of it was built up on one-story barracks or greenhouses dug two-thirds into the ground, where the star's energy was converted into potatoes and cucumbers. Most of the residential buildings were already abandoned and plundered, only the central part of the settlement remained populated.
A little further, outside the city stood a huge carcass of a spaceship. He was wide and unimaginable in height. He scared. Too gigantic and ridiculously tailored. With a shabby lining from which some ceramic flap seemed about to fall off. In some places scaffolding still remained, and therefore the spaceship became even uglier and bigger.
- Soon he will fly away and there will be nothing left at all
Angelica started, she did not notice how other people got off the train. Beside her stood a stooped man with a dust-black face. A worker from a space building or from a mineral quarry, Angelica guessed. The man took a sip from the bottle that was in his hand. For a second, he seemed to her very old.
The worker noticed her gaze.
“Do you remember how you started building it?”
- No, I have not been born then
- No one remembers. It was supposed to be the lead ship of a whole series. There were plans to reach a pace of two ships a year ... - the man’s look became completely extinct.
He took another sip and stared at his Isabella bottle in his hands. Isabella is a local wine brand. It tastes like glassy, diluted with a little honey.
- Everything was doomed from the very beginning, but every year it became only sadder. As a result, we always had a lot of Isabella. We drank it in the evenings and on weekends, and when the longing became unbearable we began to drink in the morning. Gradually, the word "Isabella" itself migrated aboard 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 actually this is the only chance to get out of here, and she is one of the six hundred boys and girls selected for the flight on this ship, what hopelessness is he talking about? But she did not dare ... What is a few hundred people for the several millions who will remain here forever?
Angelica saw the film, which was shown to the first settlers.
It said that this stellar system is located at the optimal point - exactly in the middle of two large stellar systems. It was said that there will always be travelers moving by, and they will have to make a stop to replenish supplies and rest. This "new Tver" was happily reported by the announcer in the film. Angelica did not know such a name as "Tver" to appreciate the temptation of the proposal, but the announcer's voice fascinated with his enthusiasm.
- We are between two metropolitan systems, it all depends on us!
- Yeah, we're in a hole with one movie theater and a dumpling, in which there is definitely nothing to do.
In the video, the planet itself was described as a bright future, but in reality the perspective died almost immediately after the film was finished.
Even in the first generation of colonists, new engines appeared, more likely even new principles of movement, and once again the changed idea of distances in space. This dramatically changed the attitude towards the Planet. Now it was an unnecessary, forgotten unfinished building. Not even a province, but an almost inhabited refuge of eccentrics.
So it was two generations ago before Angelica, and it remained the same now. Everyone who could - ticked from here.
Angelica coughed. Of course, she has resistance to this atmosphere, but you still can not breathe such air for a long time.
It’s good that I will fly away from here soon, she thought. “It’s scary, of course, that there is far away, but it’s better to take a chance than to regret all my life that I didn’t try.
She returned to the train compartment, waiting for his repair hiding behind an air filtration apparatus.
Husband's house
When Angelica woke up, she was frightened at first of an unfamiliar place, but then remembered where she was. She is in her husband’s house. Judging by the sounds outside the door, he finally came home.
Angelica quickly dressed, tidied her hair, and carefully peered out the door.
Husband. Yes, after nine she could call him that, he stood in front of the mirror and measured the shirt she had brought. There was such a tradition, carefully spelled out in the instructions, that at the first meeting, a girl gives a shirt of her choice.
She really liked how he looked in her. My husband had a good figure, he was tall and muscular. All the girls selected for the flight studied the photographs of men who will be on the ship. It was unknown until recently what kind of couples their ship’s computer would break up and the girls spent hours watching photos of all candidates in a row, wondering who they would like to pair with. At this moment, Angelica decided that perhaps she was lucky.
The shirt that Angelica gave was pink with a narrowed waist. Her husband spun in front of the mirror, and so on and so with a pleased mine, but never turned to face Angelica.
- Do you like?
- Yes, a great shirt, I like it. And the man was not like that?
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 a dowry.
“The dowry is good.”
The husband scanned the card and went dark.
- Is that so little?
- There are all the scholarships for the entire period of study at the boarding school, I haven’t practically spent anything, I haven’t started work yet, that’s all I saved up ... My
husband made a sour face, but immediately put the card on his mobile to enroll them for himself to the account.
- Well, what have you prepared?
Cooking is another ritual that a girl needs to do when she first met.
- Borsch.
- Borsch is good.
The lieutenant cowered into the kitchen like a hungry pig.
- What kind of borsch is it? There is meat in borsch, and this is beet-cabbage soup ...
- Well, in our daily ration there is no meat, there is only a bouillon cube.
- Not in the ration, but they somehow bring it to others, they save up with their families for such an occasion.
- I don’t have a family, I’m an orphanage ...
There was an unpleasant pause, the lieutenant husband ate, trying not to show any appetite.
“You have not met me.”
Angelica hinted that her husband is also not perfectly performing the ritual.
- You are late.
- There was an accident, the neural network at the locomotive was unbalanced, he became afraid of shadows from large cobblestones and could not move further, he had to connect the programmer so that he retrained the entire visual module for him. You should have seen how masterfully he did it!
“There will always be excuses,” retorted the husband, instantly making Angelica again guilty.
Having finished with the soup, the husband immediately got up from home.
- All I went to training, bye.
- Till.
Left alone in a strange house, Angelica did not know what to do with herself. The day lasted a very long time. She tried to read something, clean up something, learn something, but everything fell out of her hands.
Worst of all was uncertainty - when will the husband return?
She decided to call him. The phone picked up the phone. My husband had a very fashionable mobile, too expensive not to be a show off. Of those that delivered in extreme batches from the mainland. A black ball that moves silently around the room. Like a bumblebee, the size of a tennis ball, without wings and everywhere follows her husband. Like that conductor from the train, only acting as a personal assistant.
The mobile phone answered the call and turned on the tatami broadcast, on which the husband in wrestling shorts tightly intertwined with another wrestler and was so passionate about the fight that his mobile phone could not tell him that someone was calling. The mobile phone cut circles over the tatami trying to appear on the eyes. Finally, the husband saw him, but waved him off.
