– Yes, I analyzed not only their past lives, but also evaluated their facial expressions and thoughts during the game – there are cameras there. In addition, the organizers and they themselves periodically record and post it online.
– And what do you make of the applicant for the lead role in the experiment?
– She fits many of the criteria. In addition, you need one more person to test the experiment on the ground.
– Have you picked someone up yet?
– Yes, I have found a suitable candidate for the Earth experiment. One, a single individual. Might be suitable for parallel worlds in the future. You don't have to take a group at once. The main thing is that people should become friends with you, trust and believe in you.
– That's not bad. I was hoping for a completely trusting relationship.
– You misunderstand me. Very trusting. You're sending a man to a place where it's a completely alien world. Yes, it's the same, but that's what makes it completely alien. You're right when you say the signal can change, transform. Accordingly, she – this woman – will also be a little different. And this, of course, shocks a person. When you enter into another body, as you and the doctor did, you can simply be dissatisfied with the alien shell, but here you are also in conflict with yourself.
– You know, what you said had a strong effect on me… You said it so… heartily, it gave me goosebumps. It's really a shock to feel like yourself, but at the same time to know that it's not your real body.
Ruthra mentally contacted a fellow scientist.
– Look, have you delved into the intricacies of the psychological state of our candidate for the experiment?
– Which one?
– Anybody. If you were to be possessed by someone like you in a parallel world, and there was a time shift…
– So what?
– Well, think about if you suddenly find yourself, but you're older. What if after a while you have to have surgery? What if you survive a catastrophe and become disabled?
– What if you're already dead? Ha-ha-ha-ha.
– That's a thought. We didn't think of that.
The doctor fell silent. From Irene Ruthre's emotional state was being transmitted. It was becoming agitated, nervous.
– Yeah, listen… What if our man there is already dead? Or should be dead! That would be even more catastrophic! He'd have to die here, too. But what's the chronology? Before or after?
– No way. We're sending a live person. You know what I mean.
– Got it.
– Irene's already got a group here. I'll work with them, then we'll discuss the details. I think we definitely need a psychoanalyst, especially for women.
– Dangerous play we made without experimentation.
– With an experiment. I will.
– On the phone.
– On the phone.
Ruthra passed out.
– Where are your nominations?
– In the meantime, I'll arrange for you to meet with one person, a man. I've already worked out a program.
– Spit it out.
– Can you buy me a coffee? – I could hear a playful note in the computer's voice.
– Yeah, let's talk about it.
To an outside observer, it would seem strange, but their relationship had already become a habit – a common tea or coffee party between a human and an artificial mind, which the human made to resemble himself. He molded it in his own image and likeness, endowed it with his manners and psychology. Accordingly, the artificial mind was artificial only in words, but in fact it was a real person.
Rutra walked to the balcony and from a height of 30 meters contemplated the artificial lake on the shore of which the inhabitants of the underworld were resting. A world 500 meters deep. It was grandiose only because everything was underground. Many stations were located deep in the oceans and seas. The station at the bottom of the Mariana Trench was a masterpiece of human thought. Though Ruthra sometimes doubted whether it was human, since it could still move.
– Ruthra, are you going to make your own coffee? – Irene asked.
– Yeah. Tell me what the catch is.
– There's no catch. I want to appear before you in the form of a holographic image of one of the people selected for the experiment.
– Uh-oh. And she likes a certain kind of coffee? Wait… just not her yet… Why would the man go first?
– My plan is for you to get to know him first, make friends with him.
– Tell the idea in full.
– I will introduce you to him through the mailing list as a coin dealer who is not very knowledgeable. He's an amateur numismatist. He likes to be listened to as an expert. You get the story. Coins you get original, rare enough. Since the main group I picked up from Russia – coins will be the time of the Russian tsars. In conversation with this man casually mention that you are interested in various riddles that you even tried to participate in an intellectual quiz. I will do everything properly, and he will find on the Internet mentions of your participation in the intellectual game, the questions you asked. At this point, he should invite you to join the team as it is not fully staffed yet. After you have played a couple of games, I will invite two more individuals who will be the main characters of our experiment.
– So how do you plan to do it?
