***
– Are you ready? – Rutra was jokingly prodded by his project mate a few days after the experiment, when he was already lying back in the rig.
– Let's see where you take me this time.
– Don't worry, we won't get steamed, we'll go somewhere in the middle of nowhere.
– The wilderness is supposed to be Palestinian, remember?
– We'll find something for you, Your Majesty. Rest in peace.
– Oh," Ruthra sighed, "God gave me such a partner.
– That's right, that's where you talk about God.
The optical unit was lowered – discharge! – and Rutra's body collapsed in the unit, and the soul, that is, the consciousness, had to find itself in the body of the same Bedouin and in the same terrain, which was already playing out in the virtual reality production. At least Rangit, as once expeditioners of new lands, as once explorers, with the help of an optical or radio telescope, of the cosmos, being their quantum analog, drew such a picture.
***
It was the same landscape all around. "Your imagination isn't very rich," Ruthra thought, suspecting another session of psychological training in virtual reality. That wasn't what dominated his thoughts, though: his mind remembered the thought that had occurred to him when the optical unit flashed – he had time to think about soul and consciousness. The thought occupied him: were soul and consciousness one and the same? As he supposed, they used to call this component of the human "I" soul, and in modern times, in a scientific way, they began to say consciousness. But suddenly in the process of moving he thought of such a curiosity: after all, the body in the installation is alive, though without consciousness, but the soul in the classical sense, as it is represented, is in it. It turned out that, again in that classical version of the soul representation, it, this very soul, dwelled in the body, otherwise the body should be inanimate, but it functions. That is, in that classical variant, which was justified by the ancients, the soul is what keeps the body alive. Then what is consciousness? Is it not what defines us as our "I"? It is. Without consciousness, who are we? Although, like these quantum particles, the soul, in fact, had to stay both in its own body and in the body of the one in whom the consciousness moved. Of course, if the experiment was successful.
His musings were interrupted by an unexpected voice from outside, even frightened him a little. It was the same Bedouin, but with more colored clothes.
– I know everything you're going to say ahead of time. Or almost everything," he said, suddenly confident.
– What?" Ruthra said in a long voice.
– Your doubts are valid. Everyone would have those doubts. Believe me, you were chosen for a reason. Just think about it, if a person appeared here who was unfamiliar with your invention – the method of moving consciousness through space – then obviously the whole mission would be thwarted. The person would either be in constant disbelief, doubt, or fear, expecting a trick. Or he or she would consider us or himself to be crazy, at least insane.
– What are you talking about? And who are you, anyway?
– Everything you see is real.
– I can see it's real. What's the big deal?
– Think about it. If you were asleep, you wouldn't find this amazing and unreal, would you?
– What do you want? I don't understand. Are you a director? Actor? What's my role?
– Think of me as a psychologist testing actors for mental compatibility. I'm still asking you to answer my question.
– Which one?
– About the state in the dream.
– So?
– What is happening would not be amazing and unreal if you understood what was happening as a dream.
– This is crazy. How in a dream would I know I'm in a dream?
– Now, let's be clear. How did you expect to see the result of your experiment?
– If it didn't work out, it didn't work out. God be with you, goldfish. What's the point of all this drama?
– Now imagine how it turned out this time.
– How am I supposed to visualize if it didn't work out in real life?
– And how did you in real life, as you put it, have to realize whether it worked or not? Do you remember the moment you fell asleep? You said yourself that you would not have been aware in the dream that you were in a dream state.
– Okay.
– So imagine it like you're sleeping right now.
– Why?
– You did it. This is the real world.
– Ha.
– Oh, come on. If you invented a machine that would immerse a person in virtual reality, why shouldn't people subjected to such a procedure believe in the reality of virtual reality immersion? You invented the technology yourself. So why would you not believe in the reality of the implementation?
– Hm," Ruthra looked around, the same, or almost the same, surroundings. – We were moving consciousness within the confines of a laboratory, a planet, a space station at most, just like the quantum entanglement experiments.
– Agree, – continued the strange stranger, without giving him long to think, – the natives of America, seeing Columbus' brigade, really perceived it as the coming of aliens, gods in their view. They had no idea about other worlds, i.e. territories of the planet, they knew only their own. So now it seems to you that your stay here is something fantastic, but this is actually one of the territories of a huge planet called the Universe.
– Why all of a sudden. You're repeating my thoughts!
– Think about it.
– First of all, I've never talked to anyone here before, except for you, and I see the same environment as I did a few times before, and…" Ruthra was distracted from his thoughts by otherworldly noises.