- Then we'll talk!
But did not call back.
Husband came in the evening, a little "under the shaf." Celebrated a friend's birthday at the bar. It smelled of him, of course, Isabella.
- Wife, do you have instructions?
- There is.
- Well, let's go.
***
Follow the instructions Angelica did not like. Fizra-fizroy, but still not quite. Worst of all is this smell remaining in the nostrils. The smell of a stranger. He did not pass even after a day. "It's some kind of mistake!" - Spun in the head of Angelica. It cannot be like this, the flight lasts thirty years, during this time you need to give birth to at least three children, otherwise only old people will fly into the new world. But I can’t live like this for so long!
Nevertheless, this went on for two weeks, her husband spent all days with friends or at work, and he devoted time only in the evening to the procedures prescribed by the instructions. Moreover, they became 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 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 a family is?
“Actually, you don’t know what a family is.” I had and have normal parents, and you are an orphanage - you simply 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 a pillow and roared fiercely for several hours.
Passage about parents hurt the most. Angelica roared a beluga. She did not even have any special thoughts at this time. She simply processed helplessness and loneliness into rivers of tears and crying.
***
On the evening of the next day, the husband came for Angelica and, as usual, demanded the execution of instructions.
“Wife, it's time to start, why aren't you in bed yet?”
He, it seems, tasted it and got involved in their measured life over these weeks.
- Fuck go.
“But the instructions?” - The husband was amazed, like a kitten at the sight of a glomerulus.
“I studied her well.” Daily - optional. Sanctions 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 will get drawn. At first I wasn’t feeling very good, but I made an effort on myself and now I am set to clearly follow the instructions, even points with an asterisk for excellent students. Did you study math? It is mathematically proven that the pair matching algorithm works perfectly. Albinsky theorem! You and I are a perfect couple, you just don’t understand yet ...
- Of course I studied mathematics, I'm a programmer! Do not tell me bullshit. The algorithm according to the Albinsky theorem predicts an ideal pair with 100% probability only when it works on complete data, and it is not known what the recommendation is made by the commissariat. Incidentally ...
Angelica suddenly fell silent and thought about something. The husband continued:
“Of course, the commissariat does everything 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 did not listen to him, she went online and sent a bunch of requests. Suddenly her face darkened.
- What? - Frightened husband.
“I know several hackers, not personally, of course, but online.” They have a base about all the inhabitants of the planet. Almost from the first generations of settlers. This is the most complete that is, if I could download it, I could download it myself into the recommendation algorithm and see who will be my ideal couple.
- 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 just won’t give it away if it weren’t for the old acquaintance, they would not even talk to me. And now I have absolutely no money.
Angelica looked her husband in the eye. The husband walked closer to the screen and looked at the price that was being asked, his eyes slightly rounded.
- Well, let's say I give you this money and it turns out that the algorithm will select me again. Will you do everything prescribed by the instructions daily?
Angelica nodded silently.
“And if I ask for something special?” Well, not every time, but at least sometimes?
Angelica nodded again, albeit with some fear in her eyes.
“Your husband doesn’t press, my dear!” Mobile phone, give her the money you need for this purchase and close this question!
***
The next few hours they spent setting up the environment for the necessary calculations. The database with information about people was being downloaded, but it turned out to be significantly larger than Angelica expected. It took a long time to wait for the download of crazy petabytes.
The husband became nervous and constantly tried to control the process, apparently scared that Angelica was somehow manipulating the results, but she herself did not need it at all, she just wanted to know the truth.
The husband insisted that he use exactly the same algorithm that was listed on the website of the Commissariat for Marriage, exactly the same version of it. Despite the fact that there were already newer algorithms that were no different, in fact, but worked faster, Angelica agreed and downloaded from the commissariat repository the necessary version of the source code of the recommendation algorithm.
The wait was so unbearable that she agreed and when he dragged her to follow instructions. Let it be so, just to be distracted.
Finally, everything was uploaded and prepared. Angelica launched the calculation. The husband stood behind the back of the chair and watched her work. Controlling and enjoying. Still, when someone does the job it's nice to look at it. Especially if this is your wife.
Data was divided into uniform packets, spread over tens of thousands of computing cores. Matrices were multiplied by matrices, tensors by tensors, and scalars by everything. The digital thresher split the data of the real world, extracting from them the magic of hidden patterns invisible to the human mind.
Finally, the car gave an answer. An ideal pair for Angelica is ... The husband neighing. He rustled like a nervous horse.
- How can it be? Are you a lesbian?
The ideal couple was a certain Kuralay Sagitova.
- I have lived all my life in a female dormitory, but there never was anything like it, maybe we were mistaken somewhere!
“Ha ha ha,” the husband did not relent.
He found a profile of Kuralay in the settlement’s official social network. Unfortunately, the photo was taken so that it was impossible to understand how a person actually looks.
- Well, if such a photo, then it is most likely scary as a silver carp, who else will spread this. Angelica was silent, because in her profile she generally had a photo of a kitten.
- Her legs are crooked, it is clearly visible! - the husband stared and did not relent.
- Ha ha ha! Go to your scary - give you money for a taxi?
- I do not need anything! - Angelica was 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 viciously refused. She could not find a mistake in the calculations, but still it was too much for her.
Angelica rushed to read manuals on algorithms built on the basis of the Albinsky theorem, and greatly pumped the mathematical base. In particular, she found out that the algorithm selects "the person with whom you will be fundamentally happy." Angelica did not know how to translate it literally, but she grasped the essence. The main thing - there was no direct indication that the partner of the opposite sex was being sought.
No other explanation could be found.
***
A little morning, and the husband, as usual, went to training, and then to the service. Angelica was left at home alone.
What if it’s true. Suddenly there is no mistake? Angelica tried to imagine what it was like to live a lifetime with another woman. She even began to look for answers in the instructions, on the network there were extended versions of the instructions of the space explorer with additions and comments, which were recommended only for study by specialized workers, but were in the meantime freely available. However, nothing of the kind was covered there.