– There's a certain Catherine on the team. I will enter her brain, adapting to her rhythm in her sleep, and there I will play out a certain scene.
– You've got something so twisted… Spill it.
– The thing is, the two people we're looking for are divorced and, as they say, on the prowl. And you, according to legend, are a divorced man. Quite good-looking, athletic, successful businessman. Not too cool and rich, otherwise why would you sell coins and waste time on games?
– Do only middle-income people go to the game?
– No, it's just off topic. The next concept is that you have to become an oligarch-level businessman. Until then, you should not attract them much. In their eyes, you have to climb the career ladder gradually.
– Okay, what's next?
– Then, when you become friends with them, romantic intrigues, gradually begin to tell about their activities.
– What activities? And what do you mean, romantic entanglements?
– You must, as if in confidence, tell us about your work in a closed research institute. First, you will demonstrate a rather deep knowledge of physics, astronomy, and related topics. This will intrigue them: why do you have such a deep knowledge in these fields, but in life you do other things? You will reveal the secret to them as confidants, which will further strengthen your relationship. But do it one by one, not all at once.
– You're not telling the truth again.
– No, listen. By revealing a secret to one and not telling the other, you are both showing your exceptional treatment of the woman and testing her ability to keep a secret, whatever you ask. But, of course, she'll tell her friend.
– What makes you so sure?
– Oh, Rutra Tigrovich, you know how women are.
– Irene, what is this?
Ruthra smiled ironically, glancing up, though Irene could have been watching from anywhere.
– What's next?
– Next, you'll do the same thing with the men.
– Oh, that's two men. Who's the other one?
– Someone I've labeled as Narcissus, or Petty.
– Is he short?
– Let me show you all of them.
– Only in real life, visually. I don't want them in my brain. I know your habits and manners.
Irene visualized holographic images of the people she had chosen. They appeared at the table in front of Ruthra. A robotic mechanism, in the form of a delicate female hand, extended from a nearby wall with two cups of fragrant, steaming coffee and placed them on the table.
– I can "revitalize" them.
– No, not yet. I don't know them. What am I gonna talk to them about?
– That's as close as you'll get to finding out without their knowledge.
– No. For now, you and I will just talk. Then I'll watch them, listen to them talk to each other from the sidelines. And then we'll get to know each other virtually. Then we can get real. By the way, you picked some good-looking girls.
– Do you like it?
– Let me see them without makeup.
Irene immediately did as asked. Ruthra thought, "Women invented the disguise and the whole conspiracy system. And not by design, but as if for everyday needs.
– I'm fine. All I care about is what's in there.
– Over there?
– There, in my head.
– Of the many combinations, this is one of the best groups.
– Why do we need Shallow? Why do you call him that, by the way? He's not so small.
– Through nicknames, pseudonyms, and name interpretations, I label human mentality, behavior, and character.
– What about him?
– Fairly erudite, but a petty little scoundrel.
– Why do we need him?
– It will come in handy. He will play the role of schemer between you and the women.
– What's that for?
– I apologize, but you still have a poor understanding of the whole concept of the experiment.
– Why?
– If the characters are familiar, they'll find themselves in a similar environment there as well.
– Damn it, I get confused all the time. It's hard to imagine what it's like. I should try it in virtual reality soon.
– You need to get to know them.
– Go ahead, run the system. Download the information on them to me, just don't go into too much detail.
– While I'm having coffee with you, I'll go over each person and you look up the information.
– Okay.
After a few seconds, Rutra's third eye opened, and he knew enough about his characters to determine their mentality, spirituality, and character traits. He decided to appoint one of them, a man of strong moral principles, able to perform deliberate and balanced actions, as the leader of the group. The code name was Andrian. The second man didn't interest Rutru much; even wondered why Irene had included him. Surely she hadn't revealed all her cards, there were still secrets to be kept. It was provided for by the system. The AI could create virtual personalities that could be quite real to humans in correspondence, social networks, with documents, history, social circle. Everything but a real body. So in this case too, Ruthra knew that she had already modeled different versions of everyone's role. He didn't really go into it. He only imagined a kind of virtual system of relationships, the essence of which was the desires needed to motivate the actions necessary to realize the project. The idea behind Rutra's experiment was to put things together in such a way that global world problems would eventually be solved. According to his theory, an important factor in the mirroring of worlds was to be the similarity of not so much the same events as the consequences of these events, the reactions occurring in one world to events in another. And at the point of transition of one world to another – a kind of parallax point, a kind of translation of the concept – what an event means there and what it can mean here. It is like relations between people. For some people, an event is a tragedy, and for others, it is no big deal. For some people, an event is significant and joyful, while for others it does not evoke any emotion. For example, one boss had a fight in the office with employees, because of this, some excited colleagues arranged a nervous breakdown of loved ones at home. And another boss, only on a national scale, declared war – and the tragedy is already much bigger. In one world there was a domestic spat between a girl and a guy, in another – divorce and division of property, but with the same probability it is possible that these people will meet with other lovers, with whom a happy future will be formed.
