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Prologue

This story may have started the same way as the story you are remembering now, or it may have started differently. It all depends on how and from what "angle" to look at your story. For example, when were you born? When you appeared in this world? But imagine if your soul was living… or maybe it already was. Waiting for you as flesh, as a body. Waiting to be allocated a body… or to be made a body. For once a body is made, all the diversity of the inner spiritual world fills it, from the totality of that which was created by clearly not the two, who created you. So when were you born anyway? Maybe when your parents decided to conceive a child? Or maybe when they met through the many labyrinths of fate? Or maybe when their parents did? Or when your distant ancestor escaped death? Or maybe we are all children of Adam and Eve? Or maybe of a god? Or maybe we were born when one of the humanoid primates began to think and decided to use that ability to become a leader (and most likely his idea was to create numerous copies of himself, that is, to capture females first)? Behind the banality and simplicity of such a desire hides the very mystery of life, its preservation, development into higher forms and transition into the incorporeal rulers of the universe. Or maybe our life began when life as such appeared? Or were we born when, already being in a body, we realized ourselves as a being, as a person? But it was obviously not at the moment of our birth… and certainly not at the moment of conception, although even in the womb we were already living people. So when? And what happened to those particles, from which, in the end, having made quadrillion-trillion-trillion combinations, a certain group of molecules closed the chain and began a series of copies, which we call life?

Now imagine a black hole. A so-called black hole… I mean, that term probably confuses us completely. There's probably no black hole.

For you, my dear reader, I will give explanations, many of which for your convenience I will cite from open sources, though I will try to explain more in simple everyday language. Otherwise how to understand such terms, necessary for our narration, as event horizon and quantum entanglement.

So, what is a black hole? Scientifically, it's kind of like this: a star dies and goes from one state to another. It kind of weakens, it can no longer push fuel from the inner part into the upper layers, and under their weight it starts to shrink. More precisely, the upper layers fall on the lower ones, and if this process stops at a certain stage, the star still shines, burns and lives for billions of years. Eventually it all burns up and falls even more towards the center. So there's no logic to it. That's something we're going to run into a lot – a logic that doesn't exist. There is no logic where it should be iron, i.e. firmly scientific.

If the black hole attracts everything to itself, as if swallows it, then the process must eventually lead to the fact that it must start the reverse process of restoration. So the question is: where is all that it attracted? Did she recycle it all and send it somewhere else, and unnoticed? That is why it is still a mystery of science, although there are already assumptions that it is some kind of a pipe that swallows from one side and throws out the recycled matter somewhere very far away, maybe in a parallel world. Parallel – in the sense that, perhaps, in the black hole electrons turn into protons, protons into antiprotons, and all substances, particles acquire "anti", i.e. opposite properties, so they are not visible for our senses and equipment, which we have created on the basis of "understanding".

Eventually it seems like the star is so compressed that it turns into a fantastic magnet that doesn't let anything out. It attracts everything and even sucks it in. Not even light can't escape from there, it's sucked in. So the boundary where it starts to happen, that is, the place where you can no longer escape from the attraction of the black hole, is called the event horizon. Even time is said to be different there. Speaking of time. How do you feel about its eternity? What about the eternity of space? And the eternity of matter? These are three important components of the world we live in. The world we can understand based on our senses. The world that these three-dimensional sensations "show" us. We can fantasize, compose, imagine, imagine, imagine, imagine, think about any other perceptions, dimensions, realities, but the reality for us will remain that which we can understand on the basis of our senses.

Okay, now a little more about eternity. Have you really visualized it yet? Have you imagined, for example, your life in a million years? What about a billion? How about a billion billion billion? Is it hard to imagine such a long life? It's quite realistic. But we'll talk about that later. For now, imagine that you still live at least a thousand years and are always flying somewhere. Not just like that, but without a body. Your thoughts are flying. In fact, you are your thoughts, your understanding of what you are, not your body. Imagine if you don't realize anything, but you have a body. Do you exist in that case? As a person, no. But if you don't have your body, but you still have the ability to think, then you will exist as your Self. So, if we imagine our world, our whole universe as a kind of computer world, where we all sleep or live in some kind of virtual reality, then in such a world we could fly to the Moon, for example, in a second. I mean as energetic beings, without a body, as an astral body of thoughts. If such a life – in the energetic or computer world – seems something improbable to you, then I will tell you: prove the opposite when you sleep. After all, everyone has dreamed dreams – as if all this were really happening. Imagine if you fell asleep and slept for the rest of your life. And now this, for example: to take and put all your vital signs into a certain matrix, formula, and then to calculate by all your moral and psychological data your worldview and on the basis of it to predict your deeds. For example, horoscope or fortune-telling is also based on this somehow. Thus it is possible to make your digital, computer i, that is, say, it is possible to make a character with your data for a computer game. Now if you imagine that god or aliens have already done this, then we are all in some kind of cosmic simulation. What I mean by that is that within that simulation, within the computer game, signals are traveling at the speed of light. This brings us back to what I've written about before – eternity. If you live for a billion years and fly at 300,000 kilometers per second, which is simply not only incredible, but also unimaginable, it would take you 14 lifetimes to fly to the edge of the universe. Even with those capabilities, you need to live 14 billion years. Can you imagine such a thing? Many people have even thought now: what to do all this time? Ha, really funny. Let me make it clear. If you still live that long and move that fast, after 14 billion years, you will still not be at the edge of the universe. Why not? Because we know the distance from where the farthest light supposedly "flew" to us at that speed. And as it traveled, everything changed.

Now, I'm going to make a digression. For example, you look up at the sky at night and you see stars. In fact, many of them may no longer be there. It's their light that's still traveling towards us. And they may have already gone out, that is, died. It is as if, for example, in ancient times one had to walk around the Earth on horseback or on foot for 14 years; if in the seventh year someone from the team died, then the news about it would reach home after 7 years.

So, our universe is actually supposed to be 93 billion light years in diameter. Now, understand this: those edges 14 billion light years away, even with a life of 14 billion years and at that speed, you still wouldn't reach those edges. After all, you only live some 14 billion years, and the universe has expanded during your flight. So let's live longer, like 28 billion years. Is that hard to imagine? Just imagine, you'd live for 28 billion years. It's a miracle. It's unimaginable. Now you probably know what I mean by now. Even with such great unimaginability, you can't reach the edge of the universe. The edge of our universe, because there are many others. Now imagine eternity. Imagine that the universe we've been talking about is just a grain of sand on a beach. A grain of sand among billions and trillions of others. Imagine that? Now imagine you've been alive for a hundred billion years. How cool is that? Now imagine you're traveling to the nearest star at the speed of light. Congratulations, it'll take you four years to get there. So that's at the speed of light, which, by the way, by all the laws of physics, material bodies can't reach. Not that it's technically difficult, no. With the capabilities that space technology has now – it will take us about 40,000 years to get there, and at the speed of light – only 4 years. You might be thinking: how fast, compared to traveling in a rocket. Now imagine, it takes you 4 years to go to a neighboring city. For domestic needs, and more, that's an awfully long time. Notice, it's at the speed of light, which a person can't fly. Not that flying is impossible, it's impossible to reach. Our bodies are material.

Now you have a better idea of the size of the universe. No? Then let's fly through at least our galaxy. In the meantime, I'll tell you in confidence that there are supposedly about 500 billion galaxies, and each galaxy has from 200 billion to a trillion stars. Can you imagine how many galaxies there are? Does it make you dizzy? Then imagine snowflakes in a blizzard. About that many if there's a blizzard all night and all over the region. And think of those grains of sand I mentioned above. In the meantime, we've got another 100,000 years to go through the galaxy. Don't forget, we're only talking about our own. They'd tell you to go to the capital and meet me there in 100,000 years. How cool is that? I think you're already euphoric. That's my way of trying to explain to you a tiny fraction of what's called eternity. You've been flying, flying, flying… billions and trillions of years, and you haven't actually moved. How? It's like this. Because no matter how big you visualize, you're still visualizing a tiny fraction of eternity.