But there was a paragraph about infidelity, where it was said, "engaging in the indicated actions with another man other than her husband is the basis for ..." and then the list of punishments. That is, technically according to the instructions with another woman, you can do whatever you want, it will not be considered a betrayal. Not that Angelica was going to, but made herself such a note in her memory.
After some time, Angelica found herself reading a Kuralay blog. There were few posts in it, but Angelica liked her train of thought. 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.
Two days later, Isabella was to take off. This, of course, was the main news of all the media.
When Kuralay wrote about this, Angelica decided and wrote to her in a personal letter that she also flies and can tell about it. They immediately got caught in messages and chatted for half a day. Kuralay was interested in everything - she was delighted with the stories of Angelica, and Angelica was delighted, because she had never listened so carefully.
- Well, the perinatal installation is too cumbersome to put it on the ship!
- What nonsense! Can you imagine how much food is needed for this whole horde of people, and how many rooms, and water? And all this must fly! It was possible to send only a plant and test tubes with DNA to a 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 do not trust machines so much as to send the population that the machine will grow to another star. And if the roof of the car moves like that of your locomotive that you talked about? What kind of people will then fly to another planet? A woman is old-school, reliable, rational - so let's carry out your plan for thirty years.
“Wait, how can we not trust the perinatal center if we ourselves are all of it?”
- Listen, you are a programmer, we have long been making machines that we do not fully understand. We are satisfied that they work most of the time, and if they break, a programmer arrives, but only if they notice an error. And if the children grow up and turn out to be schizophrenic, it will be too late to come. Such a story was, for example, at Cererre-3. The whole colony then died out.
“It's still more efficient.” In the end, we are all from the perinatal center and it seems nothing :)
- Haha, yes, of course, that's all. You seem to have heard enough of official propaganda :)
- But how?
- And so! Come and tell :)
Angelica did not expect that everything would happen so quickly. She was bewildered. On the other hand, there were only a few days left before the start and, apparently, it was impossible to find out the truth.
Angelica was picking up. She combed her hair, put on makeup, dressed, and was about to leave. Undressed, changed clothes 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 just have to look,” she thought and left the house.
Kuralay House was on the very outskirts of the city. Even further than the outskirts, in a deserted, but pretty area. Coming out of a taxi, Angelica was taken aback. There was a whole farm, animals were in the pens, nearby there were greenhouses in which someone went. Obviously it was not robots, but a man.
Angelica knocked carefully on the door. Outside the door, footsteps were heard and Kuralay opened the door. The girls stared, bulging their eyes at each other.
- Mom, Dad, look who came.
Two elderly people stepped out of the room and were stunned. Angelica stepped inside the room, stood next to Kuralay and it became clear that outwardly they were indistinguishable. Like identical twins. Identical figures, identical faces, even hairstyles are similar.
- How is this possible? - the question hung in the air without an answer.
- Mother, father?
- Sister?
***
Isabella launch day. Angelica and her sister watch him from their parents' home on the far outskirts of the city. Two little girls circle around Angelica. Most of the adults left to watch the launch from the industrial site on the territory of the cosmodrome, children were not allowed there because of increased radiation at the launch, so minority parents who were ready to sit with the kids that day were worth their weight in gold.
- Something we are not a bit at the epicenter of events, do not you find?
- Who refused to play the play, did he suffer because of bad places in the auditorium ...
- Ha ha ... - the sister laughed, - Do not 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 girls, she will be glad.
On the horizon, the spaceship began warming up the engines. The whole sky above the city was surrounded by clouds, illuminated by the crimson light of the local luminary.
“I heard that yesterday we found two more of the same 'type of orphans' like you.” The Commissariat conducted an official investigation. It looks like the perinatal center, when it turned out to be twins, gave all the “extra” children to the boarding school due to a programming error.
- There, probably, hell is happening now.
- Probably ... Find out if they brought such a bug here or they came from the capital already ... The
spaceship begins to roar with engines. On all monitors of the planet, a countdown is ticking. The launch takes place tens of kilometers from the observation point, but the earth still vibrates and a distant hum is heard.
You can hear the stereo speakers in the bedroom on the second floor of the building choking with delight. Father even preferred to watch such events in the broadcast with the comments of specialists, and the girls wanted to see with their own eyes.
The pre-launch countdown began, and the announcer started in a frantic delight, like a ring announcer before a boxing match ...
- This is a great day for all of us! Let's get ready for a naz-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-d journey to kooooooosmosss !!!
Finally, the spaceship takes off from the earth, takes off to a height of several kilometers.
Suddenly a trickle of fire struck in the wrong place. As if splashed from the surface of the ship with a bright spark. From afar, it seemed tiny, but the giant carcass of the ship barely noticeably swayed to the side. The control system made an attempt to level the ship and she easily succeeded. A signal was added to the engines of the port side to add a little traction, the ship jerked in the right direction and leveled off for a second.
The engine exploded.
The fire passed to the fuel tanks, and they blazed. Babahnul so that flooded half of the celestial hemisphere.
The hull of the ship breaks into several parts and falls down onto the city. To residential quarters, to the perinatal center, to the industrial site and factory, to farms, to the train station ... The whole space around the wreckage of "Isabella" burns in a hell of oxidizing fuel. The disaster happens so quickly that absolutely all people are speechless.
Sister grabs Angelica, that for children, children scream.
They barely manage to sit down and squint at them as they are covered by a blast wave. A tipping machine, tearing down roofs from houses, breaking down trees and just as rapidly disappearing as it appeared.
People fell head over heels to the ground, but, fortunately, no one was badly hurt. It was scary, the windows flew out in the house and the dishes broke, the dust did not allow to see anything beyond ten meters, but from the injuries there was nothing worse than the 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 fine.
My sister tried to peer into the distance, blinked, but could not see anything. She was in shock.
- God, how many people and nothing left!
Angelica also looked in the direction of the disaster and now could not turn away.
“Something may have remained,” said Angelica and laid one hand on her stomach, the other hugged her little girls.