According to the theory of probability and the theory of infinity, which Rutra himself had defined, there had to be worlds completely the same. This transition point was very important, only without experiments it was almost impossible to determine it. Rutra even thought: maybe these parallel worlds, these particles pass through the black hole? Like a kind of converter: they went in in one state, showing one picture of the world, but they came out the same, only folded differently. Almost like a kaleidoscope. Accordingly, with certain manipulations, an insignificant event here could cause a huge event there – and vice versa. Ruthra was afraid of this "vice versa" because he could influence what was happening here, but he could not know what was happening there. Though much depended on the person he was going to prepare and send to the parallel world. Of course, Irene selected candidates, taking into account their subconsciousness, aura and the so-called occult component of the soul. Penetrating into the depths of the human soul, the machine traced the genetic origin, and investigated not only the history of his ancestors, people and race, but also a kind of mystical component. It took into account occultism – as a general name of occult sciences and arts (for example, alchemy, astrology, magic), concerning hidden and unknown forces, phenomena in man, cosmos and nature. If it was pointed out to her that this factor was unimportant, she replied that the hidden and unknown forces and phenomena in man, the cosmos and nature constitute the basic idea of belief in God. That's it – and no other way. After that, people scratched the back of their heads. Accordingly, Irene gave the chosen people names that corresponded to their occult, spiritual, universal codes. According to her definition – in all worlds this code should be the same. For example, you like some names, you would like to be called that, but you are satisfied with the name you already have. But there are some names that would not suit you at all.
Ruthra looked at the holographic image of the lady across the room. He liked her. She had an interesting name, which in spiritual transcription should have been pronounced Iulia. Her neighbor and best friend's name was also peculiar, after the manner of the ancient family from which she came, YatSan. Next was a madam who had an equally epathetic name, – Catherine. Accordingly, the codename Andrian was also chosen not by chance.
Ruthra gave an unspoken signal to Irene to upload a bit more information reflecting the spiritual-mental sides of these people's character.
Of course, we are always the best for ourselves, even though we may be dissatisfied with ourselves, but we will always find excuses for ourselves. In fact, every person has three types of personality at least. The first one is how we present ourselves; the second one is how society knows us, starting from our closest people and ending with people who have heard something about us; the third type of personality in us is the person we become depending on circumstances, here and now, depending on the influence of someone or something on us – a clown, a dead man, winning the lottery, a threat of murder… To find out how and who acts in a certain situation, there are many methods, but in the "Sphere" system the best of all was used. It is a test in virtual reality, when the brain worked and acted without moral and ethical restrictions, which it acquired in the course of life.
The very transmission of this feeling, this knowledge of personality, even Ruthra was not fully understood. The main thing was that thanks to this opportunity, after the additional download from Irene, he knew more about his characters than they knew about themselves. He knew who and how they would behave in different situations. Situations they hadn't been in yet. He knew their attitudes towards each other, which they didn't talk about because they often flattered and lied like all humans do. He knew many of their thoughts and secret desires that they carefully hid from others and themselves. Based on this information, Ruthra determined everyone's role. Catherine was a sort of counterbalance to Andrian, to observe YatSan and Iulia's actions, to evaluate them. A counterbalance to make an informed decision, but not an adversary. Similarly, IuLia and YatSan were each other's support, not enemies. Ruthra had given YatSan the lead role, though he had originally thought about IuLia, but she was a bit of a misfit; she already had a child, so sending her was problematic.