Have you ever paid attention to a human embryo in the early stages of development? Does it really look like a fish? It is assumed that the embryo in the process of growth passes through all stages of living beings, from which in the process of evolution came, overcoming the evolutionary chain, man. Now imagine the eternity of space. For the eternity of space at some stage our universe is just a molecule. Have you imagined the magnitude of eternity I am talking about now? Now imagine this vast space in another part of infinity. In a vast infinity in which already this big unimaginable gigasuniverse becomes a molecule. Perhaps our universe, expanding at some stage, is "born", that is, it reaches a stage where life appears in it. Then it grows, ages and dies. And all these multiple universes are all part of some organism. Are you surprised? But infinity makes any huge quantity into a tiny little thing. By comparison, we have billions of living things inside our bodies… and they have no idea who we are. They are born, live and die without recognizing who they are living off of.

Now let's reset our imagination and try to visualize infinite time. Imagine those billions of years when the universe will expand, then contract, explode, and be reborn. Now imagine that you're the one making coffee every morning. One hundred billion years have passed. The next day, a new universe is born again, life appears somewhere. Civilization developed, the universe shrank, exploded. Another day goes by, and it's all over again. So there you go. Even that's not infinity. Infinity isn't the size of something. Not the passage of countless years and time itself, not the vast distances with no end in sight, not the realization that matter will never disappear, no matter how many times it transforms from one such species to another. No. Infinity is the understanding of something that has never arisen and will never disappear. Something that has never arisen and will never cease. It's hard for us to imagine. Our brains are used to working, to operating with concepts that have some kind of boundaries. Now that your brain has realized how small we are and how fleeting our lives are – let's get to our story. Here from it we will learn how it is possible to live so long and move so fast.

For now, however, we will remember the past. Namely, the story of a past life. The lives of characters from a series of parallel worlds, and not only from there. Let's remember how Rutra and his friend, a "luminary of science" named Parmenides, invented a method of quick human cloning and transferring consciousness from any human to a clone. Let us remember the properties of quantum-entangled pairs, undetermined by science so far, to find their pair and transfer to it with instantaneous speed the impact that was exerted on it. Let's remember how, using these marvelous paradoxes of science, they found and transferred to parallel worlds the consciousness of a real person.

Now a little reminder of how. Here, for example, a computer turns a file into multiple copies. You don't know the technical details? It's no longer a surprise to you. It's kind of a matter of course. Now imagine a 3D printer that copies shapes, models. Now imagine a printer that makes food from prepared foods. Or a kitchen supercombine, a coffee machine, or a bread maker. Something like that. Imagine there is some substance from which to create a human being. Imagine transferring information, a program, from one machine, be it a smartphone, a computer or the like. Imagine that in the same way it can be transferred into a human being. After all, since childhood, learning, we do the same thing, only not quickly. Imagine that you have a chip in your brain, into which the entire "Wikipedia" has been pumped. Now imagine without the chip. Because when we learn, understanding is recorded somewhere. Here's your clone, and here's his consciousness at once. It's also possible to download information to you. All of it. Even what you have already forgotten. And then save it, create a clone when you die, and pump it into him. You're alive again.

Now a little bit about quantum entanglement. It's such an interesting thing. In simple words, it looks like this. For example, you've seen how a game of billiards starts. One ball smashes a bunch of collected balls. It's roughly how a neutron, a small particle, enters an atom and rips it apart. At the same time, those particles inside the atom start to rage, hoot, holler, yell, scream, fight, fuss, so that the noise becomes enormous. So it's a nuclear explosion. There are particles that are friends with each other. They're called entangled pairs. They sort of dance together. If you separate them and let them fly apart and catch them somewhere in a special installation, they secretly communicate with each other. They continue their circling. Only now in opposite directions to each other. If one is from right to left, the other particle is necessarily from left to right. And this is ironcladly inviolable. Always. You can use this to influence one particle to influence another. For example, if you make one particle change its property, then the other particle will recognize it in some unimaginable way. This instantaneous connection is something that no one can understand or determine. No matter how far apart they are, they understand each other instantly. Beyond the speed of light.

Here it is necessary to remind and explain a little bit. The point is that there is no speed higher than the speed of light in our world, in our material, and not only in the universe. That's the limit. And the famous formula E=MC2 says that if something reaches the speed of light, then E, which is energy, and M, which is mass, must be infinite. So the speed of light is only allowed for massless particles, like photons of light, radio waves, and something else. Although, though… how to say. There are a lot of contradictions in it. I mean, if something goes from one place to another, something goes there too. But we'll talk about that later. For now, about the properties of these particles, or rather, about the mystery of their correspondence.

So, Rutra and Parmenides decided: since one particle has its double, there are particles opposite to those of which our world consists, for example, antiproton, then there must be worlds in which these particles live. Or rather, worlds that are made up of these particles. After all, it is no surprise to any of us that our world is made up of the particles of which it is made up. So why shouldn't there be worlds where the antiproton and all the "anti's" are perfectly normal, especially these second particles of entangled pairs: they can go to unimaginable distances. So Rutra and his friend decided to find those worlds where they are masters. They decided to run these particles through the brain, having previously converted them into the form that the human consciousness had converted. This is if you take, for example, and by the story of a person, through another storyteller, imagine and draw a picture of what is being told. Or, for example, the story itself. Or, for example, to make something according to the available forms. That is, our consciousness is also such a multifaceted form of concepts. For example, if you are asked what God, culture, flower, beauty are, everyone will tell something very close, similar, but at the same moment – their own idea. And in the same way, if you tell a director about a character, saying that he was like this, then the director will demand from the actor behavior and manners according to his idea of the told person. Similarly, our consciousness: if it is transformed into rays, radiations, waves or some other forms, it can influence these particles in a certain way. And then one particle, transmitting its state changed by consciousness, makes it as it has become, as if transmitting a copy of consciousness. And there, entering another brain, it makes that consciousness a copy of this one. And in fact it turns out that the first consciousness, which influenced the particles, passed into that brain with their help. Everything could be done in a simpler way, but only on Earth, close by. But with the help of particles it is possible to transfer the state of consciousness, that is consciousness itself, to incredible distances instantly. Since these are particles, of which we are made up, among others, it is possible to enter the brain where they have become a copy. That is, an entangled pair of particles of a spoon entered (or created) the same spoon there, an entangled pair of an apple created an apple, and an entangled pair… or rather, billions and billions of pairs of which you are composed, created someone like you there. And all together a parallel world. So this is not enough, those particles that are emitted there – they also created a parallel world… and so in a circle, many worlds. Now you will take and read the theory of many-worlds of a clever man named Everett, and I will begin my artistic narration.

Chapter 1: Thought Collider.