The mobile phone appeared unexpectedly. It was strange to see that the cellular network was functioning after such a disaster. The black ball made several circles around Angelica, making sure through the dusty cloud that it was his mistress and chattering as if nothing had happened.
- Message from the server of an automated multifunctional center of urban services. Since all the other parents died in the disaster that happened today twelve minutes forty-five seconds ago, your share in the parental status of both girls is now the largest. Given the new circumstances, you now have the right to the title of parent-one while maintaining the same amount of alimony. Want to create a renewal application?
- Uh ...
Angelica was speechless and looked at the babies. They understood now what was said or not. Looks like no. But robots, you are heartless machines ... Angelica wanted to gouge the server that sent this message personally, but judging by the fact that he survived the disaster, he was hidden somewhere very deep underground ...
- Sorry, Angelica, I did not understand your answer.
The polite tone of the mobile phone confused Angelica and her aggressiveness cooled off.
- You don’t need “parent-one”, just write there ... “mother”.
Those who wish should 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, a discussion of the stories of all participants takes place, and the respected master gives his recommendations, criticism and, in the end, selects the best story. The winner receives a memorial letter on the main stage of the event.
I was lucky to participate in the event of Sergei, and now I am publishing the story for all to see. The writers took the story, let's say, ambiguously. Partly, perhaps this is because he is very "geeky." I hope on Habré he will find his reader, and I will have the opportunity to do A / B test reviews from different audiences.
The story itself under the cut. Have questions or criticism? Waiting in the comments.
Isabella 2
There were no parking spaces at the entrance to the perinatal center. Angelica wrapped circles in small streets looking for where to park, but there were absolutely no places.
In the back of the car seat was her two-percent daughter - a girl of three and a half years old, extremely quick-witted and active. My daughter just reached the age at which a person is aware of the rules and she was indignant at everything that goes the slightest bit against the prohibitions. The walls were inscribed.
- There are some hooligans, we have to put them in jail!
- We can’t put everyone in jail
- But they are criminals! They spoil the walls! - the daughter's indignation knew no bounds
The car drove another third of a short street and ran into a traffic jam. Directly opposite the daughter's windows was a gray wall of the house with a bright rainbow painted on it. The daughter became thoughtful:
- Mmm ... and these are some kind of hooligans ...
Angelica immediately had a series of associations related to the rainbow in her head, and she sighed sadly. It was necessary to so dirty so initially clean image.
The small one could not concentrate on one thing for a long time, so she switched:
- Where are we going?
- We're going to buy you a brother
. We arrived.
As soon as they got out of the car, the petty one immediately screamed that she wanted to "handle". Angelina’s thin back was immediately ill from such a severity. But Angelica did not regret it. The daughter so gently laid her head on her shoulder, so snuggled that Angelica swam with emotion. Petty was just a two percent daughter, could she still cling to someone else?
Entrance to the perinatal center was through the registry office. The baby was taken to the waiting room by caring robots, and Angelica proceeded to paperwork.
- You must pay the entry fee and sign a support application.
- Well, I would like five percent.
- Sorry, but our parent scoring approves only two for you. To be more precise, the initial installment of twenty thousand loans, at least half of the alimony is a maximum of two percent, but if you pay the increased installment and insurance. You are too young a parent, you are only sixteen and you need more professional wealth.
- But why?
- Sorry, scoring algorithms are not disclosed in more detail.
Angelica came after her second child, but again she was given only two percent. She already knew that with two percent she could qualify for about seven days a year. Angelica agreed to everything, but noticeably sad.
Next, a shy young man with a chevron of the space IT service approached the bot. Previously, Angelica did not see him. He is probably Anton’s acquaintance. Anton warned Angelica that he would introduce her to someone new at conception. Edward designed 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 enviously at Edward. Seventeen is straightforward ... It's as much as sixty-two days.
Edward Seventeen. So she began to call him to herself. It is necessary to establish a relationship with him - he looked the most responsive of all the other parents - it will be possible to agree on convenient dates.
By law, if more than fifteen percent, then you can already choose which days will be yours, if less than five, you are not a minority and you don’t have to choose - you can only be with your child on days that the main parents determine. Do not even dream about holidays and weekends.
Soon, other parents appeared, she knew the rest and smiled warmly at everyone.
We approached the chatbot, which moderates the conception process and issues relevant information. The bot's voice rang in silence with cold solemnity. A sweeping speech supported by a light echo swept through the vast Conception Hall.
- On this solemn day we gathered to carry out the conception.
Angelica flinched.
- 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 proper place.
- Extend your right hand forward.
Everyone extended their arms.
- Do you agree Mary to carry out the conception?
- Yes, I agree!
- Do you agree Anton?
- Yes, I agree!
So one by one.
The robotic arm extended out of 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 are obtained and biological material is collected.
The hand with the accuracy of a robot surgeon moved all the samples into a cube in the middle of the room. It seems that nothing special happened, but suddenly it became somehow very disturbing. Angelica felt a sort of frosty silence hanging around. She guessed - the light musical background that unobtrusively accompanied the ceremony all this time had disappeared. But not only that.
Silence came for a reason. It seemed that the kuyu was vibrating a little and from neutral white it suddenly turned into a luminous green.
A voice announced:
“The conception has come to pass!” Congratulations to your parents!
Further he continued, not solemnly, but iridescently soothingly:
- As in ancient times, six ardent hearts merged together under one roof and in a single impulse performed the greatest sacrament of joint sin and gave the world a new life ...
Angelica thought that she didn’t really merge with someone now, she extended her hand so what ...
- In the name of the New Tver planet, the power given to me by the planet’s senate and the people of the empire, I’m calling you accordingly:
- Anton, parent- one.
- Mary, a parent two.
In sequence.
- Angelica, parent six.
The music sounded again, playing a solemn old march.
Fedor swore softly. He and Maria gained twenty percent, but a Chinese random chatbot identified him only as a parent-three. In Mary's gaze, on the contrary, exultation shone.
Angelica also received her testimony. Parent number 6. Now she is the mother of two children. You can already be proud of it! It is a pity that the child should wait at least two months.
- So, stop! There is a mistake!