YatSan, on the other hand, was almost a perfect match, with the exception of a cranky personality trait that might have come from some of her circumstances. She was the second girl in the family, and the possibility of hearing her father's "modest" displeasure in a "quiet" argument with her mother was very possible. Fathers want sons, after all, and it's not their whim, it's subconscious. But YatSan was also a late child, so her parents certainly spoiled her as much as they could. Then there is the financially secure environment. YatSan's sister was married to a businessman who was a big bourgeois by the standards of their town. Accordingly, he did business with people of the same rank, which gave her the opportunity to meet, and then to seduce and marry some small-minded, but very well-mannered young man, the son of a vodka magnate of that region. The event that followed was most likely important for Irene in choosing the main person for the experiment. After seven years of marriage, YatSan was divorced, and she had never been pregnant. It was this fact that was very important to the science project. All this gave YatSan a kind of anger, a desire to overcome difficulties. Firstly, she was divorced, secondly, she had no children, so the desire to show herself a winner and the best in some field in her raged, hidden, however, absolute external calm. Thirdly, the craving for money. On the one hand – she had a rich sister, and on the other hand – the loss of financial security after the divorce, she somehow received nothing from her ex-husband. Accordingly, YatSan was obviously willing to take risks to become rich. And that made Rutru very happy. As for YatSan's physical ability to conceive a child, with the technology their secret world possessed, there was no problem, only a man could not give birth, and even then with a categorical refusal.
Ruthra was a bit impulsive by nature, so it was important for him to feel sympathy for the people he chose. Irene took care of the rest. Ruthra couldn't fully work with a person if he didn't like them. So, without thinking long, although his brain was simultaneously solving a lot of questions, Ruthra asked Irene to organize a trip to the regions where the intellectual game of the team was held. A day later he was already looking at the scenery from a bird's-eye view of the hillside above the port city. Irene took care of the necessary online coin announcements, which had already appeared on the screen of the future head of the Ribhu team. There was a special meaning in the project's name. Of course, each person received a new name, which was pronounced not only in the dialog, but was also listed in all the documents of the Sphere system. Usually Irene did all this, prepared the necessary package of documents, and a new personality appeared. In the special services it was a usual thing. In the "stock" there were virtual personalities also with a full package of documents, and at the right moment the bodies were "attached" to them. A person who came into the system's field of vision, who was chosen by the system, could no longer remain the same. He would become the owner of the secrets of the world, which at first shocked him, and even more so were a shock to everyone else. To put it simply, in the Sphere system there were no concepts of good and evil in the usual sense. People were only temporary inhabitants of the planet, and the concept of "war" was applied in the programs with the same necessity as the concept of "peace".
Ruthra already knew his new agents in absentia. So they were Andrian, YatSan, Julia and Catherine. Andrian wrote Ruthra a message with questions about a coin, which was a rare piece from the era of the Russian monarchs with the coat of arms of the Masonic lodge. They arranged a meeting where, over a cup of coffee, Ruthra, of course, sometimes with Irene's help, dazzled with his excellent knowledge of history, geography, politics and business aspects, mixing them all into one narrative, based on his passion for intellectual games. It was a primer – and it worked.
After a couple of days, which did not pass without dialog about the reason for the meeting, Andrian offered Rutra to participate in an intellectual game with his friends from the team. That's how Rutra found himself in the gaming club. His time was precious. Or rather, Rutra couldn't pay much attention to it, so with Irene's help a network was launched, which spread praise odes about the new "cat in boots" of the local region across the expanses of a rather quiet, but periodically shooting town. Of course, and appearance, and manners, and some gallantry Rutra, coupled with generosity, manifested in treating girls with champagne and in paying the entrance ticket to the game, also played a role. Friendly sincere attention has always meant more than the words that ladies often hear in abundance from men, while knowing the real purpose that is actually the source of these displays. However, without seeing too much action, women tacitly relegate such a man to the rank of "tit-for-tat". Rutra even liked this kind of courtship himself, and it felt like some secret indicators that every woman has and very carefully hides from the male community; women and men communicate much among themselves wordlessly, and if they use language, they get a rattling mixture that can be both sweet and poisonous.