– …We often read other people's stories, and we find them very interesting, romantic. However, when we need to tell about some of our impressions – we often cannot express our feelings, emotions; then we say that we do not have enough words. Exactly words, because other components that convey a picture of an event, mankind has… or does not have… or they are perceived even more individually. For example, instead of words there can be a picture, a movie, a theatrical performance, and sometimes just a look, a cry, a laugh. And now imagine if a person had such an opportunity – to transmit information not with words, but with other ways of communication, namely, only with feelings, in the sense of those that we have experienced, which we cannot describe to ourselves… which can only be experienced. And we could transmit them from the brain to the brain, so that the person to whom we were telling felt exactly what we felt… One day, thinking about this, about the technologies that were already in the secret laboratory where I work, the thought occurred to me that we humans often develop technologies if they serve us a certain purpose that was not originally set. For example, for war. Although in reality we are always dissatisfied with ourselves and the reality around us, yet this deep original feeling of instinct made us, the rulers of civilization. Although all living beings have this feeling. No matter how banal – it is the instinct of self-preservation. With the help of new technologies, we first of all want to protect ourselves. We want to protect ourselves, including ourselves as a civilization. Having received a certain guarantee of security, we began to live differently, differently from the animal world. We began a different life, a cultural life. Culture was the security that allowed us to take a step away from the wild world, which eventually allowed us to become the rulers of this world. Notice the connection: it was only by agreeing not to kill that we became rulers over the killers. That was the other life. Over time, however, we began to endow the concept of "life" with a meaning different from the physiological definition of the word. The same culture gave people not only an understanding of a certain way of behaving differently from animals – it began to characterize the quality of being in the human population itself. To put it simply, first of all, this life for us should be a continuous celebration, otherwise we say what kind of life it is. And we also want to make a monument out of life, to extend life after death in a peculiar way. This is also a kind of peculiar pleasure. That is why very often we use everything we think up for our own pleasure, and then we make a lot of other decisions based on it. Although we do not ask ourselves questions, do not introspect as human beings, it is not clear to us where our decisions come from, but nevertheless our consciousness gives us the answer that it is out of this desire for pleasure that we have created a lot of other desires. We have created a kind of show of life – holidays, rituals, customs, New Year presents, fashion. Our whole life is based on pleasure, in the center of everything is pleasure, ingeniously instilled in us by nature, by God. Because it is the only possibility for a living being to develop intellectually. And if someone says about the instinct of self-preservation, the thirst to survive as the engine of progress, the answer will be an argument – for the sake of what? The answer is for the sake of enjoying the existence of life as such. And the crown of all this is the pleasure of reproduction. And now let us turn to intelligence. Very often outstanding scientists substantiate peculiar hypotheses and assumptions about the emergence of reason, intelligence. And from the point of view of our reasonableness – everything seems to be logical. But if we look at everything not from the human's point of view, but from the point of view of some other creature, which does not know the human way of life, for example, a robot, or more precisely, an artificial intelligence, how will it characterize us, humans? It will study us in terms of science, not in terms of morality, spirituality or feelings. In fact, intelligence is just a peculiar ability of the brain to reproduce recorded, put together in the most necessary combination, experienced, received, remembered actions. That is to say, all our feelings, our intelligence, everything we understand, are reactions in the brain to this or that stimulus. With the help of the central nervous system and the whole body. Suppose you once ate some fruit, it was very tasty, many, many years have passed – and you can't remember the taste anymore. Why not? Because your brain cannot reproduce the chemical reaction of that flavor. And in the same way, we forget a lot of things. It's often the case that memory is erased. Erases what? It's erased by this reaction in the brain. The brain doesn't have the capacity to hold all the possible options. Initially, when man left the animal society, it was this mutation, the developed properties and proportions of the human body that turned out to be the most optimal for the chemical reaction in the brain to become permanent and repeatable, with the possibility of continuing to record the next reaction. It is like an adaptation of the body to its surroundings. If fish did not fixate on mutation and consequently develop adaptations to life outside of water, life in water would have remained. If we, having invented a calculator, could not transform it into a computer, we would not be able to go into space. If our minds could not exist outside the body, we would not see other worlds, or even find them at all. And all of this is woven into a code of the universe where everything matters. Everything, starting from the state of the charge level of particles in an atom, the magnetic field, the light of the sun, the influence of gravity, the totality of the systems that make up the universe. It all converged into some central point that became optimal for human existence. It turned out to be the most optimal to make one more reaction in the brain than all other living things. That was the great step of intelligence across the universe. Nature had experienced this millions, billions of times. So many different creatures have been born on Earth, but none have reached the point where the brain can reproduce the same reaction continuously, with the next action memorized and a new repetition. So that it can memorize and reproduce twice. It's like in science: a discovery is considered scientific if it can be reproduced twice and is refutable. In the survival variant, animals have developed other abilities to survive. A dog, for example, has a sniff, an eagle has eyesight, a moth can sense its female at a distance of several kilometers. And so on. We can give many examples, for example, how birds migrate by navigation and so on. One animal relied on memory, reproduced one action, then a second action was attached to it, then a third, fifth, tenth, and then repeated one after another – and until now we are developing, cognizing and repeating. In this way we build the pyramid of the building of intelligence; someday, perhaps in 100 years, perhaps in 1,000, the present knowledge and achievements will be primitive to us. We build the building of science – from school to institute and so on, we adopt knowledge from each other, reproduce it and constantly look for new knowledge, and then reproduce it again. We do not develop in ourselves any other abilities, for example, such as those of animals. To survive, we constantly develop science first of all, and then we use it to defend ourselves from predators, from viruses, from radiation.....

Ruthra was silent for a moment, looking around the audience, they were quite awake, so he decided to continue without resting.

– Now we come to the main topic. This is the way of thinking I decided to create a new device that would transmit the feelings experienced. To be more precise, it could be used to feel what someone else's body feels. The technology is again based on chemical reactions of the brain, which need to be recorded and then reproduced in another brain. It's a revolutionary technology that I developed while I was still in the underground lab at CERN. At the Center for Nuclear Research. It's based on two simple things. In fact, we think it's very complicated. When, for example, there was no electricity, it was difficult for us to understand all these technologies that now exist thanks to it. Today, what was once a miracle is absolutely commonplace for us. When, let's say, there is a live broadcast on television, even from a space station. In the laboratory, I developed a technology for scanning and transmitting what is recorded in the brain, that is, memory, and everything else that is called subconsciousness. Simply put, the stuff that makes your personality individual. Recording your consciousness, storing it, with the ability to process and rewrite it from a computer to another brain. Magic? It's actually very simple to do. Cloning is already known to mankind. Everyone remembers Dolly the sheep and many more. It's illegal to clone humans, but secret labs have been working on it. The difficult thing is the rapid growth of a cloned body. Fast cloning was achieved by a method that was used in animal husbandry, for example, to grow broiler chickens. Genetic engineering can be applied at the same time. It is possible to apply the technology of genetic modification and produce a person with appropriate properties, pre-set growth, eye color, strength, intelligence, even awareness of the thoughts of another person. It is only necessary to be able to decipher the signals of chemical reactions in the brain. After all, it is no surprise to us when we translate some of our body parameters into a familiar method of understanding. For example, the way our kidneys work is by urine; the way our heart works is by electrocardiogram. We can also trace the brain's reactions, identify them, and try to reproduce them. This is the kind of thing I have reproduced technically. The technology allows the brain to take and reproduce the reactions that were in the one from which the recording is taken. The same feelings, the same memories that we originally took and recorded using the formula. As I said above, everything we make up translates into pleasure. We can't bring the technology of cloned bodies to the masses yet. In fact, it is a method that gives people eternal life. You can clone your body, set certain parameters, and you will be the same age all the time. This does not mean that people will stop wanting to have children.

There was a "wave" of light chatter in the pulpit. Ruthra was silent for a moment, giving them a chance to exchange brief conclusions.

– Yes, of course I was thrilled. Or rather, we were thrilled. This is the work of a group of scientists, even if the basic idea and the method developed is mine. It was epic. You can write down your memory and transfer it into a clone. That's why it's still illegal to mass produce this technology. I should remind you. I was part of an organization, a secret clan of scientists that I initiated myself. This clan of scientists created a technology to control human consciousness, and through the management of neural networks, spread its influence on everything that happens on Earth. Secretly, of course. So we created a semblance of invisibility, the so-called secret threads of humanity's control. That is, no one can find us, as we can influence through people's consciousness on the media, on intelligence, on special services, on the government. It may seem fantastic and even ridiculous to you, but in fact it is also very simple. When you are told, you hear. You are given a task – you do it. Have you ever asked yourself why you did this or that deed, why you made this or that decision? Sometimes they even say: I heard a voice from the sky, so I did this or that. Although no one denies the reality of the so-called inner voice. Perhaps a humorous saying is related to this: if you talk to God, it is normal, but if God talks to you, it is schizophrenia.

The audience smiled a little, a couple of ladies giggled.

– So, why not allow technology where directly the information has to enter your brain and trigger certain thoughts. What are thoughts? They are actually electronic and chemical processes converted into waves. And in fact the control of that is what is most secret, secret. Perhaps aliens have had this technology for a long time, created our world, and made it most secret so that our brains don't get information about this method of communication… and generally things they don't need. As soon as our brains start thinking about something that is dangerous to them – they influence in such a way that our brains either stop and can't think about it, or can't think of it. I'm exaggerating a bit, but the point is clear. Isn't it?

The hall fell silent approvingly. Some nodded.