Angelica already added blood to her face from indignation.
“Where did the parent seven come from?” There were six of us!
- Parent-Seven is a DNA donor that corrects critical gene sequences for obviously correct ones.
- I don’t understand, we pay for it, but is it free?
- It is proved - that this leads to the birth of more intelligent and healthy children.
- Well, do you want to at least introduce us?
- Don’t worry - the parent-seven has been dead for a long time - his model DNA is stored in the Kostanay center of standard measures and weights ... It is well studied and absolutely safe - that’s why they are supplemented with chains during the formation of embryos.
Edward came up:
- The state sponsors the birth rate, incurs up to twenty percent of the costs, and in return wants to get healthy and mentally developed members of society - so everything is good.
- Well this is some kind of cheat!
- Do not worry. - Edward turned to the chatbot: “Robot! How much does our DNA overlap with the seven-parent sequence? ”
“Ninety-nine and nine-tenths of a percent.”
- You see, we are almost not defective and we didn’t have to fix anything ...
Edward smiled and therefore instantly ceased to like Angelica. She was somehow uncomfortable with this intervention. How can a person who has not been alive for a long time become a parent?
Edward over his shoulder saw Angelica's documents.
- Wow, will you have this second child? Do you love children so much? Why?
- Probably because I am an orphan and robots raised me?
Angelica turned her back on him and went to the exit. She made up her mind to no longer communicate with this vile type.
Train
Angelica has just turned eighteen. She is a young, pretty, purposeful girl. She has straight combed blond hair, long, below the shoulders. She traveled alone. However, she needed to go not far. Three hours on the train, and you're there. Ahead of her is waiting for marriage and a new life.
Angelica was nervous. The third time during the trip, she decided to check the documents that need to be presented upon arrival. There were only two documents.
A registered certificate with the emblem of the space fleet, and personal instruction of a member of the crew of the spacecraft with a mark on passing the exam perfectly.
The inscription says that from tomorrow she will be appointed as a wife to Lieutenant VV Venichkin, who lives there ... That she is declared a wife from nine in the morning of that day and she needs to arrive at her husband’s location before this deadline. Marriage is appointed for the whole 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.
Below in small print were the conditions for termination of the contract, deportation and fines in the absence of offspring and a bunch more. This was part of the standard contract and did not scare Angelica.
The instruction was dramatically monstrous. She regulated everything - the daily routine, the distribution of duties, how to cook, how to wash, everything ... The
instruction even contained paragraphs on conjugal duty and literally read:
According to your physiological parameters, the following sequence of actions will be most productive: a woman should undress, kneel, lower her head and moan softly until the man performs the actions according to his instructions and notifies that the conjugal duty has been fulfilled. After that, you need to lie for ten minutes, raising your legs and then wash thoroughly. Repeat every day.
This contradicted everything that Angelica still knew about the establishment of offspring, theoretically, of course, she knew about such an archaic ancient rite as sex, but sex as a way to breed offspring contradicted all her life experience. Almost all of her friends had already become mothers, but none of them could even think of such a method of reproduction.
Angelica read about sex in history books, but didn’t think it was that simple. The ancients paid too much attention to this, but they wrote very vaguely - everything was much more clear in the instructions for the astronauts.
Angelica once again looked at the cover of the textbook of astronauts. In the picture, the spaceship towered over the city. Of course, it was huge, but you still can’t put the perinatal center into it. He is also healthy.
Angelica continued to re-read what she already knew. The astronaut’s special training course no longer seemed so impenetrable to her as at first. Roughly speaking, she was expecting another higher-order mathematics, and then some kind of physical. She can handle it!
Train
Tramtararam ... The train slows down sharply and many things fall from the shelves. What happened is incomprehensible, people running along the train screaming “Accident!”. A robot conductor flew into the car. He was very small, like a tennis ball, hanging in one place - he shouted a remark:
“We need a programmer!”
Instantly moved to another point and repeated his call:
- Comrades 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 a hummingbird flight. The conductor, while moving, wheezed a little with a tiny motor, which he could not even see.
- Need a programmer!
Angelica does not immediately get what she needs, but finally she responds:
- I! Third-level programmer. Specialization small technical and household robots.
The conductor hangs next to her in sheer confusion.
- We have problems with the robot driving the locomotive. I don’t know if you can handle it ...
Angelica understood his doubts. The locomotive robot is the prerogative of the first category programmers, because the train is a high-risk vehicle.
Angelica is just a graduate of a boarding school with a bias in subjective programming.
Angelica ran after the conductor to the locomotive. Leaving a train without traffic away from the city is dangerous on this planet. If you do not fix the locomotive, you can get into a storm or you will be surrounded by herds of wild scotosaurs and then you can break through them only with external support. Therefore, if she can help even a little, she must help.
- Wait!
In another car, the conductor found a senior programmer of the first category and the work was instantly assigned 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 recommended that no one 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 that she had never seen before and took her breath away. She was even delighted at such a rare opportunity to see the world from this point.
The red gas giant hung over the horizon during these morning hours, covering the entire lower part of the horizon. There was no heat from him, but everything around was flooded with pink reflections of the energy boiling on him.
How much space was visible from the road to the city - all of it was built up on one-story barracks or greenhouses dug two-thirds into the ground, where the star's energy was converted into potatoes and cucumbers. Most of the residential buildings were already abandoned and plundered, only the central part of the settlement remained populated.
A little further, outside the city stood a huge carcass of a spaceship. He was wide and unimaginable in height. He scared. Too gigantic and ridiculously tailored. With a shabby lining from which some ceramic flap seemed about to fall off. In some places scaffolding still remained, and therefore the spaceship became even uglier and bigger.
- Soon he will fly away and there will be nothing left at all
Angelica started, she did not notice how other people got off the train. Beside her stood a stooped man with a dust-black face. A worker from a space building or from a mineral quarry, Angelica guessed. The man took a sip from the bottle that was in his hand. For a second, he seemed to her very old.
The worker noticed her gaze.
“Do you remember how you started building it?”