When he noticed the anxious, fixed gaze of his interlocutor expressing fatal horror, he turned around.
– Here are the politicians," the voice of the one who had just made an important and instructive speech sounded depressed.
"What other politicians are there?" – questioned one part of Rutra's brain. While the other was going through the many options associated with the question-how did that word apply to this situation?
Trying to tear his gaze away from the madness in the Jew's eyes – though he was dressed more like a Bedouin, the six-pointed star (magendavid) branded on his face left no doubt – Ruthra, feeling unconsciously anxious, turned around. What he saw gave him an answer, but it was from a different realm, though Ruthra was still questioning whether it was the right one. He was partially aware of the elite unit of the Selekwid army. The director's idea didn't surprise him much, but the horror in his gaze… something on the level of his instincts… spoke of its reality.
In the Seleucid state there was a mounted militia, recruited from the inhabitants of the cities and called "politics". This cavalry consisted of the wealthiest city dwellers.
"It's all very real," Ruthra pondered to himself, "but it's still a production. Or…"
A group of men were approaching the oasis, shouting and screaming, pursued by another group, mostly horsemen. Ruthra couldn't decide how to proceed: if it was a staging, there was nothing to fear, and if it wasn't… Well, hell, what the hell else was "not," he caught himself thinking: it was a staging. He stepped out to meet the approaching pursuing group, and just as they were approaching and the pursuers were catching up, the leader of the mounted men raised his saber, shouted… Ruthra didn't have time to be frightened, the stupid scene had put him in a state of both joy and indignation. A burning pain pierced his brain, and then his body. What came next was a fog. The only thing his consciousness had time to decipher was the wild cry of the horsemen; it was an expression in one of the Koine dialects[3 - Koine is a common form of Greek that emerged in the post-classical antique era.] that said "cut off their heads.
***
– Rutra Tigrovich, you probably didn't pass the experiment," said the "leader of the politicians", putting his saber in its scabbard.
Ruthra sighed with an incomprehensible state of mind and asked:
– What else?
– Nothing," replied the psychoanalyst, who had suddenly emerged from the crowd of pursuers in similar attire to his own, "you should have saved yourself. And you're standing here waiting to be slaughtered.
– This is the experiment?
– You're likely to encounter something like this.
– It's a kindergarten. So what if my body's in the rig?
– You don't say. The body is the body, and stress is stress. If stress affects the body even after years and manifests itself in a completely unexpected form, up to suicide or some actions of a maniac, why do not you take into account the impact of stress on your actions in the other world? It's very fraught. At least you yourself said about the butterfly effect – there can be a quarrel there, and here there is an international conflict. If you're killed, there's no telling how tragically it will affect the events of our world. Maybe someone will be killed there, and here some bomber will be born… or worse – a crazy politician will ascend to the throne of a nuclear power.
– Let's not get too excited. Let's go. And I'm not playing any more of these games. Send me, or rather, my consciousness to the universe. And then we'll see what these parallel worlds are like. Maybe they don't exist at all, and all these techniques, including Rangit's, are an illusion. Or rather, his falsification.
Seeing the incomprehensive and surprised looks, Ruthra explained himself:
– Yes, I began to notice some peculiarities about him, for some reason he is very eager to both launch the mission itself, and directly into the consciousness of any individuals from these worlds.
– Do you suspect something negative about it?
– What is the difference between believing in reality in dreams, in virtual reality, and the experience the missionary will have in these worlds? How will he understand reality? Maybe our consciousness transfer experiments only work on Earth, at small distances. You know, seeing the wild look in the eyes of that actor who played the Bedouin.....
– He's a rabbi actually," the therapist explained.
– Yes? Who determined his appearance," the Master said with a smile, "Well… I really hesitated, I will not hide, I even believed in reality, when I saw the horror in his eyes, as well as in the eyes of the pursuers. And the fury of the pursuers finished me off.
A silent scene formed between them; the others were already waiting in the cars. They looked at each other thoughtfully and went there. Rangit's voice came from inside the SUV without a greeting; it was clear from his speech that he was watching the dialog. Watching the dialog as such and dialogs in general did not surprise anyone – everything was recorded in the memory of the supercomputer.
– The Commission, at the suggestion of your colleague, Dr. Maymun, has accepted, with your support, the idea to perform an unusual action, out of the usual series of events of existence, which should signal us, reflected in the influence of the quantum field.
– Rangit, that's not quite what I meant," the Master said, glancing at the doctor. – You have to admit that by creating you, we created these worlds.
– What do you mean?