– Let's assume that everything is clear. Now let's turn to the topic "How to decipher thoughts, how to understand thoughts, how to control thoughts". How can we decipher thoughts and influence thoughts, put information into a person's brain in such a way that he/she will have given thoughts? To make it easier to understand, let's say we can do the following – give a person a medicine or some kind of drug… or some other physical, electromagnetic way to influence a person, such as hypnosis. Let's think of the secret MK-ULTRA program that was conducted at the CIA. This is a program, under which the test subjects were given special preparations, special drugs, with the help of which they could put a person into a special state, like a coma, and then learn anything from him. They could program them, hypnotize them to do certain things. The same way you can affect the brain. To make it give birth to the given, programmed thoughts. This is how you can control man and mankind. And now we come to the main theme of our narrative. I tell everyone the same story, that is, I give introductory scientific information, because without it you cannot understand our technologies. Technologies with the help of which all this is real, all this is realizable. What I'm going to tell you next is what you're going to participate in. So. The thing is, among other things, there was another secret technology. Here I have to make a little digression and talk about some of the other paradoxes of our world. Paradox one. That is, it is not really a paradox as such… but a paradox of sorts nonetheless. Each of us sees and understands the world in our own way. No matter how we perceive the Sun, it is still one concept for us, but still everyone has different associations. This applies to cold, joy and grief. Now let's take the bacteria and microbes inside us. We are a kind of universe to them. They don't understand that we are born and die at all. We didn't know they existed until recently, either. What do you think of the discovery of a new world? Somehow it is believed that, having discovered, having found aliens… or they us… we should make contact… in human terms of this word. Or perhaps – they have life in an intelligent entity that inherently cannot communicate with us. For example, the same microbes we consider unintelligent, yet they live both before we were born and after. Even suspecting their existence, we do not know how many of them are born and die during the course of a day. Some of them help us to live, they are necessary, others are harmful – and we mercilessly destroy them. It can be interpreted in another way – to associate us with the planet, where the population lives, and we as gods influence them. And perhaps our actions are perceived by these bacteria as natural phenomena… or as God's grace with the punishment of heaven. If there are more of them, they begin to harm: we threw soldiers in there in the form of medicine. It got colder – we dressed warmer, strengthened, let's say abstractly, the ozone layer. And now let's move to the universe in the natural way. Let's visualize the size of the universe. Let's say you have to go all the way around our globe. We won't count how long you have to walk, but it's a long time. Now, let's imagine a straight, flat road along the equator, you're in a car. If you drive the car at a speed of 200 kilometers per hour, then in a week you will make a circle around the Earth. Now, we're going to send light around that circle. Now, the light will travel that path seven and a half times in one second. In seven and a half days, you'll make that path in a car, and light will make 7.5 laps in a second. If we transfer to other distances, cosmic distances, to understand better, I'll continue the examples: light travels just over 8 minutes to the Sun, and light travels over 150 million kilometers to the Sun. In fact, it is correct to say that light from the Sun to us reaches us in about 8 minutes. So the light we see now is the light on the Sun 8 minutes ago. Now imagine the connection. After all, radio waves travel at the same speed too. You get the idea? Now imagine you're saying hello to a friend who lives on a neighboring star.

Ruthra repeated his already-accepted obligatory move. He was silent, giving the audience a chance to convert the thoughts he'd thrown at them into thought-forms that everyone could understand.

– Did you send it? Now tell me – how many seconds are there in a year? No, no," he said hurriedly, noticing a few raised palms, "I don't factually want to know. No. I'm giving you an extra ingredient for thinking. By the way, it occurred to me, I remembered, an interesting saying: is mush in the head food for the mind?

The hall smiled: some modestly, some with laughter.

– I want to illustrate some of the extremes of relativity. For example, the highest speed mastered by earthlings is just over 70 kilometers per second. The unmanned Helios-2 spacecraft reached a speed of 252,792 kilometers per hour This is by far the absolute record for the speed of a man-made object. Let's move on to other food for thought. We are all, me standing, you sitting, flying at over 1,800 kilometers per hour. Yes, yes, you get the picture, around the Earth's axis. And now we're going further. All with the planet around the sun at 30 kilometers per second.

Rutra deliberately stretched the last word – to emphasize the audience's attention.

– Now fly with the Sun and the entire solar system around the center of the galaxy at about 250 kilometers per second and make a circle in about 220 million years. So there you go. By the way, if you send hi… Oh, I completely forgot about that example.

Laughs were heard in the hall again.

– Yeah, I was gonna say about the hello from the nearest star. Well, if our neighbor sends us a hello at the speed of light, we'll get a hello in four years. And to fly on a spaceship, even with the speed that is unthinkable for living organisms, and is possible only for unmanned ones (see my articles about the effect of space radiation on living organisms, we have to fly…), as they say, a hundred lives will not be enough. That's me talking about that man-made machine with the highest speed. And that's just to the neighbor. Now let's go back to the new hello and send it from one edge to the edge of our galaxy. Sorry, you'll be waiting 100,000 years. And that's at the speed of light. And that fastest machine takes hundreds of millions of years. It'll take two million years for our letter to reach Andromeda. And this is at the speed of light, which is not only unthinkable in terms of achieving technical devices, but also contradicts all the laws of physics for material bodies. Again, if we remove the same radiation, which will blind everyone even in the flight to Mars. These are the extremes. On the one hand, we cannot reach such a speed for material bodies, because according to the famous formula the mass should be infinite, and on the other hand – even if we reach it, it is still negligible for cosmic distances. No material body can reach the speed of light. When you drive a car or fly in an airplane, or even ride a merry-go-round – you feel when you are pressed to the seat. That is, as your speed increases, your mass increases. Not your personal weight, but your mass. Only immaterial particles can fly at the speed of light. And there are such particles. There's a mystery to it… Now, I'll introduce another technology. It may seem like sorcery to you, but agree – the experiments of alchemists were also sorcery. This is the technology of transmitting thoughts, our consciousness over a distance. Now you will say: it is impossible to transmit them at all. But I will tell you – it has been possible for a long time… and at a distance too. After all, what is the totality of information, books, movies, our negotiations? They are our converted thoughts. Some into radio waves and then into sound speech, others into pictures and our visual perception… and so on. And if you can express part of the thoughts, part of the consciousness, why can't you express all of our consciousness in some form. And I'm telling you, you can. Consciousness can be recorded in the same radio waves or photons of light, then sent, and then decoded. You speak – and your voice is recorded, video is recorded, and then it travels earthly and cosmic distances. And then it is played back on another device. It, that device, doesn't see the same i that was there originally. And how does the i appear at all? The reflection of sun rays from the material body gets into the camera, just like in your eye, and there it is transformed, converted into a form understandable for the brain. That's why a man sees the world in his own way, a snake in its own way, a fish in its own way, and so on. Now imagine if all these animals had intelligence. But that's later.

Ruthra waved his hand, then held his index finger up.

– That's me on the subject of other worlds. Looking ahead, I will say: and you will remember those optimal options that allowed only humans to have intelligence, if there are intelligent beings, according to my theory…

He put his finger up again, and afterward he said pathosily:

– They're just like us.

After a little silence, he continued:

– We're focusing on something else for now. When radio waves… or light waves, even reflections from mirrors… travel colossal distances, are transformed into a form we understand, recorded by us, and then, even after a long time, give us the same information we had at the beginning – we see nothing surprising in it. So why can't we record consciousness, then transmit it over a distance and…" he repeated his signature gesture, "inject it into a person. Into another human being. And I'll tell you this: not just another person on Earth, but another person altogether. Not an earthling.

The last word he said again stretched out.

– Here, of course, we should remind about cloning technology. It is possible to put your consciousness into your clone. You're going to say, "How so? And you'd be right. After all, you are your consciousness. And if someone has your consciousness, then they share your past. Yes. But the future is different for everyone. From the moment your consciousness enters the clone, it's a separate person. You either have to disconnect, let's say, the first body… or… you have a twin. There are thousands of twins. And they all have the same past and individual futures. It's another thing to find that body somewhere out there, far out in space.

Ruthra looked around the audience, paused for a moment.

– I don't see the ridiculousness.

The hall was not left in debt, almost everyone smiled.