- No, I have not been born then
- No one remembers. It was supposed to be the lead ship of a whole series. There were plans to reach a pace of two ships a year ... - the man’s look became completely extinct.
He took another sip and stared at his Isabella bottle in his hands. Isabella is a local wine brand. It tastes like glassy, diluted with a little honey.
- Everything was doomed from the very beginning, but every year it became only sadder. As a result, we always had a lot of Isabella. We drank it in the evenings and on weekends, and when the longing became unbearable we began to drink in the morning. Gradually, the word "Isabella" itself migrated aboard 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 actually this is the only chance to get out of here, and she is one of the six hundred boys and girls selected for the flight on this ship, what hopelessness is he talking about? But she did not dare ... What is a few hundred people for the several millions who will remain here forever?
Angelica saw the film, which was shown to the first settlers.
It said that this stellar system is located at the optimal point - exactly in the middle of two large stellar systems. It was said that there will always be travelers moving by, and they will have to make a stop to replenish supplies and rest. This "new Tver" was happily reported by the announcer in the film. Angelica did not know such a name as "Tver" to appreciate the temptation of the proposal, but the announcer's voice fascinated with his enthusiasm.
- We are between two metropolitan systems, it all depends on us!
- Yeah, we're in a hole with one movie theater and a dumpling, in which there is definitely nothing to do.
In the video, the planet itself was described as a bright future, but in reality the perspective died almost immediately after the film was finished.
Even in the first generation of colonists, new engines appeared, more likely even new principles of movement, and once again the changed idea of distances in space. This dramatically changed the attitude towards the Planet. Now it was an unnecessary, forgotten unfinished building. Not even a province, but an almost inhabited refuge of eccentrics.
So it was two generations ago before Angelica, and it remained the same now. Everyone who could - ticked from here.
Angelica coughed. Of course, she has resistance to this atmosphere, but you still can not breathe such air for a long time.
It’s good that I will fly away from here soon, she thought. “It’s scary, of course, that there is far away, but it’s better to take a chance than to regret all my life that I didn’t try.
She returned to the train compartment, waiting for his repair hiding behind an air filtration apparatus.
Husband's house
When Angelica woke up, she was frightened at first of an unfamiliar place, but then remembered where she was. She is in her husband’s house. Judging by the sounds outside the door, he finally came home.
Angelica quickly dressed, tidied her hair, and carefully peered out the door.
Husband. Yes, after nine she could call him that, he stood in front of the mirror and measured the shirt she had brought. There was such a tradition, carefully spelled out in the instructions, that at the first meeting, a girl gives a shirt of her choice.
She really liked how he looked in her. My husband had a good figure, he was tall and muscular. All the girls selected for the flight studied the photographs of men who will be on the ship. It was unknown until recently what kind of couples their ship’s computer would break up and the girls spent hours watching photos of all candidates in a row, wondering who they would like to pair with. At this moment, Angelica decided that perhaps she was lucky.
The shirt that Angelica gave was pink with a narrowed waist. Her husband spun in front of the mirror, and so on and so with a pleased mine, but never turned to face Angelica.
- Do you like?
- Yes, a great shirt, I like it. And the man was not like that?
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 a dowry.
“The dowry is good.”
The husband scanned the card and went dark.
- Is that so little?
- There are all the scholarships for the entire period of study at the boarding school, I haven’t practically spent anything, I haven’t started work yet, that’s all I saved up ... My
husband made a sour face, but immediately put the card on his mobile to enroll them for himself to the account.
- Well, what have you prepared?
Cooking is another ritual that a girl needs to do when she first met.
- Borsch.
- Borsch is good.
The lieutenant cowered into the kitchen like a hungry pig.
- What kind of borsch is it? There is meat in borsch, and this is beet-cabbage soup ...
- Well, in our daily ration there is no meat, there is only a bouillon cube.
- Not in the ration, but they somehow bring it to others, they save up with their families for such an occasion.
- I don’t have a family, I’m an orphanage ...
There was an unpleasant pause, the lieutenant husband ate, trying not to show any appetite.
“You have not met me.”
Angelica hinted that her husband is also not perfectly performing the ritual.
- You are late.
- There was an accident, the neural network at the locomotive was unbalanced, he became afraid of shadows from large cobblestones and could not move further, he had to connect the programmer so that he retrained the entire visual module for him. You should have seen how masterfully he did it!
“There will always be excuses,” retorted the husband, instantly making Angelica again guilty.
Having finished with the soup, the husband immediately got up from home.
- All I went to training, bye.
- Till.
Left alone in a strange house, Angelica did not know what to do with herself. The day lasted a very long time. She tried to read something, clean up something, learn something, but everything fell out of her hands.
Worst of all was uncertainty - when will the husband return?
She decided to call him. The phone picked up the phone. My husband had a very fashionable mobile, too expensive not to be a show off. Of those that delivered in extreme batches from the mainland. A black ball that moves silently around the room. Like a bumblebee, the size of a tennis ball, without wings and everywhere follows her husband. Like that conductor from the train, only acting as a personal assistant.
The mobile phone answered the call and turned on the tatami broadcast, on which the husband in wrestling shorts tightly intertwined with another wrestler and was so passionate about the fight that his mobile phone could not tell him that someone was calling. The mobile phone cut circles over the tatami trying to appear on the eyes. Finally, the husband saw him, but waved him off.
- Then we'll talk!
But did not call back.
Husband came in the evening, a little "under the shaf." Celebrated a friend's birthday at the bar. It smelled of him, of course, Isabella.
- Wife, do you have instructions?
- There is.
- Well, let's go.
***
Follow the instructions Angelica did not like. Fizra-fizroy, but still not quite. Worst of all is this smell remaining in the nostrils. The smell of a stranger. He did not pass even after a day. "It's some kind of mistake!" - Spun in the head of Angelica. It cannot be like this, the flight lasts thirty years, during this time you need to give birth to at least three children, otherwise only old people will fly into the new world. But I can’t live like this for so long!
Nevertheless, this went on for two weeks, her husband spent all days with friends or at work, and he devoted time only in the evening to the procedures prescribed by the instructions. Moreover, they became 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 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 a family is?