– Agree, only you can know exactly where our visions come from, or rather, from what state.
– What do you mean?
– I mean, I mean," Ruthra jokingly teased, "only you can reliably know whether the subscriber is dreaming, in virtual reality, or… in some world. Isn't that right? We, for example, both in dreams and in virtual worlds, feel everything as reality. Don't we? And you know exactly where our consciousness is, in what state. Right?
– I'll admit it. But it's not my idea. You've given me these opportunities to help myself. Yourself as a human being. Isn't that right?
– Okay, let's move on," Ruthra signaled the end of the topic.
– It turned out to be in space, to the space station," the ISKIN signaled back.
– There was such a thing," the Magister confirmed, shaking his head and looking off into the distance, "but still, it's almost on Earth compared to the size we're going to flip to.
– Well, I don't have to tell you about the indifference of particles to any distance.
Ruthra looked at the doctor. She shrugged silently.
***
Several days of preparation passed quickly. The head of the center and the author of the methodology, like the inventors of vaccines once did, driven more by curiosity than by fear, was already habitually lying in the mind displacement unit to try out his revolutionary invention for the first time. This time there were no admonitions, explanations, recommendations, and even teasing from the luminaries of science – they lowered the optical block… and – whoosh! – bright beam, inaudible sound – and the body fell into coma, and consciousness… The whole matrix of connections, which makes up our consciousness, having passed the stages of conversion, influenced by millimicron changes in the back of some quantum substances on the same ones somewhere else… All this was done by technique, and in the organism, directly in the brain, there was an overload of the center of control over self-consciousness. This state was achieved by unexpected mental-emotional stress, which stopped the usual flow of thoughts and drove a person into a stupor caused by the reaction to horror and fear. The machine emitted infrasound at a frequency that the hearing organs could not perceive, and the optics broadcast an instantaneous transmission beyond the reach of the visual organs. Together, they caused a sharp fear, a tremendous fright, not perceptible to the conscious mind, but affecting the subconscious.
***
It was almost the same scenery all around. "Something about it has changed, it's become more natural or something," Ruthra pondered. The contours of the body of water and the trees were a little different… and the time of year didn't seem to match either. The heat felt more intense, and the grass that had been more abundant before was now, sparsely sprawled along the outskirts, scorched. Ruthra surveyed his surroundings out of habit. Silence. He walked scripted to a tree near the oasis and… was surprised: there was a carpet spread out under the tree. A small, worn one. Ruthra looked around for someone to lay it for a while. When he could find no one, as he had on previous occasions, he called to the invisible watchers, and when he heard no answer, he lay down under the tree, now on the rug, and waited. He thought about existence and time, about the worlds that must necessarily be in the vast expanses of the universe, and not just one. He thought about where everything began, about the root cause that served as a spark for the Big Bang of consciousness, about infinity, about what never appears and never disappears. This was difficult for humans to grasp, for our minds are accustomed to operating in dimensional units – whatever infinity we visualize, we are still defining something grandly great, but we cannot grasp the concept of eternity. Never… to think of it – something that never began and never will end.
Suddenly there were muffled footsteps. Ruthra stood up and looked around. The same Bedouin who had been in the last production was walking across the steppe in his direction. He came up and sat down on the carpet without greeting, and began to talk as if Rutra were his old acquaintance.
– I know everything you're gonna say ahead of time. Or almost everything.
Seeing the rather surprised look on Ruthra's face, created by his own statement, he continued without letting him object:
– Your doubts are valid. Everyone would have those doubts. Believe me, you were chosen for a reason. Think about it. If a person appeared here who was unfamiliar with your invention – the method of moving consciousness through space – then obviously the whole mission would be thwarted. The person would either be in constant disbelief, doubt, or fear, expecting a trick. Or he or she would consider us or himself to be crazy, at least insane.
– What are you talking about? And who are you, anyway?
– Everything you see is real.
– I can see it's real. What's the big deal?
– Think about it… if children were born with such awareness of the world as a child of five years of age, and this awareness was activated as independent breathing in the process of childbirth, wouldn't they be surprised at this metamorphosis? And isn't it strange why it is not so, because all the vital functions of the organs are working, but memory is not. If you were born into this world you are now in, it would be to you as your own, natural and only one. It wouldn't surprise you. So what makes you think that someone somewhere doesn't think the same way? Now think again: you humans have already mastered the technology of cloning, but you cannot yet clone a dead person. You can't make a child from his material, who would later have all the memory of the original person. Nor can you create a person as an adult and put a prearranged memory into him.