– There is another technology for this. This product is based on logical thinking. And logical thinking is based on two facts – infinite time and infinite space. Yes, they are infinite. It is difficult for us to imagine it, because we try to imagine a huge distance, some grandiosely large time, and for infinity they turn out to be minuscule. Imagine if you have to walk the circumference of the equator. Now imagine that to the sun. How many stars are there in our galaxy? About 400 billion. Imagine that this is a beach and every planet on it is a grain of sand. How many grains of sand are there on our planet, even around one sea? Can you imagine a galaxy with billions of stars? How about billions of galaxies? If only in ours there are about 400 billion stars, each with planetary systems… Isn't there a possibility that the Earth will form? You'll say, maybe, yes. This is where we get to the Fermi paradox. As you know, it says, if they exist, where are they? That is, over millions, billions of years of development, they must have reached or surpassed the level of our civilization, and we must have seen traces of their activity. Some kind of spacecraft, some kind of radio conversations. Perhaps we don't see all these things because they haven't reached us yet. Not even radio waves. Think about it, even at the speed of light, radio waves take an extremely long time to propagate for human life, even a technical civilization. Well, let's say they sent a signal. Now let's do the math. Our galaxy is 100,000 years across. That's for radio waves to travel through it. They too, as we know, travel at the speed of light. If this civilization took the path of scientific development 10,000 years ago, even if they already invented radio 5,000 years ago, and they are 20,000 light years away, we don't yet know what will happen in 15,000 years on Earth. Catch a thought. Maybe we'll destroy ourselves and never hear them at all, even if the signal gets through. Or we might hear them in 15,000 years. Maybe our signal will reach habitable planets that are 30,000 light years away. Or maybe the habitable planet is in our neighboring galaxy, the Andromeda Nebula, which is 2 million light years away. In 2,000,000 years, we will hear from them… or they will hear from us. So the answer to the question of whether or not they are there is probably there. And I'll tell you, of course there are! It's logic that says they must be. This is the basis for the following paradox. The theory of many-worlds says that there can exist simultaneously many worlds, and absolutely identical, with identical properties, as if parallel, that is, some of them, it is assumed in this theory, are not parallel, not fantastic, really exact copies of ours.

Rutra did his crowning trick again, looking at his listeners with a testy look.

– A miracle is a miracle to be beyond our everyday understanding of reality. The idea is that what happens in our world is somehow reflected in that world. Fantastic? Quite. But only if it is said of a phenomenon on our planet, as if it were a real invisible parallel world. And then – although it depends on how you look at it. And in the infinity of time and space why not to assume the existence of this reality, especially since we accept the theory of probability. There is a certain logical regularity and paradox at the same time. The point is this: you know very well that there is an antiproton, i.e. a representative of antimatter, a substance with opposite properties. Science is working on how to find other substances, or rather, antimatter. If there is such a reality, substances with opposite properties, then on this basis another logic is formed. If there is antimatter, substances with opposite properties, not the ones we are used to – what kind of world do they make up? An opposite world? Then perhaps there is an opposite world near us. After all, there is an antiproton on Earth. When people first found, for example, uranium, they knew about the unusual nature of this substance, they just did not understand what it was. Perhaps, that is why we do not feel the parallel world, not having properties and technologies to look into it. For example, you are walking in the desert or taiga without radio receiver, it seems to you that everything is deserted, godforsaken place, but as soon as you turn on the radio receiver or, say, a radiotelephone, invisible life appears around. You already feel yourself a part of society. With the help of what devices can we define this world a little bit? For example, I will say that it is possible to record the new elements of the Mendeleev table only for some fractions of a second. They are like messengers from other worlds: they appeared, the devices recorded that there they are, and disappeared. It is proved in practice that there is a substance, but in fact… not that you can touch it materially – in fact it simply does not exist. That's enough information for you to start with, I think. And now let's move on to the technique. Please, come to our laboratory, familiarize yourself with new technological innovations that will surprise you. Don't be frightened.

He waved his hand, and the entire pulpit began to descend like a giant elevator, or rather, only the floor, walls, and ceiling remained in place. Soon the ceiling slid down from above, and they found themselves in a new room. To Ruthra's left now floated two magical-looking beds. If not for the instruments and indicator lights, each would have looked like a crystal coffin from a fairy tale. After giving the audience a moment to savor what they had seen, Ruthra continued:

– So much of the fantastic is already in our world. We don't know it, and it's fantastic to us. You realize there are secret technologies. The technology that you are holding in your hands now, that you are using now, used to be secret. If you find out what levels there are in technology now, you will be very surprised. For example, there is technology that can be used to change your genes. Yes, yes. You can slowly change into a different person. If you put your brain into a monkey, you will have a monkey's body, but you will be you. What if you put information into that monkey brain, make it smarter? And if you take information from your brain, write it down and then put it into another person, then the appearance will be the same, but inside you will be you. That's Super Spy technology. It was originally born, as you realize from the name, for spy purposes. You can see why. All of these technologies are already on Earth. They're real. For example, it was once amazing that it was possible to recognize your conversation by deciphering with a special device the vibrations from a window. The vibrations that your voice creates. Even now it surprises many people. It is possible to read conversations in deep bunkers from space. You can read all the data from your computer through the electricity grid. It is possible to probe, let's say, a certain gathering of citizens by satellite and find out the content of their phone books, accounts, i.e. everything where they are registered, all transitions to addresses, pages, with whom they contacted, the content of storages, including cloud storages. And there is also technology where you can point a beam, for example, at a soda bottle, and the content will turn into poison. You drink it, and after a while you die. No one will know what it's from. Your heart will stop. Of course, there must be a special soda, but you can't tell it from the one you like. It is also possible to send a beam to your brain from a distance, to affect it in such a way that you have a hemorrhage. It can even be done through a cell phone. Make a call and send special inaudible sounds. And then there's this technology…

Ruthra paused for a few seconds, scratched his beard that hadn't been shaved in days, raised his index finger up in an "attention" gesture, and said majestically:

– And now for the magic technology. You can create clones in different places, send your consciousness over long distances via the Internet and instill it in the clones. It will be very convenient for business trips and traveling. By the way, it is possible not to instill in your body. For example, you want to be a famous actor, athlete, politician. True, this will require permission. To use the i. Just like now in advertising, for example. In the near future, perhaps, there will be such agencies that will keep different clones in different parts of the world. It will be possible to order your own, or maybe – and a template for all to use. If you want to travel, go somewhere, let's say: you come to the agency, you are placed in a special apparatus, your body will have to be taken care of, and your consciousness will be transferred via the Internet to another agency, put into a clone, you will wake up there, go for a walk as you wish, and come back. You can, by the way, and in a woman, and in a man, and in a child. And you can do something even cooler: you can choose a person with different abilities, for example, in terms of endurance. Let's say, for example, you are afraid to jump with a parachute, or maybe you are lame at all, or maybe you are heat-loving and want to walk in Antarctica. Or you want to feel the adrenaline, participating in a real fight, and the outcome is likely to be fatal. Now let's go a little deeper into the topic. According to probability theory, there are other worlds. You're going to have to take that on faith. Because it makes sense. Let's think about infinity. You will say, or rather – repeat the classic: then where are they? And you'll be right. But I'll tell you. Perhaps they are near, but we do not understand them. But there are certain markers that tell us about unusual phenomena. For example, phenomena like the wow signal! You know what I hope it is. So, somehow we wondered if they were using a connection that we don't understand. Imagine if some island had isolated life from primitive times, and the rest of the planet had modern level civilization, they would know absolutely nothing about us if, say, we tried to communicate with them by radio. So, I thought, maybe they communicate with us through thoughts. We dream and for some reason we think it's perfectly normal. We don't plan ahead of time what we need to see, what kind of dream we need to have. The dream comes by itself. We listen to music, watch movies, read books, look at pictures, that is, we perform conscious actions, but we cannot order the plot of the dream. They happen as a matter of course. Now let's ask ourselves – why does human civilization need dreams? Why can't the brain completely shut down at night? After all, we not only see dreams, but also consider some kind of meaning. We see dreams, and then we compare them with some events, which are repeated with the same phenomena in the dream, and practically consider it as certain information. We try to translate them into real events, even ц fir "cipher" books have been created. That is, those that describe what this or that dream means. So called dreambooks. Now let's leave this topic and move on to another one, and then we will link everything together. Once I decided to make a record of the brain's thought process and send it into space exactly at that frequency. If there's something like that out there, they should find each other. It sounds a little fantastic, delusional, but think about it – our body can recognize sunlight, but radiation waves emitted by the same Sun, no. So why can't something catch a thought? Maybe sleep is a state where the brain switches to a special mode? When we can receive information in a different way? Maybe in sleep we receive someone else's thoughts and that thought is extraterrestrial? Or maybe not only in dreams, but we don't realize it. Now I will tell you about one more technology. I'll go through it quickly, so you don't have to wait too long. But I need your word that you'll believe me.