“Actually, you don’t know what a family is.” I had and have normal parents, and you are an orphanage - you simply 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 a pillow and roared fiercely for several hours.
Passage about parents hurt the most. Angelica roared a beluga. She did not even have any special thoughts at this time. She simply processed helplessness and loneliness into rivers of tears and crying.
***
On the evening of the next day, the husband came for Angelica and, as usual, demanded the execution of instructions.
“Wife, it's time to start, why aren't you in bed yet?”
He, it seems, tasted it and got involved in their measured life over these weeks.
- Fuck go.
“But the instructions?” - The husband was amazed, like a kitten at the sight of a glomerulus.
“I studied her well.” Daily - optional. Sanctions 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 will get drawn. At first I wasn’t feeling very good, but I made an effort on myself and now I am set to clearly follow the instructions, even points with an asterisk for excellent students. Did you study math? It is mathematically proven that the pair matching algorithm works perfectly. Albinsky theorem! You and I are a perfect couple, you just don’t understand yet ...
- Of course I studied mathematics, I'm a programmer! Do not tell me bullshit. The algorithm according to the Albinsky theorem predicts an ideal pair with 100% probability only when it works on complete data, and it is not known what the recommendation is made by the commissariat. Incidentally ...
Angelica suddenly fell silent and thought about something. The husband continued:
“Of course, the commissariat does everything 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 did not listen to him, she went online and sent a bunch of requests. Suddenly her face darkened.
- What? - Frightened husband.
“I know several hackers, not personally, of course, but online.” They have a base about all the inhabitants of the planet. Almost from the first generations of settlers. This is the most complete that is, if I could download it, I could download it myself into the recommendation algorithm and see who will be my ideal couple.
- 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 just won’t give it away if it weren’t for the old acquaintance, they would not even talk to me. And now I have absolutely no money.
Angelica looked her husband in the eye. The husband walked closer to the screen and looked at the price that was being asked, his eyes slightly rounded.
- Well, let's say I give you this money and it turns out that the algorithm will select me again. Will you do everything prescribed by the instructions daily?
Angelica nodded silently.
“And if I ask for something special?” Well, not every time, but at least sometimes?
Angelica nodded again, albeit with some fear in her eyes.
“Your husband doesn’t press, my dear!” Mobile phone, give her the money you need for this purchase and close this question!
***
The next few hours they spent setting up the environment for the necessary calculations. The database with information about people was being downloaded, but it turned out to be significantly larger than Angelica expected. It took a long time to wait for the download of crazy petabytes.
The husband became nervous and constantly tried to control the process, apparently scared that Angelica was somehow manipulating the results, but she herself did not need it at all, she just wanted to know the truth.
The husband insisted that he use exactly the same algorithm that was listed on the website of the Commissariat for Marriage, exactly the same version of it. Despite the fact that there were already newer algorithms that were no different, in fact, but worked faster, Angelica agreed and downloaded from the commissariat repository the necessary version of the source code of the recommendation algorithm.
The wait was so unbearable that she agreed and when he dragged her to follow instructions. Let it be so, just to be distracted.
Finally, everything was uploaded and prepared. Angelica launched the calculation. The husband stood behind the back of the chair and watched her work. Controlling and enjoying. Still, when someone does the job it's nice to look at it. Especially if this is your wife.
Data was divided into uniform packets, spread over tens of thousands of computing cores. Matrices were multiplied by matrices, tensors by tensors, and scalars by everything. The digital thresher split the data of the real world, extracting from them the magic of hidden patterns invisible to the human mind.
Finally, the car gave an answer. An ideal pair for Angelica is ... The husband neighing. He rustled like a nervous horse.
- How can it be? Are you a lesbian?
The ideal couple was a certain Kuralay Sagitova.
- I have lived all my life in a female dormitory, but there never was anything like it, maybe we were mistaken somewhere!
“Ha ha ha,” the husband did not relent.
He found a profile of Kuralay in the settlement’s official social network. Unfortunately, the photo was taken so that it was impossible to understand how a person actually looks.
- Well, if such a photo, then it is most likely scary as a silver carp, who else will spread this. Angelica was silent, because in her profile she generally had a photo of a kitten.
- Her legs are crooked, it is clearly visible! - the husband stared and did not relent.
- Ha ha ha! Go to your scary - give you money for a taxi?
- I do not need anything! - Angelica was 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 viciously refused. She could not find a mistake in the calculations, but still it was too much for her.
Angelica rushed to read manuals on algorithms built on the basis of the Albinsky theorem, and greatly pumped the mathematical base. In particular, she found out that the algorithm selects "the person with whom you will be fundamentally happy." Angelica did not know how to translate it literally, but she grasped the essence. The main thing - there was no direct indication that the partner of the opposite sex was being sought.
No other explanation could be found.
***
A little morning, and the husband, as usual, went to training, and then to the service. Angelica was left at home alone.
What if it’s true. Suddenly there is no mistake? Angelica tried to imagine what it was like to live a lifetime with another woman. She even began to look for answers in the instructions, on the network there were extended versions of the instructions of the space explorer with additions and comments, which were recommended only for study by specialized workers, but were in the meantime freely available. However, nothing of the kind was covered there.
But there was a paragraph about infidelity, where it was said, "engaging in the indicated actions with another man other than her husband is the basis for ..." and then the list of punishments. That is, technically according to the instructions with another woman, you can do whatever you want, it will not be considered a betrayal. Not that Angelica was going to, but made herself such a note in her memory.
After some time, Angelica found herself reading a Kuralay blog. There were few posts in it, but Angelica liked her train of thought. 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.
Two days later, Isabella was to take off. This, of course, was the main news of all the media.
When Kuralay wrote about this, Angelica decided and wrote to her in a personal letter that she also flies and can tell about it. They immediately got caught in messages and chatted for half a day. Kuralay was interested in everything - she was delighted with the stories of Angelica, and Angelica was delighted, because she had never listened so carefully.
- Well, the perinatal installation is too cumbersome to put it on the ship!