Ruthra smiled again, and the listeners responded approvingly.

– There is such a paradox in science – entangled pairs. Simply put, it is when two particles-atoms fly apart, but keep an invisible and generally unexplained by science connection between them. What happens is this: when they fly apart, each particle spins around its axis; if one spins from left to right, the other spins strictly from right to left. This is the rule they always follow. However, this is not the real miracle. The miracle is that they somehow transmit information about their state to each other. For example, they can be caught in colliders, where the most powerful magnets are installed, and affect them. When you do, they instantly transmit that information to each other at incredible speeds. More than the speed of light. Much faster. Practically instantaneous. You say that violates the laws of physics. I'll tell you that's what a paradox is. Newton's laws… and the fact is, they're not really Newton's. He borrowed the basic ones, just like Einstein, but that's not the point. Well, those laws were also fundamental. They still are, but quantum physics has added to the whole thing. Some say that Einstein's devil made a mess of God's orderly laws. But, but, but…and again but. Because it works. So I decided to use this connection to transfer, to transmit these thought waves, the matrix of consciousness into the infinite reaches of space. And there is such a property here. That is, of course, we have experienced it on Earth. These waves of consciousness – they find a shelter for themselves. It's natural. If you shout "help" in the forest, nobody but a human being will understand you. That is, the sound you make, having found a shelter in another brain, will cause a reaction corresponding to its meaning. Now for the interesting part. What I was talking about, we're going to connect everything. We took all these theories of probability and hypotheses; like the same Einstein, we did not begin to understand especially and decided – there are worlds, and exact copies of them. We recorded billions of brain impulses, practically every thought, put them into a matrix, converted them and sent them into space by the influence of one particle on another to find their doppelgangers. After all, we, our brain, the whole planet and the whole galaxy, as well as everything else, constantly emit radiation, including these particles. So the whole universe is a broth of entangled pairs. Now, I should clarify here. When the influence of one particle on another is tested, it is done by holding them in the collider magnets so that we can observe and understand that influence. When we send the influence on the particles that make up our thought, the thought signal, we send as if at random, into space. If there is something like that out there, they will find each other. It's such a property, just like radio waves. Think of the same example with radio. If you send a signal, it is like the first part, and what catches it there and understands what that signal means is the second part. If they are strangers to each other, there will be no connection. Let's say you send one kind of radio waves, for example, KV, and there the receiver can only receive VHF. It seems to be close, but there will be no connection. But SOS signals, for example, are sent not specifically somewhere, but into the air. They find their target. Why? Because their target can be recognized, understood. Agree, you are not surprised that there is air around us, and its main component is nitrogen. There's a popular belief that air is made up of oxygen. It's only 23 percent oxygen. Perhaps there is a mass of something unknown around, carrying information about other worlds, but we do not understand it. We simply do not have the senses to perceive such things. For example, dolphins, having unique properties of signal communication, are completely deaf. Not only can't they hear us, they can't even imagine the existence of this kind of communication. Even if they developed the ability to understand human speech, they would need some kind of technical device to convert our speech into signals they could understand. Perhaps there is a world around us that is inaudible to us. After all, it's no secret that there is a limited range of human audible waves. And what is far to go. The same radio waves without a special device for us do not exist. So I thought that perhaps the kind of communication that other worlds use is simply unknown to us as a species. You're not surprised that we live in an ocean of all kinds of waves. Radio waves alone, that is, the ones that man has created, how many. We are not surprised that the universe is stitched with gravity, radiation. It was once thought to be filled with ether. And that made sense. The assumption was that sound waves bounce around material things like bumps and reach our ears. We thought that light should bounce on something. But it turned out to be the other way around. Light, on the contrary, needs as clean, empty space as possible. So it moves faster. Sound can't. That's why space is deaf. But radio waves, transmitting the same sound, can move like light and overcome obstacles. It doesn't surprise us that after all this, they turn into words we can understand. They're translated into that form. And the corresponding apparatus catches them. So why can't consciousness be brought into such a form that it can be transferred as a state of these particles and then converted into the same consciousness? The question remains: how will they get into another body or brain and replace consciousness there? Now remember hypnosis. You are given an order and you follow it. And now think why some people make you nervous, even if they don't speak. Why do full moons and natural phenomena affect the nervous system? Have you thought about it? Now I'll tell you if you know… well, of course you do, you just haven't paid much attention to it. I'm talking about radiation from living organisms. The same waves emitted by the brain. If you're talking, you're somehow also receiving what other people are saying. Simply put, if your brain emits radiation, you also receive radiation. If your brain receives information from your eyes and ears, it's fine if it receives invisible inaudible information. You just have to make it dominant. So that it can overcome the natural state and replace what is there with itself. That's what we've accomplished by finding the code for this effect. And now we will conduct the experiment itself, and you will not only see everything with your own eyes, but also take part in it.

Childish smiles appeared on the faces of most of the people in the group, though they themselves were not only at a high and responsible status, but also a level of intelligence.

Rutra, of course, did not personally make such decisions related to the demonstration of the method. Therefore, if there were any representatives of science in the group, they were members of political or administrative-managerial structures, mainly of a closed subdivision of the UN Security Council. The decision on declassification, public demonstration of the method was made by him after a conversation with Parmen, a month before.

And it went like this.

Chapter 2: Testing the Future

– Buddy, why don't we see what happens tomorrow?

When the "luminary of science" began in such a manner, which was expressed in the suggestion of something uninteresting, illogical and even stupid, Rutra immediately realized that he was up to something grandiose.

– We'll sleep tonight and see what happens tomorrow," Ruthra replied in the same manner.

– Then think about our role in the life of other worlds.

– And how have we affected these worlds?

– So that's something that needs to be checked out.

– And how's that?

– I thought you were smarter than that.

– You shouldn't have thought so.

They laughed. Many people, listening to their conversation from the outside, took their remarks seriously, which puzzled them about their relationship: it seemed that they were almost enemies, when in fact they were amusing themselves by arousing the emotions of others.

Rutra even had a peculiar theory about this kind of catching pleasure from influencing the emo ts y of those around him. This theory was part of his worldview about metaphysics. And the essence of it was people's uncertainty about understanding god, namely, what god needs from us. According to the logic that people put into the concept of god, it would be reasonable to assume that god doesn't need people at all. And if he created them, it means that he pursued some purpose. Everyone explained this purpose in his own way, starting from sages, thinkers and ending with charlatans and swindlers. Much more there were, of course, self-confident, and sometimes autocrats, fantasists. And it was a blessing if they did not have a sick imagination.