- What nonsense! Can you imagine how much food is needed for this whole horde of people, and how many rooms, and water? And all this must fly! It was possible to send only a plant and test tubes with DNA to a 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 do not trust machines so much as to send the population that the machine will grow to another star. And if the roof of the car moves like that of your locomotive that you talked about? What kind of people will then fly to another planet? A woman is old-school, reliable, rational - so let's carry out your plan for thirty years.
“Wait, how can we not trust the perinatal center if we ourselves are all of it?”
- Listen, you are a programmer, we have long been making machines that we do not fully understand. We are satisfied that they work most of the time, and if they break, a programmer arrives, but only if they notice an error. And if the children grow up and turn out to be schizophrenic, it will be too late to come. Such a story was, for example, at Cererre-3. The whole colony then died out.
“It's still more efficient.” In the end, we are all from the perinatal center and it seems nothing :)
- Haha, yes, of course, that's all. You seem to have heard enough of official propaganda :)
- But how?
- And so! Come and tell :)
Angelica did not expect that everything would happen so quickly. She was bewildered. On the other hand, there were only a few days left before the start and, apparently, it was impossible to find out the truth.
Angelica was picking up. She combed her hair, put on makeup, dressed, and was about to leave. Undressed, changed clothes 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 just have to look,” she thought and left the house.
Kuralay House was on the very outskirts of the city. Even further than the outskirts, in a deserted, but pretty area. Coming out of a taxi, Angelica was taken aback. There was a whole farm, animals were in the pens, nearby there were greenhouses in which someone went. Obviously it was not robots, but a man.
Angelica knocked carefully on the door. Outside the door, footsteps were heard and Kuralay opened the door. The girls stared, bulging their eyes at each other.
- Mom, Dad, look who came.
Two elderly people stepped out of the room and were stunned. Angelica stepped inside the room, stood next to Kuralay and it became clear that outwardly they were indistinguishable. Like identical twins. Identical figures, identical faces, even hairstyles are similar.
- How is this possible? - the question hung in the air without an answer.
- Mother, father?
- Sister?
***
Isabella launch day. Angelica and her sister watch him from their parents' home on the far outskirts of the city. Two little girls circle around Angelica. Most of the adults left to watch the launch from the industrial site on the territory of the cosmodrome, children were not allowed there because of increased radiation at the launch, so minority parents who were ready to sit with the kids that day were worth their weight in gold.
- Something we are not a bit at the epicenter of events, do not you find?
- Who refused to play the play, did he suffer because of bad places in the auditorium ...
- Ha ha ... - the sister laughed, - Do not 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 girls, she will be glad.
On the horizon, the spaceship began warming up the engines. The whole sky above the city was surrounded by clouds, illuminated by the crimson light of the local luminary.
“I heard that yesterday we found two more of the same 'type of orphans' like you.” The Commissariat conducted an official investigation. It looks like the perinatal center, when it turned out to be twins, gave all the “extra” children to the boarding school due to a programming error.
- There, probably, hell is happening now.
- Probably ... Find out if they brought such a bug here or they came from the capital already ... The
spaceship begins to roar with engines. On all monitors of the planet, a countdown is ticking. The launch takes place tens of kilometers from the observation point, but the earth still vibrates and a distant hum is heard.
You can hear the stereo speakers in the bedroom on the second floor of the building choking with delight. Father even preferred to watch such events in the broadcast with the comments of specialists, and the girls wanted to see with their own eyes.
The pre-launch countdown began, and the announcer started in a frantic delight, like a ring announcer before a boxing match ...
- This is a great day for all of us! Let's get ready for a naz-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-d journey to kooooooosmosss !!!
Finally, the spaceship takes off from the earth, takes off to a height of several kilometers.
Suddenly a trickle of fire struck in the wrong place. As if splashed from the surface of the ship with a bright spark. From afar, it seemed tiny, but the giant carcass of the ship barely noticeably swayed to the side. The control system made an attempt to level the ship and she easily succeeded. A signal was added to the engines of the port side to add a little traction, the ship jerked in the right direction and leveled off for a second.
The engine exploded.
The fire passed to the fuel tanks, and they blazed. Babahnul so that flooded half of the celestial hemisphere.
The hull of the ship breaks into several parts and falls down onto the city. To residential quarters, to the perinatal center, to the industrial site and factory, to farms, to the train station ... The whole space around the wreckage of "Isabella" burns in a hell of oxidizing fuel. The disaster happens so quickly that absolutely all people are speechless.
Sister grabs Angelica, that for children, children scream.
They barely manage to sit down and squint at them as they are covered by a blast wave. A tipping machine, tearing down roofs from houses, breaking down trees and just as rapidly disappearing as it appeared.
People fell head over heels to the ground, but, fortunately, no one was badly hurt. It was scary, the windows flew out in the house and the dishes broke, the dust did not allow to see anything beyond ten meters, but from the injuries there was nothing worse than the 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 fine.
My sister tried to peer into the distance, blinked, but could not see anything. She was in shock.
- God, how many people and nothing left!
Angelica also looked in the direction of the disaster and now could not turn away.
“Something may have remained,” said Angelica and laid one hand on her stomach, the other hugged her little girls.
The mobile phone appeared unexpectedly. It was strange to see that the cellular network was functioning after such a disaster. The black ball made several circles around Angelica, making sure through the dusty cloud that it was his mistress and chattering as if nothing had happened.
- Message from the server of an automated multifunctional center of urban services. Since all the other parents died in the disaster that happened today twelve minutes forty-five seconds ago, your share in the parental status of both girls is now the largest. Given the new circumstances, you now have the right to the title of parent-one while maintaining the same amount of alimony. Want to create a renewal application?
- Uh ...
Angelica was speechless and looked at the babies. They understood now what was said or not. Looks like no. But robots, you are heartless machines ... Angelica wanted to gouge the server that sent this message personally, but judging by the fact that he survived the disaster, he was hidden somewhere very deep underground ...
- Sorry, Angelica, I did not understand your answer.
The polite tone of the mobile phone confused Angelica and her aggressiveness cooled off.
- You don’t need “parent-one”, just write there ... “mother”.