Rutra answered such a question as follows: since god is not material, he does not need material things. And since we have to give him immaterial things, the god, from whom we ask anything for our happiness, demands happiness back, but already processed, born from his seed, the happiness he gave us. And if you did not give him back anything good, spoiled what he gave, lost it, and suddenly – what is worse – turned it into grief, then accept his anger as education. This is the unity and struggle of opposites. But are they opposites? Perhaps it is something that creates the world. After all, agree, a world with only grief and negativity must eventually die. It is logical that the developed worlds, of which there are many in the universe according to Rutra's theory, have passed this stage. The stage of creating negativity from negativity. Blood feuds must stop at some point, or everyone will die at some point. In the other interpretation, however, there can be no intelligent god. God is something amorphous on which the entire universe depends. For example, one part of it is the law of universal gravitation. And according to this theory, reason again rests on the same truth. Since we can evolve by becoming better than each other, we become worse by killing. Simple logic, but isn't don't kill, don't steal complex logic? Isn't everything in this logical paradigm? For those who believe in the spiritual essence of god, we give him our positive emotions. And for those who believe in logic based on empirical reasoning – some super civilization is harvesting the energy, our brain waves, that we emit during euphoria – of happiness, of pleasure. Now think about it. If we become a supercivilization, if we can move through the worlds with the help of the influence of entangled pairs of elementary particles of atom on each other – we will not be able to take anything material from there. It is useless to move material things across great cosmic distances. Then what? The same waves of happiness. Imagine what kind of currency it will be, what kind of drug it will be, although maybe it will be the medicine of the soul in the future. After all, if our bodies do not matter for our existence – only spiritual food will be needed.

While thinking about the fact that his friend's jokes clearly carried a scientific assumption, a thought occurred to Ruthra. It was a question – why doesn't anyone come to us from other worlds? He thought about it and found the answer himself. How can they come if they don't have a welcoming terminal. That is, you can send a radio signal – even to the next street, even to deep space. If they don't have a receiving facility, all your efforts are useless.

– Listen, Mr. Smartass, I've got a clever idea," Ruthra addressed the scientist mentally.

– I'm ready to feed off your happy ideas.

– What if we put the brain in a consciousness receiving setting and put it into a trance state?

– Is this your grand idea? – sneered a colleague.

– I thought your brain power was strong enough to process that information. All right, I'll give you a new batch. We've been working on modifying the optical unit for six months now. We combined it with the collider and the emitter in the reverse order of particle motion and turned it into a receiving device. We know the principle. Let's install a transmitting device on the other side so that it does not send from the brain, but introduces there the influence of entangled pairs. If it is a natural, natural influence of pairs on each other, the brain will not understand anything. Like white noise on radio and television. And if there is something there that the brain understands, then the brain should sort of see it. So we will try to record the influence not of particles of this brain on particles somewhere else in the world, but the influence of any particles on this brain.

– Let's start with your great brain.

– I'm not a scaredy-cat, unlike you.

– Oh, oh, Darwin's theory in practice.

– Shall we?

– Well, it's your brain, I don't care. I have your clone. I'll restore my chess partner. I don't need a competitor.

– I didn't doubt your loyalty. I'm going to the lab.

– Are you eager to test your innovation?

– I got a report this morning that the system is ready. What are you waiting for? Let's at least test it.

– Well, it's your brain. Torture it.

Ruthra waved his hand, a gesture that said "I'm done with you," and headed for the rigging room.

***

Rutra lay in the rig, the assistants switched the rig to the mode he recommended, performed additional procedures. Ten minutes of manipulation yielded nothing. They called in additional technicians and a programmer. Another ten minutes of fiddling and no result. Ruthra didn't want to believe that no one from other worlds could come to Earth. The impossibility of it, the unreality of such a process, defied logic. The revolutionary technology had to work both ways. It was, in fact, a natural process. Unusual, perhaps, but natural. If you hear, you are heard. If you see, they see you. If your organs can be transplanted to someone else, someone else's organs can be transplanted to you. If your thoughts influence someone – and you are influenced by someone else's thoughts. Why can you accept electrons coming from a distant star, galaxy, some radiation, but you cannot accept the totality of all thoughts, which are someone else's thoughts? That is, someone's identity as such. Why not? You can. Only in the same way that you can hear someone's voice or the signals of distant stars using an instrument created by your brain; you need another instrument to receive the radiation of the thoughts of a distant being from the vast expanse of the universe.

Something wasn't working. Ruthra was getting nervous, and Parmen was teasing him:

– You fall asleep, go into a trance and then imagine you're there somewhere. It'll suck, but it'll give the Grand Master peace of mind. He really doesn't want to admit failure.

– You'd better be quiet, 'luminary of science,'" Ruthra replied in a tone that only Parmen understood.

– Maybe you really need to calm down your emotional state? – suggested one of the professors, the chief laboratory specialist.

– I'm calm.

– Maybe it's a blockage. You really need to calm down. Let's do this: you will try to create a detached state for yourself, to go into a trance… or better yet, to fall asleep, and we will scan all the incoming frequencies that are functional for the brain. We will switch the equipment to all modes. And if you feel any changes, let us know.

– All right. (chuckles) Let's try that, too, and if it doesn't work, I'm sorry, I'll take it from here.

Soon Rutra went into a trance by meditation, or perhaps he fell asleep. Somewhere in the depths of nirvana he heard Parmen's voice whispering in his ear:

– Relax, I think it's working. We're going to take you to the tomograph and find out what's going on in your head, plus the chip data… we'll know exactly what frequency to manipulate.

– Am I okay? I'm in some strange state. It's like I don't own my own body," Ruthra asked in a whisper without opening his eyes.

– Yes. I confess we are fixing something," Parmen said just as quietly, warily, almost like an incantation.

Suddenly, the machine made an eerie sound, the optical unit glowed, and a shock ran through Rutra's body. Whether Rutra was losing consciousness, or whether the sound had affected him so… he did not know. The fact was that he was completely relaxed, detached, or perhaps paralyzed, almost unconscious, and at the moment when for a moment he had completely shut down, had entered a dreamlike state, had realized that he was losing control, he jerked and woke up. The reality he saw spoke of some kind of change… or he was hallucinating, seeing things, because when he opened his eyes, there was another reality in front of him.

***

It was only after Parmen had told him what was happening in parallel that he realized what was going on. At first he had been surprised, annoyed and indignant. It all concerned the attitude towards Parmen's methods. He had again conceived a cunning program, had lured Rutra into it, and had apparently decided to study his psychological state before the real experiment. In idea – he was right, of course. After all, if we go to an unknown place, country or territory, even if we know a lot of things, we will find ourselves in a completely different mental, spiritual and psychological environment. And what to say if we find ourselves in an unknown world. The scientist was not devoid of imagination, only in the scientific context, but in the design context – alas. The surroundings were squalid.

Ruthra, though he had been out for some time, was thinking clearly, but at the first moment of "waking up" he couldn't understand what was happening. The fact that the surroundings were different was more of a clue than a mystery. So he immediately realized that Parmen had again decided to play a trick on him, as if to create a situation for studying the reaction. He did that periodically, or rather, they did it together. They didn't enter virtual reality to study human behavior in different circumstances, but made such performances in reality. This way it was better to find out how the psyche reacts during the transition to a parallel reality and in it, in that world. It was very difficult to believe in the reality of transition from one world to another. However, it seemed like a dream to Rutra after he regained consciousness. "Parmen most likely used a new technology – altering the perception of reality and creating an illusion of reality," he pondered logically. This technology is used in making feature films – like computer graphics superimposed on real objects, environments, but here – directly through the chip, in the brain, on everything a person sees. Rutra decided that's why he sees things that way.

Ruthra tried to contact Rangit. There was no reply. All other communication was also absent. It was a poorly furnished and colored room. Gray and beige with incomprehensible trappings. Parmen didn't think much of it. And yet what was his purpose? He, or those who helped him, made a few mistakes. The first thing that caught Ruthra's eye was the holographic numbers "hanging" in space, a calendar. He couldn't understand why the year 2050 was marked on it, since it was 2022. He couldn't understand why he had chosen that date.

Ruthra tried to stand up, wanting to see what was going on. The special bed was massaging his body. He couldn't find the clasps he was fastened to it. The shaking made it hard to concentrate.

Ruthra shouted:

– How do you unhook them?

Suddenly he heard a voice directly in his head. The technology was familiar to him, but the voice was not.

A man spoke:

– Please don't yell Rutra Tigrovich, I'll explain it to you.

– Who's talking to me?

– I am an automated intelligent control system. One of my tasks is to manage the city of Moscow. In your memory, Moscow is still a city.

– What city? You mean it's not supposed to be a town?

– Moscow is a separate state, a protected zone observing neutrality. Among other things, it is in the status of an offshore zone, where the governing functions of the world government and the UN are concentrated.

– Enough, I don't believe it. The experiment didn't work.

– Please listen. Everyone doesn't believe it at first. Please listen.

– Rangit, is that you?

– No. Listen to me. I understand you don't believe it, but you're not the first. According to my records, you've been in a coma for 28 years.

– What the hell are you talking about? System glitch? Or is someone trying to play a joke on me?

– Please – evaluate the situations ts ию adequately. I have to inform you the following: there was a system failure during your experiment. The body you are in now, the body you consider to be yours, is not the real body of scientist Paskhov.

– You're out of your mind. Who's talking to me anyway? What's the big joke?

– I asked you to be reasonable. I'm an intelligent machine, I can't lie to you.

– What are you saying, you can't lie? That's very surprising.

– You did the experiments yourself. You made your own cloned body. You wanted to embed a digital copy of yourself in it. Didn't you?

– So… so what?

– There was a system failure during the experiment, your real body is stored in another facility. This body is a copy of yours. You can even feel it now. You've made it younger and uploaded your mind into it. To ensure your adequacy, I must conduct a test. I must question you. So, who are you?

– That's crazy. Who were you just talking to?

– Please answer the question adequately. Until you answer the question, I can't let you go.

Ruthra tried to stand up. He couldn't. Something invisible kept him chained to the cot.

– Release me at once!

– I told you, you have to take a test. It's not that hard, just answer the questions.

– What the hell kind of questions?

– Who are you?

– You know exactly who I am.

Ruthra was becoming increasingly irritated, angry.

– Please answer in the logic you yourself put into the thinking of an artificial intelligence. Who are you?

– What the hell. I'm sick of these Parmenides pranks. Who the hell are you?

– Please answer the question. Who are you?

– Fuck you.

Ruthra tried to stand up again. Again he failed. He cursed irritably, but nothing helped. The machine was inexorable.

– Please answer, who do you feel you are? Who are you?

Ruthra was silent for a moment, then decided to answer.

– I am a scientist, Ruthra Paschow. I invented the technique of body cloning.

– Tell me about the technology.

Ruthra took a deep breath, then exhaled. He decided not to be nervous.

– There's nothing particularly complicated about it, really. Human bodies can be cloned… just like regular animals, which are already being cloned on an industrial scale. Some of the difficulty is the ability to accelerate the growth of the body. However, this too is solved by the rapid growth technique used in animal breeding. The difficult part of this process is moving consciousness into the brain. It was a real challenge, but I managed it.

– What is consciousness?

– It is our memory recorded in detail and billions of connections, neural contacts, outside the body and in the body, providing that body with the highest level of functioning. The more connections, the more intelligence. At a certain level there comes a verge ts a of arithmetic and geometric progression, forcing us to do the next, improved action to maintain the previous one. This is how we sharpened flint, invented the bicycle, flew into space, and created artificial intelligence.

Ruthra said the last, emphasizing the word 'artificial'.

– What matters, of course, is how quickly these connections commutate with each other and determine, based on life experience, the most optimal, best solutions. And now, please, you explain what is happening and where I have found myself?

– You came into our world unannounced. You're not in the program. I received no notification of your arrival. And frankly, I don't know your mission. However, since you showed up instead of the one who was supposed to carry out the program's mission, you'll have to carry it out.

– Very interesting and lucid. Now, humanly speaking, please. What's the mission? What's the program? What's going on here? Where am I, anyway? Oh, and free me, damn it!

– I must give you an introduction, then you can see for yourself. As you know.

– Just wait! Set me free! I don't know anything!

– Just listen," Ruthra heard directly in his head, and at the same time he felt free of the invisible shackles. – Are you comfortable communicating aloud or silently? This body is prepared for all options.

– Out loud," Ruthra said loudly.

– Listen, please. As you know, the temperature on planet Earth has been rising steadily.

– Really," Ruthra interrupted wryly again.

– Don't interrupt. Or I'll have to strap you back in.

At these words, Ruthra jumped off the couch.

– No shit.

– Listen, please.

– All right. Go ahead.

– After 2027, the process became irreversible. The constant increase in temperature caused the melting of fossil glaciers, and most coastal cities and countries began to flood. The UN decided to give the territory of Siberia to the inhabitants of the flooded areas, as the climate there has become moderate. In return, Russia demanded that the main control center of the world government be located in Moscow under the administration of the Russian president and another 30% of the UN budget. This led to a conflict in the movement of finances, distribution of resources, coupled with the fact that armed conflicts began around the world… all of which caused the Perimeter system to go into combat mode.

– Wait, wait, wait. Let's say I believe all this. First, what kind of perimeter system are you talking about?

– The Perimeter system is a complex of automatic control of a massive retaliatory nuclear strike. To ensure guaranteed fulfillment of its role, the system was originally designed as fully automatic, and in the event of a massive attack is capable of making a decision on an adequate retaliatory strike on its own, without human participation. In Europe and the United States, it is known as the "Dead Hand." It is a complex expert system equipped with a multitude of sensors, monitors the presence and intensity of negotiations in all systems. It is an artificial intelligence.

– I don't believe any of this, but I realize something extraordinary is going on here. What's the bottom line?

– The Perimeter system has gone into combat mode, can launch missiles at any moment.

– Anything at all? Why didn't she launch? Or what does it depend on?

– The system went offline in 2029, and conditions have been met since then to ensure that it does not activate.

– This is already interesting. What are the conditions and why can't it just be turned off?

– You can't turn it off. It's designed that way. No one thought about it at first. But when they decided to disable it, it turns out it sees it as an enemy takeover of the system. There's no password from the system's true creator. It was created that way, as it turns out, on purpose. And the conditions: it requires full access to all radio and television broadcasting systems, control of all types of communication.

– Why?

– Only in this case the system as if calms down, seeing the absence of danger. Otherwise, it perceived the information being voiced as deception, which was the case at the beginning, when they tried to put it into a rest mode and disable the missiles themselves. Now all systems are under her control, and she cannot disbelieve herself. This is how peace, and in fact the existence of life on the entire Earth, is preserved, because when she launches it will certainly be retaliated against.

– Now, this is all very interesting, but I want to check it out for myself. First of all, who are you who's talking to me?

– I told you, I'm a machine.

– Okay, I'll take that as a yes. Then give me the people. Where am I, actually?

– This is RAS, the Russian Academy of Sciences. The main control unit of all artificial intelligent systems is located here. To be more precise, the Academy as such is no longer here. The whole building is a single block with a central control core. In our world, everything is made of structured water. Signals are better transmitted in water.

– That's very clear. I'll try to understand sometime. But I'd still like to see some real people. How do I get to the control unit, the central office… or better yet, the Presidium.

– I haven't told you everything yet. There are no people here. No one lives in Moscow.

– Look, stop this concert. What's going on?

– Listen to this, then you'll understand what happened. A lot of things have changed. The world's a different place.

Ruthra decided to be quiet, to listen. Suddenly water appeared in front of him, right in the air, in front of his mouth, in the form of a ball… or a big huge drop. He was thirsty and had been wondering where to get water until then. It surprised him, and he began to suspect that he was in a virtual reality or a dream, but he drank the water. It poured into his mouth as soon as he opened it.

– Okay, go on. And be more specific.

– Among other things, the rising level of the world's oceans made it dangerous to live in Moscow itself, as its geological foundation is sand, and the Moscow River has also risen in water level. It was decided to leave only the central control systems in Moscow. This is a new automation complex based on artificial intelligence, fully integrated with the database of the World Commonwealth Code, adopted by all countries of the world in 2028. This was done, among other things, still with the purpose of avoiding human judgment so that there is no personal blame. To put it simply, people did not want to make their own decisions. They allowed it to be done by the exact template programmed into the machine.

– I mean you. Right? I won't even hide my suspicion of a conspiracy about this whole system.

The voice was silent for a few seconds, then continued nonchalantly:

– The main central computer is located in the Russian Academy of Sciences. All human functions are performed by androids. This is much safer than human activities. The number of people allowed in Moscow is limited. The last approved limit is 666 people.

Ruthra listened, not believing his ears, and then said: