writings on math, logic, philosophy and art

Do Not Fear

NOTE: I dedicate this to all engineers (they know who they are).
…FOR ME, THE TRUE STRIVING FOR SELF-IMPROVEMENT DOES NOT COME FROM AN AMBITION TO BE BETTER, BUT FROM THE REALIZATION OF HOW PITIFUL WE ACTUALLY ARE.
Dimitar S. Bonchev

Sometimes it’s a bit shitty when you see something strange and puzzling, so puzzling that it doesn’t give you peace. Nowadays, fortunately, everything can be explained scientifically - you can find the answer to the riddle in minutes, and then continue doing what you normally do, feeling a bit smarter and more confident in yourself and the world around you. But while satisfying your curiosity, take a piece of advice from me - don’t delve too deep.

NOTE: Follow your own advice.

Before we begin, let me present you with my brief biography:
In school, the teachers loved to tell me that I had highly developed logical thinking, to which I loved to respond with retorts like: “How could we measure the degree of thinking, let alone use a superlative degree without having a comparison, given that there are so many different and conflicting paradigms present, which make the existence of a unified measurement method impossible…”

Subsequently, due to a shitty turn of events which I’d prefer to spare you (but I don’t know if I can), I gave up on long sentences and started being brief, like math teachers: If A then B, otherwise C.

Another thing you should know about my time in school is that I met the Curious One and the Snowball there. But more on them later.

After school, I went to study at the Technical University. I almost managed to graduate. Because of that, some friends started calling me The Engineer. And the nickname stuck. Along with the characteristic way of thinking that spawned it.

Do Not Fear

I started working as a software developer about a year ago. There was no reason to complain - my salary was good, the place was OK too (at least I thought so then), but despite that, I felt I hadn’t achieved enough personally. On the contrary - I felt my level was dropping. Sometimes it seemed to me that I was missing something very important in life. Something that everyone else seemed to know and was hiding from me, to laugh at me behind my back. In such cases, I liked to write. I’d been doing it since I was little. In a small black notebook, I would jot down thoughts and ideas that came to mind. A sentence or two written on the go. The idea was for them to be something like advice to my future self, like the one you saw above and those you will see regularly throughout the text. My notes helped me concentrate (at least I thought so then), and gave the strange ideas, which came to me constantly anyway, a chance to be put to use.

In short, that is my story from birth until the last three days. For them, I think I’ll tell you in a bit more detail:

The Phenomenon

I parked in my spot in front of the office, greeted the doorman, and entered the elevator. On the way, I picked up a newspaper, but there was nothing interesting in it and I threw it away. I was late for work and entered my boss’s office to offer my apologies:

“Yeah, that’s right – enthusiastic at the start of the day, but then you calm down bit by bit,” I thought to myself, while grabbing the door handle. I entered our department’s room, and a familiar picture unfolded before me. I would title it something like: “My Colleagues, Huddled at Their Computers.” This view sometimes annoyed me terribly, simply because I saw it every day.

I made myself a coffee and sat down in front of the computer. At the moment, I was expected to be working on a project for software that could think independently. Or something like that. The task had arrived yesterday and was so vague that I even gave up trying to understand it and spent the whole day reading random stuff on the Internet.

NOTE: There’s no point in developing artificial intelligence – there are enough real ones that aren’t being used for anything.

During the lunch break, I found that my colleagues weren’t much more oriented than I was. But I knew that would soon change, because unlike me, they adapted to what was required of them. Every time we picked up a project, they started taking an interest in the field we had to work in, and talked about it during breaks. And if we worked long enough, they even changed as people, depending on the circumstances. It seems to me that the better a person masters this skill, the more diligently and confidently they work, occupy a higher position, and in general, if Darwin had been born these days, he could probably prove the theory of natural selection by tracking people’s rise in the corporate hierarchy and the melting away of their individuality, in exchange for their ability to adapt to the environment.

And then he could sell me the ship tickets to the Galapagos. I need a little break.

There were ten minutes left until the end of the workday, and my script was as empty as a brain operated on by a lobotomy. “You can’t commit it like that,” I said to myself. “That would mean officially admitting you haven’t done any work.” I took a deep breath and entered a few lines of code, but they were so wrong I couldn’t even answer the question of why they didn’t work. I tried again. “Why?” struck me again on the second symbol. And every letter my hand touched generated thousands of questions I couldn’t even conceive of, let alone answer.

I got up from my computer and started pacing. “It’s clear you won’t get anything done today,” I thought as I put on my jacket. On my way out, I turned for a last look at the monitor and for a second began to get uncontrollably irritated at the sight of the empty file.

I grabbed the keyboard and lifted it above my head, intending to throw it across the room, or even hit the monitor with it. But then my anger that I hadn’t accomplished anything all day disappeared, replaced by the desire to accomplish something, the next day. So I carefully placed the keyboard back in its place, and prepared to leave with the idea of going to bed early to wake up early. I got interested. And right before leaving the room, I turned around, brought my hand to the keyboard, and entered into the file exactly one symbol:

The symbol “?”

I saved it like that, then turned off the computer and headed for the elevator. A couple of my colleagues (the ones who didn’t stay at work later) got in with me, and together we traveled the distance from the top floor to the ground floor.

The doors opened, we found ourselves outside, and as if on command, headed to our cars. And it was then, just as I was inhaling my first breath of air not processed by the air conditioner, when I first saw what I actually want to tell you about.

Here’s what I saw then: from one of the slopes of Vitosha came a concentrated light, like a laser. It was pointed straight up and was so strong that it passed through the clouds, and I couldn’t see where it ended at all. At first, I didn’t question its source. Since no one else was doing it, I decided that everyone else knew what it was and I was again the last dunce who hadn’t quite figured something out.

But after a while, I realized I wasn’t the only one – while wandering aimlessly around the parking lot, I noticed another colleague looking in the direction of the light just like I was, while waiting for the parking barrier to open…

A few more people were looking towards the light, but they soon left too. I followed them and together we formed a decent traffic jam, as if preparing for the road to Sofia.

While stopped at a traffic light, I looked again at the mountain, and for a few seconds focused my gaze on the light. Then the horn of the car behind me made me turn my head forward and continue. This repeated several times, until finally my curiosity overcame me. I hit the brakes. Dozens of horns sounded behind me like a choir, and with difficulty I parked the car so others could pass.

When I got out, I realized I had parked in front of a garage. I knew I should find another spot, but the scandals related to illegal parking were so annoying that I decided to ignore them and leave it as it was.

NOTE: Only 5 min. Sorry, but I need to know what it is!

I stuck this one on the car window.

The air was cold and damp and the wind whistled in my ears. I crossed the mental boundary of the city (where the asphalt ended), and started walking across the field to the highway. When I judged I was close enough, I looked up. The light was still there and at that moment all my theories with which I had been explaining its origin evaporated. I felt how infinitely large the world is, and how small we are, and I had the feeling that I even bowed my head slightly, like people bowing when praying to God. One part of me filled with curiosity. Another - with an unadulterated fear, which I guess gripped people even before the homo sapiens period. Because the light did not come from Vitosha and was not directed at the sky.

It was exactly the opposite.

The beam was strong, and at the same time concentrated. I could see its end clearly: a large area of the mountain with a radius of about a hundred meters, which was illuminated so well I felt I could count the blades of grass and pebbles there. However, its beginning was not visible – it passed through the clouds, and its primary source was lost there among the stars, light-years away from our humble planet.

Scientists say the universe is infinite, but I don’t think they’re convinced of that. Rather, they accept it because it’s easier for them to claim it’s infinite, than to try to imagine what’s at the end. And they can easily dismiss the claim that there is SOMETHING there, based on the lack of arguments supporting that thesis. But it’s not so easy when the argument is standing in front of me.

From the prolonged staring, my head had started to hurt. I also knew my eyes could get damaged, but I couldn’t take them off it, and when my gaze got used to it, it was the only thing I saw. Gradually, I began to accept the Phenomenon – I couldn’t explain it, but I accepted it, just as I accepted everything else I didn’t understand. Then the light intensified, and besides the large beam, two smaller ones came from the sky. One of them directed itself somewhere far among the apartment blocks of Sofia.

The other – onto me.

The moment the light enveloped me, I felt a very strong headache, which was apparently connected to it. The pain signaled my body to move, and I took a few steps forward. To my surprise, the beam changed its location in accordance with mine. I panicked and started running to get away from it, but it followed me like searchlights following a criminal escaping from prison.

After a while, my strength left me. I collapsed on the field and mentally drifted along the current of what was happening, whatever it was. Then the light intensified. It took me a few seconds to get used to it, and to realize that it was expanding its scope, first encompassing the highway I had driven on, along with the houses built around it, then the entire city. After that, it continued to expand even faster.

But the real surprise overcame me when I looked around: I realized I could see through the walls of the buildings illuminated by the beam. For example, in the house in front of which I had parked my car, an elderly couple, a man and a woman, were watching TV and discussing the appearance of the show’s host. In the house behind it - a lonely old man. The next house was shared by many boys and girls - students studying at the university two blocks away. And the aforementioned university? I could see it too - it was empty, except for a lone janitor who was walking nervously along one of the corridors, frightened by the noise his own coat’s buttons were making. And then…

I looked at the city from a bird’s eye view - the beam had already encompassed the entire country, and was continuing at a rapid pace to “show me” the neighboring ones. And besides sight, it enriched my hearing too. The speech of millions of people merged into one slightly irritating buzz. For a few seconds, I saw each one of them, and could sneak into their brain, and understand what was troubling them, and what they wanted to achieve.

People were constantly discussing each other - they attached definitions to each other, thus striving to unite into one, and at the same time to separate. All the time they discussed the direction they should take. And everyone was trying to see more than the others. Only I saw everything and my new abilities intoxicated me and made me feel like some higher form of life….

That, as I said, lasted only a few seconds (the best in my life!), because then the light intensified even more, and everything became white again. I collapsed on the ground from the pain. And when I got used to it again, the only thing I saw were tunnels.

And if we assume it wasn’t before, here it really becomes difficult to tell.

I stood up and tried to brush the dust off myself, but my hand passed through my body. Apparently, I had been transported to a place that wasn’t material. The houses and people around me had disappeared, and were replaced by endless winding paths, forming a huge labyrinth. I sat for a while to survey the landscape - the surroundings seemed familiar. I had the feeling that I had visited this place before, and many times, but couldn’t remember when, and on what occasion. I shrugged and took one of the tunnels.

As soon as I stepped into it, the first in a series of memories flooded my head. What was special about these memories was that they weren’t about things that had happened to me, but rather about things I had thought about. This one specifically was from my childhood, but I didn’t remember the time or place. In exchange, I could crystal clearly reconstruct the reasoning I had then, done with elementary child’s logic. They were general thoughts - something like “what is mom doing at work?” or “Why don’t they let me come with them?” but at that time these things were apparently important to me. The further I went along the tunnel, the more clearly I remembered the thoughts that had passed through my head at that given moment. I advanced in my reasoning faster and faster, until finally, I couldn’t continue, because my child’s logic reached an unresolvable contradiction. At the same moment, the tunnel ended. And that wasn’t a coincidence - the contradiction WAS the wall that put an end to the corridor. And I was locked in my own mind.

With my expanded vision, I faintly saw the other people, as before. Each of them had their own labyrinth. And each was banging against their walls alone.

I went back and tried the next tunnel. This one I had carved out as a teenager, and in it, I reasoned about girls and love. But when I was a teenager, I didn’t know enough about the subject, so this tunnel was also a dead end.

I continued on, to more recent thoughts, but they already contained only programmer’s dilemmas and were occupied with walls at every corner. I had already decided that I would never get out of this place. On the other hand, I hadn’t gotten out before either, and now at least it was bright.

I lightly stepped towards the last tunnel - the one I had carved out a few hours ago, while working on the thinking program. This tunnel was more special - in it, the contradictions were more than in the others, and I circled in it like a fish in an aquarium. And new contradictions constantly appeared, narrowing the tunnel, and making me feel claustrophobic.

For a few seconds, I felt there was no way out anywhere. I remember what I thought: “Fuck it, why do I even have to reason logically, if we can’t reach anything. Can’t I just be free?”

Suddenly, all the contradictions began to disappear, and with them, all logical opposites. Black became white, minus became plus, evil became good. The impossible became possible. The walls disappeared. My entire horizon filled with figures, impossible to classify through geometry and all the factors that had kept thought on a leash suddenly withdrew. For a second, I saw it floating freely in all its brilliance. And then…

Then the light turned into darkness.

I could no longer see anything, and the only thing I felt was the pain – continuous, strong pain, which seemed to come directly from my brain. The fear gradually turned into panic. This state lasted for some time, the duration of which I cannot determine because I have no reference point to measure it by. But then the external world became accessible to my perceptions again. Slowly, I began to regain the sensation of my body, and in the darkness, dozens of tiny lights began to appear. I smiled mentally. These lights were a signal that my eyes were fine, and besides, a few of them were arranged in a way that seemed hellishly familiar from somewhere.

Soon, I could also feel the force of gravity, as a result of which I concluded that I was in a lying position. Gradually, I began to feel my arms and legs, the pain began to decrease, and the lights I saw became stronger and stronger.

Suddenly, I remembered where I had seen their arrangement – it was the constellation “Ursa Major.” My little discovery allowed me to conclude with almost one hundred percent certainty that I was lying on the earth’s surface. And when I started to feel my limbs, I confirmed that with certainty. The strange figures and the light were now only in my memories. I felt simultaneous relief and disappointment that it was all over.

I got up from the ground and looked around. The landscape around me seemed familiar and at the same time strange, as if I were entering my apartment for the first time after a two-week vacation. With a little thought, I remembered where I had come from, and set off to return. I almost ran to the first house that appeared in my view, and pressed the doorbell for a long time. A man of about fifty opened the door. The same one I had seen a little while ago.

I felt that the conversation with this person was exhausted, headed to my car, and left. I turned on the radio to catch the news, but they were talking about the things they usually talk about, and didn’t mention anything about the Phenomenon. I was overcome with a desire to call someone, but quickly drove that thought out of my head - my acquaintances were probably sleeping and were hardly likely to wake up to hear about my vision. “Maybe I’ll wait until tomorrow and then, with a fresh mind, I’ll think about it again,” I thought. “If there’s anything to think about.” I stopped at the entrance to my apartment, as I had done thousands of times, and then the pain in my head completely disappeared. I have the feeling that saddened me a little. The strange gave way to the everyday. “Was there even anything there?” I thought. “Or is this some psychological mechanism for coping with boredom?” But before I seriously doubted my normality, my doubts were dispelled by a brief radio report dedicated to the Phenomenon:

“Hello.” - The host said. - “Several of our viewers informed us about a strange phenomenon, in the outskirts of Vitosha, consisting of a strong light, directed at the sky. Initially, it was thought to have been initiated as part of the advertising campaign for the new non-alcoholic drink ‘Nutra Sweet’, but these rumors were refuted by the manufacturers. So, what is this light, and why is it there? We hope Dr. Ivan Abrashev - head of the Bulgarian meteorological station Sofia - will answer these questions for us. Mr. Abrashev, can you hear us?”

He hung up the phone. The host started stuttering because she didn’t know what to say, and in the end, her statement sounded roughly like this:

I repeat, the light is not being used for military purposes and does not represent a danger. More information on the topic… in tomorrow’s broadcast of “Express”… if there is any, of course…

The guest’s last remark echoed in my head a second after I turned off the radio: “Do not fear.” That’s what he had said. But what would he have said if he were in my place?

Suddenly, I remembered again what had happened to me and the desire to share it with someone returned to me. Not tomorrow, not the day after, but now. So I decided not to go home, but to call someone to meet. I started looking through the contacts on my mobile phone, but out of 200 people recorded there, there was only one who was awake now. Only one who would be free-thinking enough to hear my story, and say his opinion about it. But unfortunately, this person was now most likely on at least three joints, and had many other things he wanted to listen to.

The Curious One lived in a dilapidated house at the end of the city, which he had bought for a song because the previous owner had convinced himself it was haunted by ghosts. I never understood how he had managed to acquire it without any financial help from his parents (his mother worked a miserable job, and his father had been dead for ten years) and at one point, I settled for the explanation that he was one of those people to whom such things just happen. The rooms in the house he didn’t use, Anton rented out and as a result, the house was always full of people, who were so many, and changed so often, that I perceived them as part of the interior. Although, once upon a time, I was one of them…

Okay, let me structure my thoughts into points:

  1. In school, I didn’t belong to any group, but since I had to be friends with someone, I forced myself to hang out with the other kids who also didn’t belong to any group. And one of them was Anton.

  2. Anton loved to ask stupid questions, and as a result, the teachers and our classmates gave him the nickname the Curious One. And since this nickname suited him very well, I still call him that to this day.

  3. After school, the Curious One bought the aforementioned house. Then he decided he had made the deal of his life and decided to become a rentier and spend his free time (that is, all the time) smoking marijuana and drinking.

  4. By a twist of fate, I had to move out of my parents’ house at all costs. And since Anton and I were school buddies, he gave me the best room in the house for a floating rent (I gave him as much as I could spare) and my company.

  5. After a few years, I decided to build a career at the company where I still work. Due to the fact that the workload there was high and the office was on the other end of Sofia, I was systematically exhausted from all the noise in the house.

  6. After a while, I found a new apartment and gradually lost touch with the Curious One.

I can’t believe how quickly we had stopped communicating. It seems to me I hadn’t seen him for two months. But interestingly, despite that, I headed straight to his house without calling him to warn him. Realistically, I had no idea; he could have found a job requiring him to get up early, or he could have gone somewhere, but something told me he was still constant in his inconstancy.

As always, the door to the house was open. I entered the huge hall, which occupied almost the entire first floor, and greeted the guys and girls sitting there as I tried to shout over the loud music flowing from five shiny “Infinity” speakers - a legacy from the previous owner. I stepped forward and shouted in fright. A man was lying on the floor. He was unconscious and in his hand he was clutching a branded KFC bag.

Instead of answering me, he and several of his friends started laughing at my question, and gradually almost everyone in the room joined the laughter (even those who had no idea what was going on). After a while, one of them started explaining to me that at the beginning of the evening, the man in question had bet someone else that he could without a problem…

NOTE: Don’t ask stupid questions, unless you want stupid answers.

I looked at the people again and after not finding anyone I knew, I headed towards the back of the room. The Curious One was in the corner, sitting in a huge leather armchair, which he had built himself, shortly after moving in here. He was dressed in a T-shirt and shorts, and his head was covered with a cap with a visor, which darkened his entire face and hid from his view everything else except a thick book lying on his lap, which he was turning the pages of so fiercely that they were tearing at the corners. I stood next to him and said “Hello.” He turned to me for a second, just enough to establish my identity, and then buried his nose in the volume again, while at the same time speaking to me:

NOTE: This question seems to have become redundant.

I leaned over, simultaneously to look him in the eyes and to read the title of the book, which was something like “Quantum Physics for Beginners.” When he saw me looking, the Curious One made a face and pulled the visor even lower.

NOTE: Arguments with Anton seem to be pointless by definition.

Then he grabbed a glass of vodka, poured its contents down his throat, and began to survey the scene, as if he were here for the first time.

With this remark, I managed to engage his attention. His gaze stopped roaming the room and focused on me, while I mentally went through the entire experience, trying to systematize the information. While I was telling it, he listened attentively and interrupted me only to make me repeat certain passages – something I had never seen him do.

Actually, he didn’t say anything even after I finished the story. At first, I thought he was contemplating his response (another thing he never did) and by the time I realized, five minutes had passed, during which the music was playing, the people around us were having fun, and the two of us were sitting like two reproductions of the statue of “The Thinker” and exchanging meaningful looks.

And despite that, he got up from his chair and headed to the library. The books there weren’t arranged by any system, but despite that, he immediately found the one he wanted to show me. He brought it and slammed it on the table. Then sat back in his armchair and turned to me:

He took another sip of the vodka and moved closer to me:

Then he started to explain what he meant:

Then someone from the table interrupted us with a shriek:

NOTE: Never think you know someone.

At the time, I was open to accepting new things, but from a young age, I had a distrust of religion bordering on disgust, and the spiritual scriptures seemed to me to be composed by someone who had previously taken large quantities of drugs. But what annoyed me most was the fact that there were people who considered all this to be true. People who believed that someone had created them, and someone guided their LIFE. How could Anton be one of these people? It was probably best to ask him:

But the Curious One didn’t answer me because he was too busy arguing with the guy who had asked him about the Bible – he had spilled a bottle of red wine on it:

I stopped listening to this conversation, trying to come to terms with the fact that on this day, things were often interrupted exactly at the moment that was most interesting to me.

NOTE: Atheists are allowed to write “god” with a lowercase letter.

The Curious One fired the answer, as if he had repeated it in thousands of arguments with thousands of people:

I took the bottle of vodka, unscrewed the cap, and took a big sip.

With this remark, he broke the ice in our relationship, which had formed in the last two months and the conversation between us started flowing. We began to discuss the role of religion through the ages. We even laughed a little at how disoriented and small people are. Gradually, the memory of the Phenomenon began to fade from my head, and even started to seem more pleasant than confusing.

I realized I was having one of those conversations that have no real practical benefit, and which only distract me far from my work and the other things I had to think about during the day, but despite that, I was genuinely having fun. In the middle of some sentence, Anton shared with me that he had started writing poetry. When he saw my incredulous look, he offered to read me one of his poems. From the first sentence, I understood why I had looked at him with disbelief – he had taken a very famous poem we studied in school and very cleverly adapted it so that it sounded like a praise of marijuana and laziness.

While driving in the car, I suddenly remembered what Anton meant when he said that everything was a product of my imagination: “To assimilate what we see,” - He had said. - “We liken it to what is most familiar to us. And these are probably the two things we humans know best - water and…”

…and light.

I don’t know why I was born into this world.
I didn’t ask why I will die.
But I suppose it’s to smoke weed all day.
and I hope I’m not mistaken.

I greeted youth, dropped a drop of Visine
and ecstatically opened my eyes,
to meet Life, wrapped in a cloud of smoke
in a chariot of moonbeams.

But here comes the police in us again.
Neighbors shout that they can’t sleep,
I wait for the dealer to come for a whole hour.
And I am seized with anger, malice and wrath.

These people prevent me from being happy,
and turn my life into hell.
before gaping abysses to black walls
society fucks me from behind.

I recognized my brothers in a slave caravan,
oppressed by the Golden Calf;
They do not see that they work and live by a plan
Created by someone, to whom…

…making plans is not his thing.

Infinite Loop

The company I worked for was created and headed by a man named Todor Strugaцki. Formally, we also had a board of directors, through which every managerial decision was supposed to pass, but as some remarks accidentally overheard in the corridors suggested, they neither had an opinion on the way they wanted the company to develop, nor did anyone ask them. There was no reason to. Strugaцki had the authority and the desire to manage - after all, he had been doing it for more than twenty years already - from the moment he was 25 and founded the company until then, when he was 45.

Nothing was known about this man, but in exchange, rumors were abundant. It was said he wasn’t married, and didn’t intend to marry at all. It was said he could write a program of a thousand lines, without testing it at all, and it would run the first time. There was even a rumor about him that he had syphilis, and that the disease stimulated his programming skills, but at the same time caused him to suffer almost all the time. I didn’t think any of that was true - the information vacuum just acted favorably on the rumors that arose there like bacteria.

Regarding communication, Strugaцki treated his employees in the same way he treated computers - he left them to work alone, and remembered them only when a problem appeared. So when I saw him calling our team leader into his office, I immediately understood that there was no way the reason was good. The team leader’s tone confirmed my suspicions:

Strugaцki raised his tone, as if he had realized I was listening too:

In the course of the work, I learned that he had planned the project, which he cared so much about, carefully. Our department was divided into two parts - left and right, with each taking on the development of a different hemisphere. There were also several people whose task was to establish the connection between the hemispheres. I, as always, was in some floating position - something like a boy Friday, going around the others, helping where necessary and possibly pointing out some errors.

After a brief acquaintance with the subject matter, Strugaцki began assigning us his tasks. We executed them well enough, but none of us had enough knowledge to look beyond the facade and delve into what we were doing.

From the beginning of the project, Strugaцki changed. He started coming often to our room, spoke about what we were doing with a passion that made him smile (a rare occurrence). At first, his conversation topics were strictly professional, but after a few days, he began to relax. And on the third day, he even exchanged a few words with me.

Then I understood why he hadn’t taken over the project from the very beginning - because he needed help.

The object “MA” (Main Algorithm) appeared constantly in the instructions. Its frequent mention created an impression of something familiar, and I often perceived it as a formality - a short and neat procedure that processed data and spat it out in a slightly different format. The human brain is used to ignoring what it doesn’t understand and that’s what my colleagues were doing. They continued forward, only asking each other about this and that, with questions traditionally outnumbering answers. This continued until the moment I decided to bring all the project documentation into normal form and found that there were many references of the kind: “procedure X draws data from MA.” but not one was “MA is…”

As the project progressed, the lack of any information about MA began to hinder the work. Obviously, this was some kind of universal algorithm through which every procedure of the software passed. Something like the essence of the entire thinking program. An essence that obviously didn’t exist yet.

We tried to do as much work as possible, circumventing MA, but its absence was frustrating and demotivating. The initial enthusiasm had melted away. We were starting to work more and more listlessly, and more and more often gathered around the coffee machine, and everyone looked at the others questioningly, as if hoping that one of them knew how to proceed.

Finally, as if the people had given up. Only Strugaцki continued to sit at the computer in his office, and press the keys on the keyboard, drenched in sweat.

NOTE: Big ambitions create big problems.

It was already an hour past the end of the workday when Strugaцki came to our room. He was in a visibly bad mood, and announced that from now on our work would consist of creating MA. And when we asked him for guidance, he answered with a remark I had never heard him say before – “I have no idea.”

On the way out of the office, I saw I had a missed call from the Curious One (apparently he had called somewhere at the beginning of the day, when I was too absorbed in work to hear my phone). I wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone, but I called him back anyway:

While driving to his house, I almost crashed several times because I couldn’t take my eyes off the place where a few days ago I had seen the Phenomenon.

As usual, the front door was unlocked. I passed through it while unbuttoning the top button of my shirt, and shouted some standard greeting:

No one answered. The large room, where the Curious One and his countless tenants usually sat, was completely empty.

That was Anton. I ran to the corner of the room and saw him. He was lying on the floor and rolling around in crumpled books, McDonald’s hamburger bags, and empty caffeine pill packages. His hair was disheveled. His eyes were so red they looked like blood would flow from them. And on his mouth, in contrast to his pitiful appearance, was a smile.

NOTE: There are things you just don’t get used to…

He thought for a second.

After about a minute, he came to his senses:

And when he found out it was evening, he started explaining to me that we were late for something and we had to leave.

Then he made me make some variation of coffee according to his recipe: “You make normal coffee, then pour it back into the coffee maker (where the water compartment is), and make it again.” I followed his instructions. He drank a cup of the black liquid and then put his jacket on right over his pajamas.

Anton turned on the headlights and started the car.

The car was picking up speed and we continued forward.

At that moment, I realized that Anton wasn’t as lazy as most people thought. His strength was like the electrical energy stored in lightning, which could solve all the world’s energy problems, but is so powerful and untamed that no one has the resources to harness it. When an idea possessed him, Anton became like the god Shiva, the one with four arms. He handled the hammer and nails as well as the computer. He built entire mountains in seconds, as if every detail was planned in his head, regardless of the knowledge and skills required to make it. And when he didn’t have that knowledge, he flipped through the pages of books like money-counting machines flip through banknotes, and processed huge amounts of information in seconds.

The myth of his laziness was probably a consequence of the wrong idea about him that his mother, his relatives, and so on had. Here’s how they reasoned: “A person with Anton’s abilities could with minimal effort complete higher education, start a serious job, and in general do all those things that are expected of him. But he doesn’t do it despite that, therefore he must be very lazy.” And here’s what they missed: a person with great abilities (and hence with great self-confidence) also needed great stimuli. And as a result, Anton couldn’t do something just because it was expected of him. On some days, he didn’t even have the strength to get out of bed if he didn’t find a good enough reason to do so. And for him, those reasons were few and in most cases fleeting.

That’s why my friend led this self-destructive lifestyle I’ve been describing so far. A lifestyle corresponding to the side of his character that most people knew. The loud, angry side, the drinking, and staying up late side, which filled its time with aimless loafing. Anton himself didn’t like it and tried to overcome it, for which purpose he went through all sorts of sciences, arts, and philosophies, in search of things that would engage his restless mind. And for some reason, such a thing in this case was the Phenomenon:

NOTE: Pay more attention to details.

For half an hour we wandered around this neighborhood, where I had never set foot before. Then we got out of the car and started walking around the neighborhood, playing “Spot the Ten Differences” with the absolutely identical apartment blocks, which created a feeling of lack of movement - wherever we turned we saw the same thing, as if we were sailors traveling the open ocean.

At one point, Anton stopped and fixed his gaze on an inscription scratched next to one of the entrances.

The inscription read:

A + T

Where “T” was the girl we were supposed to meet (Tina, or Tony, I don’t remember now), and “A” naturally was Anton. I laughed and nudged him on the shoulder, but he wasn’t amused. Before entering, he hinted to me that he didn’t want to spend much time with this girl.

Anton’s ex-girlfriend definitely didn’t share his antipathy. She threw herself on him and hugged him so tightly that he couldn’t break free from her:

She: dark skin, light hair, and charming face. Her figure had perfect proportions, and the only thing that distinguished her from the models who posed for magazines was her height - she was a bit larger than normal. Dressed in a silk nightgown and flip-flops. Apparently, she had just gotten out of bed, but despite that, she hadn’t wiped off the thick line of black pencil from her eyes, which (at least I think), she had put on only because she knew she was about to meet Anton.

AntI had to rescue him from her by playing the role of the bad cop, which he had assigned me.

I urged her to tell us in more detail and she did:

The girl started to chatter and Anton signaled me to interrupt her:

She quickly said goodbye to us and closed the door.

As we headed upstairs, I began to remember that severe headache from the time of my encounter with the beam. I had experienced it only once in my life and hoped it would remain that way. Just hoped. It reappeared and increased with every step we climbed, bringing us closer to the other witness of the Phenomenon.

He stepped back a few paces from the door, then took a run and slammed into it with his body. The twenty-year-old lock instantly broke off, making us punishable on charges of breaking and entering.

Then I followed him.

NOTE: Consider your actions before, not after you do them.

The interior of the place gave a satisfactory answer to the question of why Bonchev hadn’t installed a bigger lock – there was nothing valuable in the room. Actually, almost nothing at all. The floor was covered only with a dusty blanket, which substituted for a carpet. The role of furniture was played by several hastily constructed wooden structures, which were so rough it was hard to distinguish the chair from the table. And most of the things were stored in nylon bags nailed to the walls. The only thing that hinted at what kind of person lived in the apartment were the mountains of blueprints scattered throughout the entire apartment. I picked up one of them to look at it closely.

I got curious and took the shopping bag, but it really seemed empty, and before I had a chance to make sure, I heard the voice of the Curious One, who was screaming at me from the other room:

I threw the bag and ran to the bathroom where the voice was coming from. There I saw Bonchev. He was sitting in the bathtub completely naked, and the water had already turned red from the blood flowing from his slit wrists.

The Curious One rolled up his sleeves and placed his thumb and forefinger on the man’s throat.

And not just because of the sight - the headache was returning.

The pain made me close my eyes and scream. For a moment everything disappeared again (which made me feel calmer). My next memory was of us leaving the apartment. I felt the hand of the Curious One, who had grabbed me around the waist and was dragging me down the stairs. Then one of the doors on the staircase opened - someone had heard us:

He stopped and turned to her:

At his place, he cleared the couch in the large room by pushing everything off it onto the floor, and laid me on it. In the following hours, I lost consciousness and woke up at regular intervals, at one point apparently starting to beg him to call a doctor, quite insistently.

And for some reason, he was sure I would recover on my own.

For a few hours, I wandered in a sleepless nightmare, and during that time I understood that the pain I was experiencing was directly connected to the state of my brain. Thoughts of the Phenomenon seemed to cause the neurons in my brain to swell and pour onto the pain receptors, so the pain became stronger. Therefore, I needed something to distract me from these thoughts. I turned on the room lamp. My gaze fell on the Bible, which was still on the table, stained with red wine. I dragged myself to it and even while dizzy and half asleep, opened the first page:

And God said: Let there be light.
And there was light.
And God saw that the light was good;

After these few lines, the pain subsided. I had the strength to stand up, after which I grabbed the book like a diabetic injecting himself with insulin.

and God separated the light from the darkness.
And God called the light Day,
and the darkness he called Night.

The pain disappeared completely. Amazed, I went through this passage several times searching for the reason why it affected me like this.

“What nonsense!” I thought, dazed.

He laughed, as if I had told him a killer joke.

The morning somehow came. Despite everything that happened, I decided to go to work, because if I had stayed home, I would have caused suspicion, which, in light of the experiences of the previous day, was not an option. And the routine calmed me. It made me forget everything…. I took the bus and got to the office, where above my colleagues still hung the unfinished project of the thinking machine, and the Main Algorithm, which they were trying to believe they were capable of inventing. They had uploaded all the finished code onto one machine and had started feeding it different versions of the file: “MA_0.1”, “MA_0.2”. When I entered they had reached “MA_0.91”, but the machine showed no signs of life. Strugaцki was sitting at the computer in his office, but by his expression I could guess he wasn’t programming, but rather had given up and was feeling sorry for himself.

My thoughts suddenly returned to my first encounter with the Phenomenon. Unknown. But wasn’t I there… In a human brain. Its essence was in front of me. If I tried to describe it in a programming language…. Maybe I could…

My fingers themselves touched the keyboard. The pain returned, but this time it was so light I felt it almost like an itch, which not only didn’t bother me but even helped me concentrate. I didn’t fully understand what I was writing. The meaning of the individual lines escaped me, and the standard brain processes that traditionally accompanied work had taken a back seat. With them, the fear of failure also disappeared, and I was already sure that this afternoon would end interestingly.

My hands moved faster and faster, so I couldn’t even follow which keys I was pressing, and I got more and more confused in my attempts to follow my own logic, until finally I lost it completely. All that remained was to wait until the work was finished.

After about an hour, I began to gradually regain control. It became more and more difficult to translate my thoughts, and I began to miss words and entire commands, but by the time I started thinking consciously, and consequently making mistakes, the main work was already done. All that remained was to write a few additional things, which were elementary compared to what I had done so far. I leaned back and reviewed my work from beginning to end. The code was written in my style, there was no doubt about that, but it was many times more perfect than the junk that usually came out of my hands. For twenty minutes, I just browsed aimlessly through it to see where I could add something. There wasn’t any. I took a breath and loaded the file into the test machine.

From there on, exactly what I expected happened. The fans whirred. The monitor lit up, and colleagues began to gather around it and talk.

All their conversations were variations of one:

After a while, Strugaцki came running, buttoning his shirt buttons as he moved. The others made room for him and he stood in front of the monitor. No one knew what the machine was doing, but everyone sat and watched captivated, simply because it was working. Then data started appearing on the screen. Everyone fell silent. They followed the symbols and tried to interpret them, or in other words, they asked themselves what they were actually seeing. And everyone was too absorbed to hear the shout of a colleague from the neighboring department:

Time for a small parenthesis. One of the most commonly used commands in programming is “WHILE” (while). With it, we tell the computer to execute a specific sequence of commands as many times as necessary to fulfill a condition we set (WHILE such and such DO something). However, sometimes the condition we set is unfulfillable. In this case, the computer is doomed to repeat these commands indefinitely, and this situation is known as an infinite loop. But in general, we cannot know whether a loop is infinite or just very long.

I didn’t know it then either. What was certain was that MA was doing nothing except occupying more and more system resources, and the whole system was about to crash. I jumped from the chair, pushed aside my colleagues and ran to the server. The screen showed the free RAM, which was continuously decreasing 50%… 45%… 40%… I reached for the keyboard and began entering the shutdown command.

NOTE: Be careful not to develop professional deformities (if you ever have a profession).

The whole system crashed and stopped the work of several hundred people working with us. And on its next startup, I found that the hard drive was also damaged, meaning I had lost my main algorithm.

And so our thinking machine was dead again (if it had ever been alive). Apparently, the purest and most unburdened logic cannot comprehend that some conditions are unfulfillable. Some tasks – impossible to solve.

I quickly told the Curious One what had happened to me and tried to share my thoughts with him, although they weren’t clear even to me:

Anton frowned:

Anton accepted my suggestion. He sat down in front of his computer, pressed a few keys, and his gaze began to roam the screen. He squinted and clicked something with the mouse. And at one point he was extremely surprised, apparently by something he was reading. His eyes widened as if they were about to pop out of their sockets, his lower lip hung to the ground, and only pulled back when he spoke again:

He covered his mouth with his hand.

So he delves deeply into these researches of his. Maybe he imagines he’s on the verge of discovering some incredible theory that explains everything around us. Or maybe he really was, who knows. Suddenly he encounters the Phenomenon, and through it, for a few seconds, realizes that his whole life has been on the wrong path. That these theories of his, which he upheld, and which were for him almost like a religion, were just fiction.

Well, that’s normal. To say to yourself: “Well, screw it, I’m sick of dealing with just this thing! The world is huge, I’m not going to sit and butt my head against one little corner all my life, like a damned idiot!” You see, that’s like a defense mechanism of the brain against a crash. Like a restart - you drop what’s bored you and start something else. But with engineers, this mechanism is screwed up. They are willing to do anything to achieve their goal, or “meet the conditions” as you programmers say. For example, Bonchev’s goal was to understand the world around him. But suddenly the conditions changed and the goal became unachievable. So we come again to the moment when he lies down in the bathtub, takes his razor and…

He seemed to want to demonstrate with what ease he could give up on everything he didn’t succeed with on the second or third try.

After a while, Anton grumbled that he was hungry and asked me to help him prepare dinner. We agreed to eat in the house’s dining room - a beautifully arranged room we had never used before because it was always too messy. But now that there weren’t so many people in the house (the tenants still appeared sporadically, but they also obviously realized that the days of continuous partying were over), we could afford the luxury of using it.

From there, we threw out the old dirty oilcloth that covered the table, and in its place put a clean white tablecloth. The Curious One stepped back a little, looked over the new arrangement, and satisfied with the result, went to prepare the food - he took a few potatoes out of the fridge, cut them without peeling them, and put them in the fryer. He also took two chicken cutlets, which had previously been swimming in a large pot with marinade.

The two of us started setting the table: we spread the tablecloth and began arranging plates and glasses. We also took out the silverware that had been sitting in the sideboard of said dining room ever since we moved in here. I made a trip to the fridge and came back with some semi-finished dessert, which I placed in the middle of the table. Anton immediately went to the silverware drawer and returned with two small dessert spoons. This gesture inspired him and he headed to the living room, from where he returned with an unfinished bottle of white wine (at least that doesn’t go bad). For it, we washed two glasses with stems, which we also found in the sideboard, and placed each of these items carefully, as if preparing a movie set. When we finished, the cutlets and fries were just done, so I poured them onto plates and sat at the table, waiting for Anton to follow. He, however, was staring at the ceiling and wandering aimlessly around the room. I called him several times, but he didn’t answer. I could already sense he was pondering something. I didn’t want to bother him, so I decided to wait a little more…

In ten minutes, we reached the neighborhood where the man lived again. Anton got out of the car while it was still moving and walked with quick steps towards the entrance, mumbling something under his nose:

The light on the staircase was burnt out. We waited for it to go off, and headed to the apartment, lighting the way with our phone screens. We reached the apartment. Slowly we opened the door, preparing to run if we encountered someone. But it wasn’t necessary. No one had come and everything was exactly as we had left it. And the owner himself was there, though not in form. Since bodies decompose very quickly in water, his face was…

You get the idea.

We thought we’d start by examining Bonchev’s work, i.e., the blueprints scattered throughout his apartment, but there were so many that we could hardly go through all of them, and they were so complex that we wouldn’t fully understand even one of them.

Instead of answering me, Anton started reading:

And the image of the superman, described by Nietzsche, is one of the greatest myths of the 20th century. The heroes of Ayn Rand, who never doubt themselves and their goals, are also a myth. Because fanatics and careerists will never have abilities that can match their self-confidence. The true striving for self-improvement does not come from an ambition to be better, but from the realization of how pitiful we actually are. And true understanding is nothing other than reverence for that which we cannot…

While glancing at one of the rooms, I saw again the shopping bag I had stumbled upon during the previous entry. It looked empty, but I decided to make sure with certainty. I grabbed it with both hands and opened it wide.

After a while, he was already leaning over me. His gaze – directed at the bag.

First, we tried to bring it closer to the lamp. We turned it at all sorts of angles, but the result was the same – the light beam simply cut off into nothingness. Indeed, the bag contained something, and that something was DARKNESS.

We took the bag, left the apartment, and locked the door again, so it wouldn’t show it was broken. As I went down the stairs, my legs were trembling. Partly because of our fingerprints, which were probably everywhere on the blueprints, partly because someone (like the Curious One’s ex-girlfriend) could see us, but mostly because of this object I was carrying. Until now, I had perceived the Phenomenon as something good. Now I wasn’t sure at all what it was. And that was the scariest part.

At the Curious One’s house, we examined the bag better: It was very worn out. It was a real veteran of the war between cloth bags and nylon bags. The handle was barely holding on, and there were several small holes. But the main thing wasn’t the bag, but what was in it.

We did a few more tests, which (at least we thought) could have some scientific weight: we shone a laser flashlight inside, only to see how the beam faded and cut off at the same spot as the lamp’s light. We also tried to poke inside with a stick. Several times I wanted to put my hand inside, but I never gathered the courage. Anton apparently also wasn’t reckless enough to stick his hand in that thing…

I was already so hungry that I didn’t care if we ate together. I sat at the already set table, cut a piece of the chicken and put it in my mouth. It was cold and tough. I tried the potatoes too, but they weren’t exactly a culinary masterpiece either. My appetite vanished.

This hypothesis seemed reasonable to me and I decided to ponder it:

NOTE: He doesn’t know.

I went to the Phenomenon simply because I was interested. No one made me. I did it because I wanted to. The fact that among all the things that appeared every day there was something I had never seen before filled me with joy. Joy – light. Then - today, when we entered the apartment…

I could finish this sentence in many ways: “I don’t want to have problems with the law.” “I don’t want to be in pain anymore.” And one part of me didn’t want to UNDERSTAND at all….

I rubbed my temples again and my brain arranged words into sentences:

Then he jumped from his chair and left the room.

Anton’s Diary

My dear diary,

It feels utterly pointless to me to describe to you the things that have happened to me. But I promised I would. After he stopped taking notes in his little black notebook, the Engineer insisted I cancel it out by starting to keep a diary myself. “Because when you have something in black and white, it’s a different thing,” he said. He has professional distortions, my dear. But anyway. I don’t know where my head was when I agreed. I guess I had taken it off.

And so.

Today is the fourteenth of February, or at least I think so. I can’t check because my phone is on the table, and I can’t reach it. Well, okay, I’ll try… Just to stretch my arm a little and lean back a bit… Oh, darn it… Okay, let’s assume it’s the fourteenth.

There isn’t much to tell about today. I spent half the day locked in a room, secured from all possible directions. We were captives. All because of a psychopath who wanted to use our minds for his own purposes. He said he wouldn’t let us go until we…

Actually, the Engineer has described that part, so I’ll skip it.

After we escaped, we returned home and packed our bags. We were both excited because we had been waiting for this moment for… Well, for three days actually, but for some reason it felt like a very long time. On this occasion, the Engineer was experiencing a lot of drama, as always. He kept complaining that he couldn’t handle this alone and that he wanted me to help him. I told him, “You don’t have any problems, dude.” And he calmed down.

Then we got high and turned on the TV, which was showing “2001: A Space Odyssey” – a good little movie, but the ending was too predictable.

The Engineer fell asleep in the middle of the movie, and I stayed up late. Since I have nothing to do, I’m writing the diary. That’s more or less what happened today. And now I’m thinking of catching up by writing what will happen tomorrow:

Tomorrow we will wake up around ten in the morning. The Engineer will run to the nearby bakery for breakfast. I will put on National Geographic and will note the errors made in the programs to compose an angry letter to the editorial board. When I get bored, it will already be lunchtime. This time it will be my turn, and I will have to go to the nearby pizzeria for two Quattro Stagioni. On the way back, I’ll stop by the Coffee Shop near us. The Engineer will tell me that it’s terribly irresponsible to buy weed considering what lies ahead of us (that’s exactly how he’ll phrase it – “considering what lies ahead of us”), but then, of course, he’ll take a hit and end up smoking more than me. After a while, we’ll feel stuffy and move to the balcony. Unfortunately, my balcony faces one of the largest boulevards in Sofia. But at least the environment will be different.

A little later, we’ll notice that the traffic light on the street is broken and only shows red for pedestrians without changing. The Engineer will start developing theories about how traffic light software functions and what the possible causes for this problem are, while I’ll just be entertained watching people not being able to figure it out and standing at the street corner for ages.

That young woman with the shopping bags obviously doesn’t give up easily. Most people will wait two or three minutes, five max, and then cross, but she will stand at the corner for fifteen minutes already. And she won’t even see that there isn’t a single car, because she’ll be staring only at the little man on the traffic light, waiting for it to turn from red to green. In the end, I’ll decide to snap her out of the trance she seems to have fallen into: “Hey, can’t you see the traffic light is fucked! Fifteen minutes wasted waiting for it to turn green! Life is passing you by without you even noticing!” She will answer me with a question: “And what were you doing in those fifteen minutes?” And I will realize that the woman will have a point. I’ll turn to the Engineer and tell him it’s time for us to go.

The Chosen one

A little later, Anton returned, holding an almost empty bottle of vodka in his hand. He poured the remainder into a water glass, added a few ice cubes, and drank it to the bottom even before they began to melt. “Why don’t you want us to seek help?” I asked him. The Curious One laughed, for a second, but then frowned again: “No one will help you. They will only exploit you.” “Why do you think that?” “Engineer-boy, has anyone ever helped you with anything?!” “That’s an abstract question.” “Alright, I’ll ask specifically! For example, do you remember in school, on the day of the final exams. Did anyone help you then?” In the conversation that followed, the Curious One ridiculed a specific series of events in my life, which unfortunately I have to share:

From the start of school until just before the end of seventh grade, I was a sickly child with no social contacts, except for those with my mother and father, and their statements formed my entire worldview. And it (even though they would never have expressed it in these words) sounded like this: “If you want us to love you, you have to make us proud of you. And for us to be proud of you, you have to be the best. We went through a lot to raise you. And so far, the only way for you to repay us is to become a respected member of our society. Right now, school is your only concern, so do well in it.”

In sixth grade, just before the final math exam, I caught some kind of rash, which caused me to miss many classes. I tried to prepare for the exam on my own, but the theorems and formulas were leaking out of my head like through a sieve. Over the years, I had studied seriously and would have easily gotten an A, but for me back then, that was equivalent to failure. “This is it,” I thought. “This is as far as I go.”

I would have been much calmer if I knew how much further I was about to fall.

On the day of the exam, I still didn’t feel well. My father took time off work specifically to drive me to school. He took me to the classroom, exchanged a few words with the math teacher, and left. Then she (an older woman with frizzy hair and a strange way of speaking) made me sit in the very last row and told my classmates not to come near me because I was contagious. Then she handed out the test problems and wrote on the board the time she would collect our papers.

My knowledge had evaporated. To this day, I don’t know how it happened, but I simply couldn’t understand anything that was written, as if I were looking at a mysterious manuscript left by some distant civilization. I started trembling and looked for my classmates with my eyes – they seemed miles away. Maybe I just needed to wait and the knowledge would return? Maybe I would come to my senses? I took my pen to redraw the diagram of the first problem, but my hands were shaking and all I produced was some incomprehensible scribble. I crumpled the paper and threw it aside. The trembling turned into convulsions.

While I was remembering all this, the Curious One finished his vodka and looked at me questioningly. “Tell me seriously! Who helped you then?” “That’s right,” I said. “For that, I am indebted to you until the grave.” Most of the kids were already looking at me, and in their eyes, I could read a strange expectation, as if they hoped I would faint and the exam would be canceled as a result. The teacher didn’t know how to react, so she didn’t react at all, and I was feeling worse and worse. I closed my eyes. There was complete silence for a few minutes. Then I heard her voice: “Anton Dikov? Sit back in your seat!” “Aleksandar is unwell. I’ll help him.” The Curious One said, pronouncing each word clearly. He called me by my full name, as we didn’t interact often at that time. “You know I won’t let you back in!” the teacher snapped. “I know that,” he replied. “Oh, leave him, child. He’ll infect you!” “Thanks,” Anton muttered. “A week without your classes will do me good…” And he dragged me to the doctor’s office.

The school doctor had already finished today’s newspaper and had moved on to the crossword puzzle. When he saw us, he put it down and told me to lie down. “What’s wrong with the boy?” The question was addressed to Anton. “He started shaking, I think he was choking…” The doctor glanced at me. “Well, that’s from anxiety,” he said. “There’s nothing I can do.” “But you’re a doctor?” “Yes, but I’m not THAT kind of doctor. At most, I can give him a sedative.” And the man rummaged in the drawer and pulled out a packet of small blue pills. Then he spoke again, this time to me: “It might make you a little dizzy. Take half a tablet a day.”

When I left his office, I took THREE. “You know what, Engineer-boy,” the Curious One said, half amused and half nervous. “If that doctor hadn’t been in such a hurry to get back to his crossword puzzles, or whatever he was doing, he COULD have helped you. He could have told you that those final exams are a STUPIDITY that means NOTHING. He could have called your parents and given them a piece of his mind. Or I don’t know, called a damn parent-teacher meeting. He didn’t do it because he simply couldn’t be bothered. Just like all the other people after him.”

After this incident, the stress school inflicted on me became too strong, and I started skipping classes. My grades dropped. And after a while, my parents started finding the sedatives. At first, I misled them into thinking they were prescribed, and they deluded themselves, but at one point, both they and I realized I was on the verge of becoming a drug addict.

The Rehabilitation Clinic for Addictions, where my mother took me a little later, was built in a beautiful area in the Rhodope Mountains. A small white building surrounded by a picturesque fence that followed the contours of the mountain. I remember what I thought the first time I saw it: “It looks very nice on the outside?” I found out a little later why that was: because the doctors were very good at hiding what was inside.

Reality: There was no help for us from anywhere. The only thing we received was a daily dose of sedatives. In theory, these doses were supposed to decrease and eventually disappear completely, but in practice, this happened so slowly that you could die before you saw it happen (at least it wouldn’t be from an overdose). And people had many ways to get extra. Their tactics of begging and deceiving the doctors finally convinced me that when you have a desire, you always find a way.

I realized something else too – I wasn’t like these people. Even if I wanted to (and at one point I really did), I didn’t have the psychological predisposition to be addicted. It wasn’t because of my willpower or sense of responsibility (well, maybe they played some role too), but rather I began to get to know myself and understand who I was: It was clear that I wasn’t born to succeed, but I also didn’t have the prerequisites to be dependent.

Realizing this, it wasn’t hard for me to refuse the medication. I did it without any help from the doctors, who didn’t even notice how I hid the pills in my pockets instead of swallowing them. I spent a month like that, after which I sold the accumulated drugs to my fellow patients, and with the money, I headed home.

My journey to Sofia took a week (of course I could have been there in a day, but I didn’t find a reason to hurry), which I would define as one of the happiest periods of my life. It’s strange, but we only feel truly free when we are far from our normal environment. Traveling is pleasant. And the most pleasant kind of travel is traveling home.

At home, my mother and father were happy to see me, and I decided not to darken their joy with stories about what I had been through. I only told them that I was okay now. They replied that that was good and expressed regret that I hadn’t come home just three days earlier. Because I had missed the application deadline for the last of the universities they had in mind for me by only that much. At first, I didn’t even understand what they were talking about. They gave me clean clothes, I sat down to watch TV and flipped through the channels until my eyes began to close. But I wouldn’t have wanted to fall asleep at all if I had known how I would wake up the next day.

“Why are you reminding me of all this, Anton?” “I just want to show you that…” “That people are stupid and that no one will ever help us, and we mustn’t under any circumstances tell anyone about the Phenomenon…” “Well, actually, people aren’t to blame. Society is to blame… the system.” “Well, people run society,” I said. “Not all of them,” the Curious One countered. “Only those who want to…” “Who want what?” “To rise within it… People like… For example, like that doctor, with the funny little beard, you went to.” “I told you not to remind me!”

I made myself some toast for breakfast and went out for a walk, as I often did before. I went to buy a newspaper, read it, and on the way back, I realized that I didn’t know WHAT TO DO next. And it wasn’t about that day and hour, not even about that year I had missed at university – it was about my whole life. Throughout my conscious life, I had never for a second considered that I would NOT get into university after school. I didn’t consider that things could turn out the way they did.

I woke up from a bad dream into an even worse reality. At that time, dreams turned out to be my only escape – I spent twelve to thirteen hours in bed, and the rest of the time I was inadequate and found no reason to take off my pajamas and get dressed. To my misfortune, I was no longer depressed. On the other hand, depression is sometimes healthy because it motivates you to get out of it, and I seemed to have already forgotten that such a thing as change existed.

One day, my mother came into my room and started talking to me about psychology: A friend of hers had said…

NOTE: Don’t believe statements that start like that.

…about a psychotherapist who had helped her son overcome severe depression. This therapist had graduated in the States, many famous people went to him. Besides, he was very nice… Oh, and his office was only 15 minutes from our apartment. I told her I didn’t want to go to any psychologist, but even then I knew that with my apathy, I was hardly capable of refusing insistently enough not to end up in his office eventually.

The man was about forty-five. He was impeccably dressed and spoke with an intonation devoid of any emotion, the way I imagined people who see humans as objects of scientific study spoke. He looked me over, sat down next to me, and said something along the lines of, “Now, your mother told me some things about some final exams, drugs, etc., but for me, it’s more important to understand not what happened to you, but rather how you FELT when it happened to you. Do you understand?”

I told him I understood and that I would tell him.

After the first few sessions had passed, I already knew what to expect from visits to him – he wanted me to tell him various incidents from my childhood, going into the smallest details, asking me questions I had never thought to ask myself. In fact, these questions constituted most of his remarks, and the rest of the time, he would just utter some term and interrupt me to make some obvious conclusion. He was more thorough after the end of the session, when my mother would come – then he would usually talk about how well everything was going, with some strangely exalted tone that wasn’t typical of him. It was obvious he was delighted with me. He conveyed these positive feelings to my mother, and after a while, I myself began to feel better, although I often wondered on what grounds that was. Because ultimately, all this so-called doctor did was make me share my problems. Sharing problems, in itself, can’t solve them, right?

Partly to understand what was actually happening to me, and partly to fill the large amount of free time I had, I began to take an interest in psychology. What I read shocked and confused me – clearly, this was a science in which there was nothing known with certainty. There was no universal consensus on how mental problems appeared and disappeared; instead, every scientist offered their own interpretation. There were thousands of illnesses, and new types were diagnosed every week. Mathematically speaking (the engineer in me was speaking now), this meant that after a while, there would be no person left without mental problems.

One day, while browsing a specialized psychology journal, I came across an article describing a patient whose fate was very similar to mine. It talked about how the boy in question had become a mental wreck even before turning eighteen. His mental problems were presented as unsolvable with contemporary treatment methods. Specific incidents from his life were recounted, which, like mine, involved high ambitions (again instilled by parents) and addiction to legal drugs (it was specified that the patient had managed to quit them but would inevitably return to them). I read the whole article with interest and then looked at the author’s name.

It was written by my psychologist.

And the patient described was me.

For the last three months, I had been almost OK. I saw friends from time to time, I had started exercising, I was trying to take care of my appearance, and in short, I had begun to enjoy the simple things in life again, and in that way, to give pleasure to the people around me. But at that moment, I suddenly wanted to return to my white room in the clinic and spend the rest of my life there.

Were the things about me in this article true? Was there really no way I could get better? And if not, what the hell was I supposed to do? I immediately dialed my psychologist’s number. I was so angry that he didn’t recognize me at first. He began to calm me down in a routine tone. I didn’t stop shouting and insulting him until finally he dropped his professional mask and began, with many circumlocutions, to tell me the TRUTH.

It sounded more or less like this: The patient described in the article was indeed me, but he (he told me this with a thousand circumlocutions) had deliberately exaggerated the seriousness of my condition. For him, I had been an exceptionally interesting case, and research on me was key to him obtaining his PhD. If he had to be completely frank (as if he shouldn’t be) he didn’t know exactly what was wrong with me, or if there was anything wrong at all. But if I wanted, we could try to find out together.

WE?

I slammed the phone against the wall.

After a while, my mother returned from work. I told her what had happened and showed her the article (which turned out to be only the first part of a series). She immediately dialed my psychologist’s number. After she hung up, I understood two things from her look – that he had lied to her again, and that she had believed him.

This fact put me in an extremely unpleasant position – I knew that this man was nothing more than a sophisticated fraud, but there was no way to prove it to my mother and father, who, shocked by the descriptions in the article, insisted that my therapy continue. Luckily, I had already turned eighteen. I also had a little money left from the deal I made at the clinic – enough to move out from home (again, the Curious One helped me by providing shelter). And to start my life over again. Correction: that’s when I started for the first time.

A little later, I was forced to find a job. And since I already felt immense aversion towards psychology and moderate aversion towards all other humanities, I knew it had to be something technical. My computer was at hand, so I gradually began to understand how it worked, and after a few months, I already had enough experience to find at least SOME kind of job.

“Alright…” I said, and then I tried to figure out what exactly I had said “alright” to, if anything. The Curious One continued to look at me meaningfully, as if just waiting for me to say something so he could refute it. “Forget it,” I finally said. “I’m not going to argue with you. You just obviously hate people.” “Nonsense!” he said almost instantly. “Then why do you think I share shelter with at least ten other people?” “Because they pay you.” “I don’t hate individual people,” he continued. “It’s just that in cases like ours, society’s influence on them is harmful.” “Yeah, but do you like having electricity, for example? A computer? Running water? All such harmful influences of society…” “We owe electricity to Nikola Tesla. A scientist who died alone and without a cent, while that bastard Edison took all the credit for his discoveries? And the computer? Don’t make me laugh! Charles Babbage constructed the first prototype entirely alone, without any financial help. And he made it by hand down to the last detail…” “Let’s see. I agree that most people who advance humanity’s progress are rejected by society. But they are the exceptions, and society is what uses their discoveries.” “And in that way, alters them…” The Curious One pointed to the wall behind me, where a three-dimensional screen was mounted, displaying some music television. “You see, home 3D technology was created for the development of spatial thinking, not so viewers could peek under the hosts’ skirts. In the same way, the Phenomenon was leveled by the one who made it for people like us. Not to be exploited by everyone.” “Who are ‘we’?” I asked. “Alright, let’s approach it this way,” he said. “Why did that little doctor, who was supposedly treating you, need to defend a PhD?” I shrugged. “I guess it’s because he was incompetent and wouldn’t find a job without flaunting various titles.” “So, the more capable a doctor is, the less he needs to have a high academic degree.” “Yes.” “And the more capable a person is, the less he needs to be high in the social hierarchy.” “That’s partly true, but…” “So the opposite is also true. The more incompetent a person is, the more likely you are to find him in a high position somewhere.” “And?” “And why is that? It’s all because of that desire for control over the situation, which is shown by people with fewer abilities. That’s what I’m afraid of – if the Phenomenon becomes public property, then they will be the ones to choose how to dispose of it, and in accordance with their limited thinking. They may never understand what they hold in their hands, but they will never let it go.” “Don’t lump everyone together.” “I’m not lumping anyone anywhere,” the Curious One said and waved his hand, as if about to curse. Anyone who doesn’t wish to be treated as part of the whole will make sure to differentiate themselves from it. “Alright, so you don’t want us to tell anyone about what’s happening?” “I don’t want us to tell EVERYONE. Because not everyone is ready for it. Because if the Phenomenon becomes common knowledge, mass fear will arise. People won’t see it the same way we see it. And IT won’t be the same.” “What are you proposing then? To keep everything to ourselves? It belongs to all of humanity, after all.” “But why do you think humanity will even see anything? Or even, that it will be interested? I don’t know – what’s happening is very strange and interesting, but at the moment I can’t think of how it could be used to make money.”

“What we could do,” he continued, “is to find INDIVIDUAL PEOPLE to share our discovery with. People who are brave enough to work outside the big machine and who know enough to help us…”

I realized I was going crazy just looking at Anton, as if every pore of his skin had turned into a miniature mouth that constantly spat on everything and everyone who had ever set foot on this planet. He believed only in himself, couldn’t tolerate anyone else’s opinion, and the worst part was that what he said really sounded logical. The nasty brat… Even if he spoke the biggest and most unheard-of nonsense, for some reason when I was with him, it sounded super logical to me.

“Alright, I see that, as always, you know exactly what needs to be done. Then why are you even telling me all these things?” “Don’t take it personally, but you seem to be some kind of CHOSEN ONE.” “???” “You are the ONLY ONE who has encountered the Phenomenon.” “I don’t think I know it better than you.” “We clarified that it took the form of light in darkness because you changed your perception of it. YOU, not me. And since it changes in accordance with you, you control it.” “Or rather, it controls me. But otherwise you’re right, yes –” I felt all that responsibility falling on my shoulders and flattening me like a pancake.

NOTE: From now on, I’ll go straight home without dawdling too much.

I wouldn’t say this out loud, but I think I became a programmer precisely because of that desire for control that Anton talked about. It’s a job that isolates you from all unpredictable factors and where everything that happens is a direct or indirect result of your actions – in the good case direct, and in the bad – indirect. Complete control. And from there comes my problem. To believe that I am some form of messiah would mean to admit to myself that I have no power over myself, and that my fate depends entirely on an unexplored force whose purpose is unknown to me.

“I’m a bit tired now,” I said to him. “Maybe I’ll go.” “Relax, you can sleep at my place.” “Where.” “You remember that mattress you gave me to throw out.” “Yeah.” “It’s in the living room.”

I won’t throw old things in the trash. I need a more efficient way to get rid of them.

NOTE: “This bed is a bit lumpy,” I said. “I prefer to go home.” “If you stay, we can sit down calmly tomorrow morning, have a beer each, or milk with cocoa if you want, and start looking for help with a clear head.” “I’m sober now,” I said. “Besides, I have to get up early for work tomorrow.” “Better find a way to get out of it.”

I was still gathering my thoughts when I picked up the phone and dialed my office number: “Hello, Yule, is that you?” “What’s up?” answered the HR girl at my company – a girl my age who dressed provocatively and wore braces, which gave her some strange sex appeal. “Sasho, is that you?” She spoke with an echo, as she often did. Probably because all day she had to watch sloppily looking men talk about things incomprehensible to her. “Can I not come to work tomorrow…” I got straight to the point. “I have some personal matters.” “I have to ask Velislav. (That was the first name of Strugački.) Actually, do you want to ask him yourself, he wanted to talk to you about something anyway…” “Excuse me? What did he want to talk about?” “Oh, I have no idea. I’ll connect you so you can sort it out…”

She hung up the phone, and for a minute, the hold melody, which was some variation of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, started playing through the receiver.

Then my boss picked up: “Hello?” “Hello, hi,” I said and paused, expecting him to yell at me about the crashed machine from last time (which didn’t happen). “I want to ask you for something…” “Just say what.” He said. “Is that irony?” “No, no… I’m completely serious. Yesterday you made a big breakthrough. Even though you didn’t solve the problem, you proved that you are much closer to the solution than everyone else. Including…” – he uttered the next sentence in a tone as if he were telling me I’d won a Nobel Prize – “Including me.” “And what follows from that?” “We can assign a few guys to help you. A slightly better computer? A higher salary?” “No, I actually just want a one-week leave.” He made a short pause. “I’m sorry, but that’s impossible!”

NOTE: Not to be sure about anything.

“I won’t let you go,” he continued. “After you finish what you started, then you can go on leave. Not before.” “But I don’t even know if I’m capable…” “You are capable.”

I hung up the phone.

Here was another person who thought I was Chosen.

I returned to the room, and with Anton, we started discussing how to proceed from here: “Now…” I said while trying to gather my thoughts. “They refused my leave. We have to plan things so that I can go to work tomorrow.” “Looks like things are getting tangled again, huh?” Anton smiled, as if it gave him pleasure to watch new and new problems appearing before me. “What’s so funny about that?” I asked irritably. “Nothing,” he said, but didn’t stop smiling. “Frankly, you know what. I mean…” I stood up to look for my jacket with my eyes. “I want to solve this myself.” “Is there a problem?” “I just want to go out and get some air…” “But why? Engineer-boy… What’s the problem?” “Stay sober for a day and you’ll understand!”

The sun had already finished its shift in our part of the globe and had headed for the next time zone, and the landscape was dotted with large trees that shielded me from the light like a huge canopy. I hailed one of the stray taxis roaming around and sat in the back seat: “Where to,” the driver asked without turning to me. I explained to him how to get to the place where I had seen the Phenomenon. And the whole way, I tried to answer the question of why I wanted to go there.

“Wait for me here,” I said when we arrived. “I’ll pay you now. If I don’t come back in about ten minutes, which is most likely what will happen, just leave. Okay?” He nodded. “Oh, and one more thing,” I added after getting out of the car. “If you could turn off your headlights for a bit.”

The xenon light went out, and the night enveloped the whole space, which was essentially its own. Staggering, I headed towards the mountain, guided only by moonlight. I closed my eyes and continued walking forward, stumbling over stones. I had a feeling I could sense the Phenomenon. I reached a little higher, knelt on the muddy clearing, and raised my hands up.

Nothing happened.

After about five minutes, I stood up, partly desperate and partly mocking myself, and started wiping the mud off my shoes so as not to dirty the car. “Where to now?” the taxi driver asked curiously. “I don’t know yet,” I said. “Drive somewhere towards the city.”

As we approached the suburbs, the natural scenery gradually began to turn into urban. Less grass, more asphalt. Fewer trees and more traffic lights and billboards, each of which seemed to insist on your attention and hypnotized you as if in some failed experiment. Waffles, Mobile phones, cars, soft drinks, real estate agencies… I would have looked at them the whole journey if the taxi driver hadn’t brought me back to earth: “Look, please call the guys with the white Rover to hurry up a bit.” “Who?” “Well, those guys there.” He adjusted the rearview mirror and pointed at the car. “What about them?” “I thought they were your friends…” “Why?” “Well, they’ve been following us the whole way.”

NOTE: I should always have a Plan B. Preferably, I also need plans C, D, E, F, G, H, and a few extra letters of the alphabet.

For a while, I looked back and forth, and finally decided to share my concerns with the driver: “I don’t know these people,” I said. “And I don’t want to get to know them, if you know what I mean.” “Excuse me?” “Step on it!” He gasped with concern but pressed the gas pedal a little harder. The Rover caught up with us without a problem, and I realized I was acting on instinct. That wouldn’t do. I needed a plan and I needed to start building it immediately. With one glance at the Rover, I noted the car model and the driver’s appearance. Then I paid attention to the car I was in.

NOTE: Before you act, gather all relevant information.

“Okay. New strategy. Slow down to the slowest possible speed that would arouse suspicion.” “Slow down?” “Listen to me. Our car has maybe seventy-five horsepower, and that one behind has at least a hundred and twenty.” “Yes, and…” “And obviously, we won’t be able to shake them off on the road. Better to be slower so I have time to think about how to do it afterwards.”

I leaned back on the seat with the idea of contemplating the issue. Suddenly, I felt the pain in my head again (it had never appeared in such a situation before). It intensified quickly and almost immediately became unbearable.

I remember very well what happened next – I instinctively started moving my head in all directions. At one point, my gaze fixed upward at the sky. And for a moment, the sky erupted like a volcano. A strong light enveloped my entire horizon. It didn’t come from the sun or a beam. It came from everywhere. For a moment, I couldn’t make out the car, I couldn’t make out anything around me because the light was so strong it blinded everything else. Instinctively, I reached for the door handle, but it had disappeared. Everything had disappeared, as if I were floating in zero gravity. For a few seconds, my eyes adjusted to the light, and I noticed the shadows of two people sitting about five meters from me. One of them nudged the other and pointed at me. I waved back.

This lasted for a fraction of a second, after which things returned to their initial situation – I was again sitting in the back seat of the car, with messy hair and dressed in a crumpled white shirt, and the white Rover was chasing me again.

But I wasn’t worried about that anymore. I didn’t care anymore whether I would escape or not. I didn’t care who my pursuers were or what they wanted from me. Even though I knew I would probably escape, and find out.

“Hey, what was that?” the driver called out. “I don’t know.” “Whatever… Where should I take you now?”

I looked around and saw we had reached the city. “Straight ahead,” I said. “I’ll tell you when to turn.” He nodded and fell silent, but after a few minutes, he spoke up again: “Why are they chasing you?” “I have no idea.” “You’re bullshitting me, but alright.” He waved his hand. “How are you so sure?” He looked at me with a smile he seemed to have practiced in front of the mirror even before he started driving a taxi: “Well, if you have no idea why they’re chasing you, then why are you running?”

I told the taxi driver to head towards the center – near the neighborhood where I grew up. Along the way, the Rover kept appearing. I saw it only from time to time, but often enough to be convinced that someone was really following me. But I already had a plan. I intended to make them sweat for their money. Literally.

“Now, after two blocks, you’ll turn left and stop in front of a place called ‘Tantra’ massage and sauna salon. I’ll get out immediately, but you’ll stay for another fifteen minutes. And if someone gets out and follows me, I want you to honk the horn. Honk twice if there are two of them. Then you drive off. Will you do it?” “No.”

He refused on the grounds that he was worried, and I had to give him almost all the money I had on me (about ten levs), leaving myself only enough to pay the sauna entrance fee. The girl at the cash register looked at me strangely – 99 percent of the visitors were regular clients, and new people stood out. That was one of the reasons I chose this place (the other two were that its entrance faced a busy street and that I knew the neighborhood). I paid her for two hours and checked my watch to know when they would run out, even though I planned to leave much earlier. Then I headed towards the left door, which led to the men’s locker room. Fortunately, it was empty, and I didn’t have to undress in front of other people.

The room was tiled. It contained two showers, about fifty metal lockers for clothes, and right next to the door leading to the sauna, there were about ten white terry cloth towels. I took one of them and unbuttoned my shirt. The taxi horn reminded me I didn’t have time to dawdle – I took off my shoes, put on flip-flops, and continued taking off the rest of my clothes.

The towels were a bit short, but this apparently didn’t impress the other visitors (about ten people), among whom three or four were professional athletes who had come to relax after training at the gym, five or six amateur athletes who kept their bodies in shape, and the rest – older men for whom the sauna was the urban equivalent of fishing – an excuse to sit for half an hour doing absolutely nothing. Between the second and third type was a boy with blond hair and blue eyes, who looked roughly my age. When I got a little closer, I realized he was exactly my age – we had studied in the same school up to seventh grade. His name was Alexander, like me. But that’s where the similarities ended. He was Sasho, the captain of the football team, Sasho, whom all the girls liked. He had a pleasant character. It seemed super to me to meet him – his presence fit well into my plan.

NOTE: If someone is chasing you, run to a place where they won’t feel comfortable.

A little later, the door opened, and three men came out, two of whom immediately started greeting their friends, and the third (forty years old, shaved head, and a criminal face) remained by the door, visibly anxious. However he had planned to hide, it didn’t work out. He glanced at me for a second and immediately averted his gaze, watching me with his peripheral vision. I decided to demonstrate to him that I wasn’t alone and turned to my classmate: “How are things with you?” I asked him. He, like no one else, actually started answering me: “Can’t complain,” he said. “Work is OK – a travel agency, two blocks from here, the money’s coming in, and the job too. I graduated in Tourism from NBU, so it’s in my field.” “Sounds good.” “And one more thing. Do you remember Zori from the next class?” “Yeah?” “We got married a year ago…” “Congratulations.” “…and we’re expecting our first child now.” “I envy you,” I said. And I really did envy him. He certainly wasn’t a potential prime suspect in a murder and wasn’t being chased by nasty guys with shaved heads.

“Have you seen anyone from the class?” Sasho asked. “Well, no… Except Anton. I’ve been hanging out with him regularly lately…” “You hang out with Anton the Curious One?” He didn’t know how to react, so he tried to smile. “Is he still…” “Yes.” I remembered the line I had left them with. “And in ever-increasing quantities.” “I don’t know why you’re friends with him,” Sasho said. “He’s a complete freak. In every class, there are two or three agents who I have no idea what they’re doing on this planet.” “Who else was like that, in your opinion?” “Snowball is like that and currently…” Without meaning to, Sasho named the second person from the class who seemed interesting to me. “Currently? Have you seen him recently?” “I run into him in the neighborhood from time to time. He already has a PhD in higher mathematics, and something else I don’t remember. He writes, I think, for some scientific journals, but I don’t know if they even pay him. Judging by his clothes, probably not…” “Don’t judge by clothes.” “Just in case, he still lives with his mother. Has no friends and still wears that ridiculous yellow jacket… Freak.”

His way of reasoning began to interest me: “So, the Curious One and Snowball are freaks. Is there anyone else? Me, for example?” “There’s nothing wrong with you. I just don’t know why you complicate your life.” “How so?” “For example, what are you going to do tonight?” “Well…” “Exactly!” he said. “Shall I tell you what I’m going to do?” He said. “On the way back, I’ll buy a few chilled pork chops and two kilos of potatoes and head straight home, because my wife has invited some friends over. We’ll have some fun. After they leave, my wife and I will have sex and go to bed.” “And?” “That’s it!” Sasho’s tone conveyed genuine astonishment at the existence of people who didn’t understand his theory of life. “I mean, it’s scientifically proven that there’s no one above us or below us. And for me, there’s nothing else besides the pork chops, my wife, work, pleasant conversations… If you’re not happy with that, it’s better… I don’t know what’s better, but that’s my opinion.” “You can’t claim something is scientifically proven,” I said. There are many theories that are widely accepted, but they still remain just theories, possible explanations of a given phenomenon. “And what about it?” “Well, your peaceful life is built on abstractions. On things you consider certain, but which are not certain at all.” “Look, my time’s up, I have to go,” he said. “Take care of your own life. The rest are details.” I watched him leave the room, whistling to himself.

To take care of my life – that’s exactly what I intended to do. I got up, went to the back of the room, and entered one of the private massage rooms, where the man couldn’t possibly follow me. There, I was greeted by a girl with an artificially acquired tan and a black tattoo on one shoulder: “Full body, sweetie?” She smiled at me. “No.” “Then?” “I just came to get changed,” I said and took off the towel I was wrapped in.

NOTE: Choose one of the things the opponent won’t expect from you and use it when the time comes.

Before that, while in the locker room, I hadn’t taken off my pants, I had just rolled up the legs so it wasn’t noticeable I was still wearing them. Besides, I had tucked my shirt into my waistband. My shoes – tied with their laces, were hanging on the inside of my hips. All my clothes were hidden under the towel. In the locker in the changing room, there was only a torn page from my notebook reading:

NOTE: YOU’LL NEVER CATCH ME.

“Is there an exit from here?” The girl just pointed to a small window that looked out onto the inner courtyard. Too small. I was forced to go back to the sauna.

My pursuer needed about two seconds to orient himself in the newly created situation. That’s all I needed to reach the exit. In one breath, I ran a twenty-meter sprint. Then I stopped and fixed my gaze on the exit. After a few seconds, my pursuer pushed the door open. He got rid of his flip-flops and then looked around with jerky movements, holding onto his towel. Three schoolgirls in pleated skirts were sitting at the bus stop, and one of them burst out laughing at the sight of him. “What are you laughing at?” He turned to her, which made her laugh even louder. Then he saw me.

He was fast, but the fact that he was barefoot gave me a big advantage, and I knew the streets where I had played hide-and-seek and tag as a child. Without looking back, I turned into the alleys and started zigzagging through my neighborhood. I entered an inner courtyard and squeezed through a hole in the wall that I remembered from childhood. Then I broke off a few branches and tried to camouflage the hole. The running man, wrapped in a towel, was about three hundred meters away. That was the last time I saw him. Correction – the second-to-last time.

I had already lost my pursuer and gradually slowed my pace. In the end, I wasn’t even walking, I was just shuffling, with that gait that wears out the soles of my shoes in negative time. Then I reached it. My home.

I hadn’t been there in a long time, but it was as if time had stopped to wait for me to return. On the left was the bakery where we used to shop. Opposite – that store that changed its purpose every two months. On the right – the big street they didn’t let me cross alone until seventh grade. And in front of me was the double door with a black mesh that led to the apartment where my mother and father lived.

I don’t know why I came here. Maybe my meeting with Sasho had subconsciously influenced me and I wanted to feel secure. “A dinner at mom and dad’s and then I’ll continue.” That all sounded reasonable, but I had never been reasonable. I had always been smart, but never reasonable.

I opened the door and pressed the buzzer with my surname written on it.

I don’t know if I was Chosen, but I’m sure I was what Sasho had just called a freak. I didn’t feel attachment to anything, and the conventional logic with which most people identify intellect was as boring to me as a seventh hour of math. I wouldn’t make a good programmer – I didn’t possess a single one of the qualities required to be one (dedication, organizational skills) and the worst part was that I didn’t want to acquire them. I didn’t want to change.

I thought again about Strugački, who obviously was very keen to get what he wanted and thought I could give it to him. I wished I could explain to him what had happened and why he was wrong to hope. I wished I could tell him something like: “Look, don’t imagine my ability (if it can even be called that) is like yours. You know the problems you might encounter along the way. I don’t. You are in full control of the situation – I can’t even control myself. I don’t know where I’m going, nor if I’ll get there or not. The fact that I wrote the code myself was an impulse that appears and disappears, like the headache that causes it. An impulse that…”

I interrupted my mental dialogue because right then I had one of those impulses. I turned, waved at the image of my mother that had appeared on the intercom, and headed in the opposite direction.

Anton’s statement was still swirling in my head: “…to find INDIVIDUAL PEOPLE to share our discovery with” “…who work outside the big machine…” “…They know enough to help us.” He was right.

Now I wanted to visit an old classmate who might be one of those people.

His name was Miroslav, but to me, his name was Snowball.

Anton’s Diary 2

The clock will show around five – five-something GMT. We will carry the luggage into my car and head to the place. I will forget to turn on my headlights, and the traffic cop stationed on my street will signal me to turn them on. No fine – I know him well. A little before we reach the place, Engineer-boy will get that headache again. I will ask him if he’s okay, and he will tell me it’s not as strong as usual. As we get closer, his headache will intensify, and I will suggest he tells me “Hot”-“Cold” so I can stop where we are closest. He will say it’s not funny, and I will agree with him.

Finally, we will reach the clearing, but there will be nothing there. The sky will be clear, and there will be many stars. Actually, it’s not correct to say “there will be many stars,” but rather “many stars will be visible,” because the stars are always there – we just don’t see them sometimes. But nevertheless, we know they are there. And the same applies to the Phenomenon. We won’t see it, but we will know it’s there.

We will park the car in a convenient spot and pitch the tent on the clearing. We will light a fire and sit by it to warm up. We’ll probably tell each other some silly stories. Or we’ll start some argument about a scientific issue. It doesn’t matter what – the important thing is that neither of us understands anything about it, so we are equal.

After a while, we will notice that about a kilometer away from us, there will be another fire lit. By then, we’ll be bored and naturally head over to see what’s happening. First, we’ll see several scattered tents pitched opposite each other. And then their owners – under a canopy made of colorful rags, four people will be sitting – three men and one woman.

We will go to them, and first the Engineer will try to start a conversation and ask them what they are looking for here. The men will look at him as if he said something contrary, but the Woman will smile and say something along the lines of: “What everyone is looking for.” So I won’t understand what she means.

After a while, the Engineer will pull me aside in a super tactless way and tell me: “Bro, did you hear the first one talking about the war? And then the one with the shirt mentioned at least a couple of times that they crossed the Iron Curtain to come here?” I’ll tell him I have no idea what he’s talking about. “They’re from the past, bro, don’t you understand?” I’ll nod. It will become super interesting to me that I can meet people from the past, and I’ll return to the conversation with them.

At one point, one of the men will get up from the ground, bring his face close to ours, and say: “What are you even doing! Can’t you see this is the end.” “The end of what?” “Of everything.”

The Engineer will start calming the man down, together with his friends, who will be almost as worried as him. He will ask them why they perceive everything unfamiliar as bad and will explain to them that when something new appears, it’s better to greet it with interest than with fright. Then the Engineer will start telling them about his previous experiences. He will speak so confidently and thoughtfully that he will provoke even stronger fear and anger in them.

After he finishes his story, we will all bow our heads for a second, and the silence will be broken only by the crackling of the wood in the fire. After a while, that guy who was getting on everyone’s nerves the whole time will stand up and start shouting at Engineer-boy: “Who the hell are you?”, things like that. The Engineer will interrupt him, unexpectedly, even rudely, and ask him if he wants him to demonstrate what he’s talking about. And when the man says “Yes,” the Engineer will lightly take him by the shoulder and lead him a few steps aside. The man will continue to rant. But after a few seconds, he will suddenly stop.

He will freeze.

Silence will fall again, and this time even the crackling of the wood in the fire won’t be heard. The man will stand there, as if sealed by an invisible camera. After a while, I will realize that the Engineer hasn’t moved an inch either. I will try to say something to express my astonishment and will realize that I can’t move either. The whole landscape around will be static, as if someone had hit “Pause” on everything.

We will spend a few minutes like that. I will think about various things a bit (after all, what else can I do). At one point, I will hear my own voice saying a line I had thought of: “Hey, that’s really cool!” The woman will turn to me: “What?” And then to them: “Billy! What happened to him?” The woman will stand up and run towards the said Billy (the instigator because of whom all this happened), followed by the other people. He will have collapsed on the floor, half unconscious, and will be screaming some incoherent sounds. A mild case of infinite loop. A few slaps will fix him.

The people will look at Billy, then at us. And then at him again and then… And we will judge that in cases like this, good manners require us to slip away quietly, without making an impression.

After we leave, I will ask the Engineer since when he can do such things. He will tell me it’s because he’s close to the Phenomenon and feels its presence. And I will ask him why he doesn’t see it then. “I don’t know.” And he will look at the sky once more, shrug his shoulders, and smile, as if there’s nothing cooler in the world than not knowing.

Time

Soon, I was already walking along the road from my apartment to Mirko’s. For a period of six years, we passed there every day on our way home from school. But, as you may have noticed, small children don’t feel time passing and can’t track it. As a result (at least for me), memories of all childhood events merged into one picture, which at the time seemed to me like a frame from an animated film. I didn’t remember when most things in it had happened. I didn’t remember if they had ever even happened in that order, or if my brain had strung them together for mnemonic reasons. But I knew that if someone ever asked me what I did before I grew up (and before that graduation exam), I would answer like this:

I’m with Mirko, and with us is Liliya (and probably The Curious One is playing “Pirates and Bones” with the other boys, or running so as not to miss another episode of Star Trek). She smiles at us and talks to us about all sorts of things. She says that most people in our class behave very immaturely toward Mirko. She wonders why they insult him so much.

I tell her that there probably isn’t any reason for them to insult him, and it’s more likely they’re just doing it (at that time, I was also on the receiving end of a fair amount of teasing). She objects, saying there must be a reason for them to do it. Finally, she prompts Mirko himself, as the smartest, to give his opinion.

He tells us that he doesn’t care what others think, and advises us not to listen to them either, because if we do, we won’t get anywhere in life.

I suggest to Mirko and Liliya that we not go home right after school, but instead sit a while in the little garden (this garden no longer exists). Liliya agrees immediately, but Snowball says he doesn’t have time for that because he has to study. I pretend to be offended, but secretly I’m glad he won’t be with us, because that way I’ll have a chance to sit alone with Liliya. I finally decide to confess to her that I’m in love with her, as I’d been planning to do for a long time.

The weather is nice. She lies down on the tennis table and I lie down next to her, using our school backpacks as pillows. Then we get caught up in some interesting conversation about the world, in which each of us says what we’ve heard, from school or from home, and together we try to explain what they don’t tell us.

After a certain time, our conversation is interrupted—Liliya’s sister comes to call her for dinner. She tells her that their mother is very angry that she didn’t come home while it was still light again. Liliya gets scared and immediately leaves. And when I’m parting with her, I realize I forgot to tell her I love her.

“Nothing,” I say to myself. “Next time.”

After that, we graduated. Liliya and her parents went somewhere, and she disappeared from my life. Mirko (Snowball) went to study at some school for gifted children, and I failed the graduation exam and… Yes, no need to tell it twice.

When I was OK again, I was already feeling time in a slightly different way and realized that there were things that would never be the same again.

The moment I reached the apartment block at the end of the street (where Snowball lived), I heard the voice of my third-grade math teacher in my head:

“Aleksandar Katev, are you daydreaming again?”

She helped me a lot to concentrate when I was little, which is why even today, whenever my thoughts become too chaotic, I imagine her image, and it helps me return to my goal.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“I’m going to meet with Snowball to see if he can give me some explanation for what’s happening to me.”

“And how will memories of Liliya help you get your explanation?”

“Well…”

“Stop thinking about her, then.”

“Sorry, ma’am. It won’t happen again.”

“Don’t apologize to me; instead, remember everything about Mirko that will be useful to you!”

My thoughts returned to Mirko. And when I tried to see this person through the prism of the past years, I understood that things with him were not exactly as I had imagined them back then.

First: he wasn’t a swot at all. True, at first glance you could easily take him for one of those pathetic kids who were so insecure in their personal qualities that their only goal was to make a good impression on their teachers and parents, but in reality, he neither had low self-esteem nor made an effort to be liked by anyone. On the contrary—his self-esteem was huge and grew in accordance with his knowledge (it probably continues to grow to this day). And as for the desire to make a good impression: if I dig a little in my memories, I can remember several teachers who hated him, even more than his classmates.

And the boys and girls in my class really didn’t like him at all. And before, we often wondered why that was. And now, when I thought about it, I managed to come up with a theory that answered this question.

The case is this: To function normally, a person needs to have a high opinion of themselves, and it affects them badly when another person who is proven to be better at something (or, as in this case, at many things) crushes their self-esteem. In this case, each person individually would try to justify to themselves the arrogance of that more perfect individual. And all the people together had managed to do this by collectively hating him and transferring onto him the negative feelings they felt toward themselves.

Certainly, this picture isn’t entirely accurate and is quite simplified, but thanks to it, I somewhat understood why Snowball was the object of so much mockery. What I still had no idea about was why he paid them no attention. Mockery at school usually inflicts very heavy damage on the psyche (after all, I’d had close encounters with psychologists and knew this), and its victims often spend their entire lives trying to be as “normal” and indistinguishable as possible, hoping they’ll be left alone (which never happens). Here I was dealing with a person who hadn’t changed one bit all these years, and who never started caring more about others’ opinions—quite the opposite.

I pressed Mirko’s doorbell and waited…

Ever since Mirko and I stopped being classmates, communication with him began to become more and more difficult—he had a strong fear of certain things (authority and physical violence), an aversion to others (popular culture and superstitions), and when I talked with him, I had to choose conversation topics with tweezers, which was sometimes difficult. And since Liliya was no longer there to balance the communication between us, we gradually lost touch.

I was now at the door. I had to decide which part of the story to share with Snowball. The light. The heap. The endless cycle. The bag. The rover. The second when the night sky lit up like day. Many events and many points of view from which they could be considered. Finally, I decided to talk to him only about the scientific side of the issue, without unnecessary digressions that might get him into trouble (or make him think I’m crazy). The apartment door opened and Mirko’s mother appeared. I had seen her many times, and she recognized me immediately. She was cheerful and smiling, in that way that at her age was only achievable with the help of the chemical compound C2H5OH, known as alcohol.

“Who do my eyes see,” she said. “Aleksandar! I haven’t seen you in…”

“Ten years?” I prompted her.

“Well, it’s possible,” she laughed. “But don’t just stand there. Come in for a drink.”

“No, thanks. I don’t drink. Is Mirko here?”

“No, but he’ll be back in about twenty minutes. Why don’t you come wait in his room?”

“Okay, but… In his room? We haven’t been in touch for a long time, are you sure he won’t mind?”

“I’m not,” she said. “But I’m sure he needs to socialize with someone who can finally bring him back to life. Just come in. Come on—what are you waiting for?”

She had undoubtedly bothered Mirko many times and tried to “bring him back to life.” The truth was, he lived quite a full life. She just didn’t understand him. But I understood him—he was a freak like me.

His room hadn’t changed since the time he was still a student: thick curtains protected it from the sun, the windows were always closed, and the silence was unnerving, making you stressed about every sound you heard. I think even he sometimes got sick of this atmosphere (both figuratively and literally) and didn’t change it only because he didn’t have enough sense of ownership over the place he inhabited. Even now it was no one’s home—there were only a few details there that, involuntarily, like crime scene clues, revealed what kind of person lived there.

I would start with his laptop—a square, heavy black ThinkPad, whose screen was so dusty that the desktop icons were hard to distinguish, but whose keyboard was worn from pressing. The keys had traces of ketchup—apparently for Snowball, laptops were the perfect excuse to abandon traditional table dining, which anyway always seemed pointless to them.

Another detail—on the wall was a photocopy of a scientific publication from “New Scientist.” “Author: Miroslav Kolev.”

“Bravo, Mirko,” I thought. I doubted anyone besides me had paid attention. And even though Snowball had been sending articles (or attempts at them) to this magazine since sixth grade, I doubted anyone had ever congratulated him on his success.

So when he arrived, I used that as a starting point for conversation:

“Hello… Mirko. Bravo on the article, by the way.”

“Did you read it?” The way he looked at me hadn’t changed over the years.

“Not all the way through,” I said. “What’s it about?”

“Well, in short, it’s a different perspective on string theory…”

His answer contained many words I didn’t understand, and every time I asked about the meaning of one of them, he explained it using at least two more words I didn’t know.

If you speak in terminology more often than in your normal language, terminology becomes your normal language.

NOTE:

“If you’re interested, I can give you a book,” he said finally.

“What book?”

“It’s good… Everything is explained there, as for…”

“As for what?”

“So what have you been up to lately?” He changed the subject.

“Well, nothing special.”

“I heard you became a programmer.”

“That’s an overstatement. I’m just making a living.”

“Right,” he said. “What did you come for?”

“I wanted you to tell me your opinion regarding a phenomenon I noticed.”

“Right.”

“What’s ‘right’?”

“You need information. And since you’re too lazy to find it yourself, you prefer me to explain it to you.”

“If you can.”

My remark had the desired effect: Mirko got angry that I expressed doubt about his abilities and decided to dispel it:

“Tell me what you saw?” he said. “Everything you noticed.”

I described my first encounter with the Phenomenon, which he looked at skeptically: “Obviously that energy you encountered caused hallucinations. Nature has many substances with hallucinogenic effects.” He took out a notebook and started writing something in it, but didn’t say anything more until I reached the moment of the light I had seen in the taxi.

“And thanks to that light, were you able to see an object you wouldn’t have seen if it didn’t exist?”

“No. I could see even less than before.”

He wrote something in his notebook again, but I still wasn’t sure whether he was analyzing the Phenomenon or me.

“If you don’t believe me, I can stop bothering you,” I said.

“No, for now I’m just trying to structure what you’re telling me and draw conclusions,” he said calmly. “Go on.”

“You don’t believe me, but you’re interested, is that it?”

“Look, it’s not about belief,” he replied. “I just like structuring a known amount of facts and drawing conclusions. I take it as an exercise. Besides, from a practical standpoint, almost all scientific research is meaningless.” He pushed up his glasses and leaned toward the monitor, his spine forming an arc. “And from one perspective, even all of it…”

This remark somehow inspired me, and I told him everything. I delved deep and remembered details I haven’t even described here. Snowball took notes vigorously, and when I finished, he began reviewing his notes, lost in thought.

“Have you considered the following…” he said after a while. “Why did that beam, as you describe it, simply disappear after a certain time, while this condensed darkness”—he scribbled something in his notepad—”somehow remained…”

“Why?”

“I don’t know either. But that’s not the issue.”

“Well?”

“Look, Aleksandar—a big part of being a scientist consists of asking the right questions. For example, now I have no idea why the light disappeared, but I’m sure the answer to that question would be very important for building a theory that explains the whole phenomenon.”

“You’re right,” I said. And it probably was so. But I myself had enough questions. What I lacked were answers.

“Should I leave you now?” I asked Mirko after our conversation ended.

“If you want, we can talk for another hour,” he said absently. “Besides, my computer is defragmenting and I won’t be able to work on it.”

I had long understood that work drove Mirko’s world. Indeed, while talking to me, he relaxed and even began to smile from time to time, but it was clear to me that meeting with me was just a little entertainment for him. A way to come to himself between two heavy work sessions.

His mother entered the room without knocking. She was beaming and enthusiastic:

“Boys, look who’s come to see you.”

“Mom, you know I don’t like surprises,” Mirko replied.

“How sweet!” she said. “You’re exactly as I remember you from your school years…”

“Stop the nonsense,” Mirko yelled at his mother, but she left the room without answering him.

A little later, the door opened again.

The Curious One.

“What are you doing here?” Mirko asked.

“I came to ask you something.”

“Are you making fun of me again?”

“No, look, it’s important. I have a question… It’s important and only you can help me: Why does the mirror flip the image horizontally but not vertically? I mean… Left and right switch, but up and down stay as they are… What’s the logic…”

“Well, maybe…” Snowball began to reason feverishly. “Maybe…”

NOTE:

Contradictions are sometimes so obvious that we don’t pay attention to them.

At school, The Curious One loved to torment Mirko terribly by inventing such logical fallacies—unsolvable tasks that played with his understanding of logic and made him feel stupid. And since The Curious One was the only one smart enough to do this, he perceived annoying Mirko as a kind of intellectual challenge. He enjoyed doing it. He enjoyed even more watching Mirko fall into his trap every time and reach states he couldn’t reach in any other way.

It was strange to me that Anton and Mirko weren’t on good terms. Both were quite intelligent, both were my friends, and both were freaks, as that old classmate had noted. But at the same time, Snowball was so logical and analytical, and The Curious One so scattered, that this kept them in constant conflict. They were a bit like the images in the mirror Anton was talking about: completely identical, but for some strange reason, completely opposite.

The two were already about to start an argument, close to a quarrel, when I stopped them and pulled The Curious One aside to catch up with him:

“How did you know I was here?” I asked him. “Were you following me?”

“Following you? Where did that come from? Wait… Someone was following you, right?”

NOTE:

He always knows everything.

I briefly told him about the car and my successful escape. Now it was my turn to ask questions:

“How did you decide to come here exactly?”

“What do you think?”

“Did you think about who could help us? Made a plan?”

“Tsk. Mirko’s mother called me, said you were here, and invited me to come too.”

“And why did she think we wanted you here?” I asked.

“Yeah, right. Why did she think we wanted you here?”

“Stop putting on airs,” The Curious One pretended to be annoyed. “You’re acting as if you have other friends besides me.”

After a minute, I felt tired and relaxed on the sofa by the window. The Curious One and Snowball followed me, not stopping their fierce argument about the new topic they had picked up. Both were shouting and calling each other all sorts of names, but I know that inside they felt good. And by saying this, I’m not contradicting myself—they really didn’t like each other, even hated each other a little, but both knew there was something that connected them, and connected both of them to me. It’s just that when they got together and started talking, an alternative reality seemed to form around them. A reality with no stress, where it didn’t matter who was what, and where conflicts appeared and were resolved solely on the basis of intellectual differences, not emotional ones. As I listened to them, I gradually transported myself into that reality, and so the worries I had yesterday disappeared. It was as if the three of us had returned to our childhood—to the time when nothing surprised us, but everything amazed us.

“You should never believe something without having seen it yourself,” Snowball spoke heatedly. “Even if your mother or father told you, you should never trust someone else’s judgment, because every individual’s judgment is subjective. The only objective thing is what is established through observation and experiment, and the reasons for whose appearance are determined.”

“And what happens when you see something you can’t explain?” The Curious One said. “By your logic, you should pretend it doesn’t exist. Which doesn’t seem very objective to me.”

“And where is there such a thing, except in your sick brain?”

“In my backpack.”

“You brought it?” I jumped in surprise.

“What’s the big deal?”

“Did he really bring it?” Mirko’s eyes lit up. “I want to see it!”

He grabbed Anton’s bag, but I snatched it from his hands:

“Wait a second, Mirko,” I said. “There’s one factor you’re underestimating: What you’re about to see invalidates all scientific activity in the field of physics for the last fifty years… Including…” I squinted at the article hanging on his wall. “Including your contribution…”

“I don’t care. I want to know the truth.”

“Okay. Your decision about what you want to know and what you don’t is decisive. But personally, I wouldn’t show you this. True, I came first to tell you about the Phenomenon, but… I’d rather have you think I’m crazy than have you go crazy.”

“Let me see it,” Mirko insisted.

“Show it to him, come on,” The Curious One intervened.

My hand was already feeling the shopping bag and I was about to take it out when it occurred to me that it wouldn’t be fair to Mirko. It wouldn’t be fair to show it to him without having told him everything.

“Listen, we found this thing in a man’s house. A scientist.”

“Yes?”

“That man was dead. He had killed himself.”

For a moment, no one said anything.

“I don’t… understand anything,” Mirko began to stammer. “Why did he… do that… Why did he do it?”

“Because he couldn’t bear the fact that everything he knew, the learning that cost him his whole life, turned out to be wrong. In computer science, there’s a concept called an infinite loop. That’s when…”

“I know what it is!”

“So you already know everything we do.”

I took out the shopping bag and left it on the floor between us so all three of us could see it. No one said anything. And there was no need. When we were in school, I didn’t feel particularly close to Mirko, but at that moment, when I saw how he looked at it, I realized how many things we had shared. And how much more we were sharing now.

He slowly reached for the bag…

“We’re so close with him… There’s no way I can accept it and he can’t. Just no way.”

…opened the zipper…

“Besides, the decision to see it is his. He knows everything we do, and we haven’t influenced him in any way.”

…and looked inside.

For a few seconds, his face remained expressionless, and then a strong emotion showed on it. But that emotion wasn’t surprise, nor fear. It was anger.

“What are you showing me?” he asked.

“Try to illuminate the inside and see what’s in there…”

“It is illuminated. There’s just nothing inside.”

“But you have to learn to look…” The Curious One jumped up and stood behind Mirko. “Wait a minute! Engineer, come here! It’s gone.”

I turned to look, and indeed I could see the inside of the bag without a problem.

“I don’t understand,” I said.

Mirko responded:

“I, however, do understand. This is a trick.”

“You think we’re deceiving you?” I said.

“Stop the nonsense,” Mirko turned to me. “From the moment you started talking to me, I was almost sure you were trying to deceive me. I believed you only because I thought you didn’t have a twisted enough imagination to invent such a sophisticated fallacy. But then he appeared.” He pointed at The Curious One. “And my suspicion was confirmed.”

“But why would we do it?” Anton asked.

“And why did you behave like that with me when we were in school? Ten years have passed, boys. I thought you understood that lasting self-esteem is achieved by accomplishing something yourself, not by mocking people who have accomplished something.”

Then I understood how Mirko managed to overcome all the humiliations in our class and escape the blows everyone tried to inflict on him—he simply knew they were doing it out of envy. He knew he was better than them and knew that their mockery was actually desperate attempts to suppress their own insecurity. And his knowledge allowed him to be himself.

But in this case (probably for the first time in his life), he had made a mistake.

“Mirko, look…” I said. “We’re not lying to you. It really was there. I don’t know what it was and why it’s gone now, but it was there. Forget The Curious One, do you think I would lie to you about something like that?”

“I have no idea,” he said calmly. “Maybe someone deceived you? How should I know how your psyche functions? And why should I bother to understand?”

“But, Mirko…”

“Hey! My computer is working now,” he informed us. Then he got up from his spot and sat in front of his laptop, with his back to us.

“Wait a minute,” The Curious One turned to me. “Damn it, this isn’t the same bag! The one we found was terribly worn out. Look at this one! It’s like new!”

“How many such bags do you have here?” I cut him off.

He tried to yell, but gave up and asked meekly:

“Okay, then, can you think of any explanation?”

“No,” I said.

And then I added:

Besides Mirko’s.

A little later, we were leaving.

Something had happened to Anton after we left. His smile had vanished, and his face now looked broken and unhappy. I was used to such changes: he often jumped from states of purest joy to mind-boggling despair, the change always instantaneous and easily noticeable, as if someone were switching his moods with a remote. And when we left the apartment, that remote was switched to the “DEPRESSION” channel.

“What’s wrong with you?” I asked him.

Mentally, I went over our last conversation and answered myself for what Anton was experiencing. He really liked the fact that the Phenomenon existed. It made his life more beautiful because the reality beyond the limits of our understanding made him forget about that other reality we face every day (drugs had the same effect on him). A little while ago, Mirko, and to some extent I, had hinted to him that the Phenomenon didn’t exist. And that was apparently enough to shake his own faith.

He sat on the sidewalk and seemed to wait for something to happen. I wanted to ask him immediately how he felt, but instead I sat next to him and waited for him to speak first:

“It’s gone, seems like,” he said.

“Maybe.”

“Engineer. Didn’t you support that evolution theory?”

“I find it meaningful, yes,” I said cautiously, expecting him to explode. Instead, he got annoyed:

“I know you find it meaningful, but I’m asking something else: Do you think it applies now. To us humans. That the world we inhabit at the moment is one big progress machine, driven by the ‘fittest’?”

“And what if it is?”

“Well, nothing, I was just wondering what my role is in such a world?!”

“Well, it’s simple. So, when the circumstances around you change, you adapt to them, because otherwise you’ll die. In a way, the reason for change is your self-preservation instinct, or in other words, fear of death. Because that’s what the self-preservation instinct is—fear of death, right?”

“And?”

“Well, okay, now imagine some guy like me, who isn’t afraid of death, and lives as he WANTS, not as is best for him? A person who just wants to live as he likes. If we’re just a more talkative version of animals, where is THAT PERSON’S place in the picture?”

It struck me how The Curious One seemed to be hiding himself under the expression “that person.”

“Well, aren’t you afraid of death?”

“I have no idea. Stop asking questions.”

“Sorry. That’s probably the only thing I know how to do.”

A girl, roughly our age, passed by us, riding a bicycle. I got déjà vu. I had the feeling I’d seen her somewhere, but couldn’t remember exactly where. She, however, apparently remembered, because she turned the handlebars and headed toward me.

NOTE:

To remember the names of people I interact with (or at least those of them who remember mine).

I stood up and looked at her more closely, rummaging through the memories in my brain in search of the one connected to her. “Who is she? What if she stops and talks to me. What will I say to her?” I was wondering things like that when The Curious One snapped me out of my trance, only to excite me even more with a name he uttered simultaneously as an exclamation and a question:

“LILIYAAAAAA!?”

The girl approached me and looked me over from head to toe. The resemblance was striking. I hadn’t seen my girl in years, but somehow with my heart I knew it was her. I blushed all over. From nervousness, I couldn’t open my mouth, even though I wanted to tell her many things. Or rather one thing, but many times. A little after she passed me, she stopped, turned to me, and uttered two short words:

“Me too.”

As I watched her silhouette disappear into the darkness, something got in my eye.

Suddenly, the answers to all my questions shone like fireworks, and I understood everything I wanted to know. The Curious One ran up to me, still unable to catch his breath from surprise and fatigue. Seeing my calm expression, he immediately understood he had catching up to do and began interrogating me.

I was exhilarated. I talked nonstop for half an hour, but couldn’t formulate a single sentence that made any sense, and from time to time I only hinted at what I meant:

“Okay, listen to me, Anton. The main thing you need to remember is that time does not run out. For the Phenomenon, time does not run out. That’s the main thing.”

“What?” He looked around as if hoping someone else would come and explain it better to him.

“Look, you can travel to the past. What’s stopping you?”

“How can I travel to the past?”

“Well, you see!” I took out the shopping bag. “This is from the past. You’re wondering why it looks like new, right? Well, that’s why? Because it comes from the past. And because we went back there. But there’s something else: do you know what happened today in the taxi?”

“New twenty!”

NOTE:

To learn to explain various things. (Not everything is described on the Internet.)

“Do you even know what you want to say?” The Curious One asked.

“Yes.”

“Then you have exactly five minutes to explain it to me again, or you’ll lose me. Exactly five minutes!” He rolled up his left sleeve and pointed at his watch. “I’m timing!”

I looked at the screen of the worn-out Casio he had owned ever since we knew each other. With the help of the small numbers on the display, I tracked the passing of a period of five seconds.

“Okay. Let’s first talk about… About clocks. Those expressions like ‘I have/don’t have time,’ and also the expression ‘Time is running out’ didn’t exist before there were clocks.”

“And?”

“And actually, when you think about it, clocks, along with calendars, have changed the very way we perceive time. From subjective to objective, understand? For example, you have a feeling that a super long time has passed, but your watch says five minutes. Also, a given event can seem short to you, but it lasted a whole day. And most importantly: clock time only moves forward, while we humans often have the feeling that we’re going back.”

“Okay, I understand you so far. But what do you want to say with that?”

“So, I told everything that happened to me to Snowball. And he asked a very important question: Why did the beam of light disappear, while what’s in the bag remained. And the answer is: because the Phenomenon, and the objects and people connected to it, follow subjective time. The internal feeling of people.”

“WHICH people?”

I winked at him and smiled.

“Okay, fine. From MY feeling,” I said.

Then I presented the evidential part of this improvised thesis:

How long has it been since we came here? At least a year, right. Maybe that’s why today, I can’t get rid of the feeling that I’m going back. And apparently… Apparently, this bag, somehow, returned with me. Look. There’s no wear on it anywhere. No holes. And most importantly, there’s no darkness. Simply because at that time, which we returned to, then, the darkness didn’t exist.

“There’s some logic…” The Curious One said. “But still, I don’t understand why you’re so convinced? Because of the bag? Because of what Snowball told you…”

“…and because I was convinced firsthand!”

I told him about my experiences while riding in the taxi and about the moment I saw the light again. I devoted more than half the story to that one second.

“You were right,” I finished. “Apparently, somehow I’m connected to the Phenomenon and have control over when it appears.”

“So you can trigger it again?” His eyes lit up. “Can you bring it back?”

“Technically, ‘bring it back’ isn’t the right term.”

“To hell with it. Can you or not?”

“I can. But I don’t know how.”

“If what you’re saying is true, then apparently there was something special about the situation you were in on the fifteenth of February. And which was present, partially, when you were in the taxi. Can you think of any connection between the two?”

I strained my brain.

“Well, no. The first time, it seems like there was nothing special. Before I saw the light, I mean. I was just at work and… well, trying to work. And the second time… I had just found out I was being followed and was very tense. But no, if there’s a connection between the two, I don’t know if I can find it…”

For about half an hour, we stopped talking because both of us were thinking about what we had discovered. Then Anton broke the silence, continuing the conversation as if there had been no pause at all:

“But you know…” he said. “There’s another way.”

He immediately launched into telling me his idea:

“So far, we’ve approached the question a bit too technically. But there’s one thing we haven’t taken into account—that the fact that we don’t know why the Phenomenon appears doesn’t prevent it from appearing.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Well, it’s true that since we don’t know the cause, we can’t trigger it artificially. But even without knowing it, we can try to create the best possible CONDITIONS for it to appear. That is, to recreate as accurately as possible the situation in which it appeared before. That is, the fifteenth of February. With everything… I mean, to wake up the same way, do the same things during the day, and so on. Hey, you know what I remembered?”

“What?”

“You didn’t manage to get off work. Tomorrow you’re in the office, bro! Just like on the fifteenth.”

“And like all other days, Anton.”

After brief (perhaps too brief) consideration, we decided to try to implement his idea the next day.

The evening passed quietly for us in reading and PlayStation games. We went to bed late. In the morning, he drove me to work. On the way, I hardly talked to him because I imagined I was alone and had returned again to the moment when all this began.

Anton’s Diary 3

While we return to our tent, we will notice that the meadow has become more crowded than before. And that’s putting it mildly: It will be full of people, having come from all corners of time and space: To the right there will be a real old-time fortress, surrounded by a wall of logs, and from its entrance you will see several large fires, around which will be gathered twenty bearded men, wrapped in animal skins. To the right – several military minibuses with satellite dishes stuck on them, which will be fiddling around searching for signals. While we search for our tent we will also pass through a hunting party, armed with double-barreled shotguns. And the entire meadow will be surrounded by a yellow nylon tape with the inscription “POLICE LINE, DO NOT CROSS.” While we move in a zigzag, through tents, caravans, and bivouacs, we will notice that the different small groups of people, as if they don’t see each other. Each of them will be occupied in itself, without desiring to establish contact with the rest - only the Little Engineer will insist on talking to all of them - he will start to persuade me to stop at one of the tents and get acquainted with the people there. I will tell him that I find no sense in looking for trouble, and he will tell me something of the sort like “But somewhere there might be a person who is in the same situation as me.” I will calm him down by saying that even if he searches the whole world, he will hardly find another one like him. When we reach back to our camp I will be terribly tired and will decide to lie down. But I won’t be able to fall asleep, because the Little Engineer will have gotten one of those famous headaches again. He will toss and turn in his sleeping bag, will mumble in his sleep and will wake up continuously, to beg me for various things: “Anton, do you have Analgin?” “Brother, I don’t have any medicine on me, and you expect me to have brought some here.” “But I really need it.” “Well, you should have bought some! You’ll wake me up one more time and I’ll put you to sleep with kicks.” He will wrap himself head-to-toe in his sleeping bag, and for a moment everything will be quiet. For a moment: “Lovedearly? Are you asleep?” - He will ask. “Yes.” “Please, open the tent a little, I’m literally suffocating.” I will grab the zipper and will pull it all the way up. A cold wind will rush into the tent and the stars will twinkle through the thin vertical slit. I will feel somehow strange, and somehow cool, as if the whole meaning of life is hidden in such types of moments. The Engineer will emerge from under the covers and his gaze will head straight for the slit. He will look at it like that for several minutes and then will take a deep breath and will say: “We found it.”

Don’t fear

On the morning of the fifteenth of February, I woke up a little late. I stopped at my usual spot in front of the office, greeted the doorman, and entered the elevator. I took a newspaper, but there was nothing interesting in it, so I threw it away. I was late for work. I looked at my colleagues with mixed feelings and entered the office of the company owner: “Sorry I’m late,” I said to him. “Traffic here…” “It’s nothing. Sit down and get to work.” He didn’t even look at me. I immediately turned around and started to leave. “That’s how it is – you start the day enthusiastic, but then little by little you calm down,” I thought to myself, while grabbing the door handle. When I opened it… No. Today wasn’t the fifteenth. And unfortunately, it had nothing to do with the fifteenth. Standing before me was the driver of the white Rover. “What’s going on here?” I asked. The man didn’t even move his eyes. “What are you talking about?” Strugatski asked. “Who is this?” “I have no idea…” From his voice, it was obvious he didn’t have much experience dealing with people, and certainly had no experience in deceiving them. “Why don’t we ask him?” He turned to the man. “Excuse me, who are you? And what are you doing in my office.” “Um, I…” This pitiful picture depressed me with its absurdity. “Alright, I believe you,” I said. “I’m going back to work.” “You’re lying!” Strugatski dropped the pretenses. “I know you’ll try to escape. And I knew it even before, that’s why I insured myself.” Then he turned to the Rover’s driver: “Dimo, take the man to the other office.” “Where to?” “Please, don’t you remember what we agreed?” His tone betrayed how unnatural it was for him to deal with such people. For his good fortune, and my horror, the man remembered everything. He grabbed my shoulder and motioned for me to follow him. While we were going down the stairs, I tried to imagine how Strugatski had become the employer of this obviously experienced criminal. How did he find him? Through an ad in the newspaper? Or did he know him from before? In any case, I didn’t believe the latter. I could say that I knew my boss a little or a lot, and that he was far removed from anything not related to information technology. In a perfect world, he and Dimo (as this guy apparently was named, whose fingers were now digging like pliers into my neck) would have no points of contact. Due to the huge difference in their mental caliber, they wouldn’t be able to talk to each other. And the fact that they managed to only showed how far a person can go from themselves to achieve their goals. We left the building just in time to be hit by the first sun rays. The memories they provoked made me smile. “What’s so funny?” The man asked me. “No, nothing. Last time… You remember, you were running naked after me.” “I didn’t see you laughing then!” “No. I was scared then. But not anymore.” The man no longer seemed threatening, but that didn’t change the fact that I had no way to oppose him, nor to escape from him. Unless I managed to find Anton, with whose help I could make the odds two to one. That morning, Anton was driving me to work. I remembered how tired and run-down he looked, due to the early rising, and because he hadn’t had coffee, and I thought that he was most likely somewhere around, looking for that so necessary substance for him. I broke free from the man and ran towards the coffee machine by the entrance. He chased after me, but before he could catch me, I managed to catch a glimpse of Anton, who was rummaging in his back pocket for change. “Lovedearly!” Anton turned around, just in time to see my pursuer grab my arm and twist it behind my back. “Where the hell are you taking him!?” Anton yelled, while running towards us. “And who are you?” The pursuer asked in turn. “It doesn’t matter who I am. I’m taking my friend to work, and five minutes later I see you taking him…” “…somewhere against his will! What is this? A hidden clause from the employment contract?” “If you don’t stop shouting I’ll slap you one, to shut you up!” “Alright.” Lovedearly lowered his voice to a whisper. “Let’s come to an understanding now.” “Go fuck yourself.” The man grabbed my neck, and now openly began dragging me towards the back seat of his car.

NOTE: Sign up for some kind of martial art.

Lovedearly was staring at us and thinking about how to act. I knew him so well that I have the feeling I could hear his thoughts: “Damn, I’m too weak to take this guy down. OK, I’ll shove him, he’ll lose his balance, but he’s got the Little Engineer gripped too tightly. I could kick him in the balls – no, that’s not my style. Look, if I go at him with fists, he’ll have to let go of the Little Engineer to retaliate. But then he’ll grab me. No, that option’s no good. I need another one….” With a move that seemed routine for him, the man shoved me into the back seat of his car, sat in the driver’s seat, and turned the key. But before he could move, Lovedearly stood in front, so the man couldn’t leave the parking lot without hitting him. The man rolled down his window, and stuck his head out. He looked Anton over and as if he was already beginning to understand what kind of person he was dealing with: “Listen, buddy, you better get out of the way…” He said. “Not gonna happen, buddy.” “Alright, will you tell me what your problem is?” “I have a request for you.” “No, I’m not letting him go.” “OK.” Lovedearly said. “But I don’t want you to let him go.” “Then what the hell do you want?” “To get in with you.” From there began a dialogue that was so absurd it’s pointless to recount it. Lovedearly spoke quickly and incoherently. Several times he mentioned Strugatski’s name, with a tone as if they were practically best friends. Then he started complaining about how unfair it was to kidnap me, given that almost all the credit for everything was his. Several times he raised his voice, and expressed that he was extremely annoyed by what had happened. All this was a perfectly played role, and Lovedearly was a born conman with a unique talent for deceiving people, making them think his way. Watching him, I felt like crying over this huge waste of talent that his life had been so far. Damn it! If he wanted to, this man could make all the people in the world follow him, if only he knew where to lead them. Dimo empathized with Lovedearly’s situation, but kept insisting that he had to carry out literally what Strugatski had told him. Lovedearly told him that if he took him too, Strugatski would be even more pleased: “Two hostages are always better than one,” he said. This thought may sound stupid now, but in the context of the conversation, it seemed logical. “Alright. Just no nonsense.” The man opened the door and Anton settled in next to me, with an infantile smile on his face. I turned to him and whispered: “Now I understand how you bargained for the house…” A minute later we were already at the edge of the city. It was empty except for one unfinished business building, the road to which wasn’t yet asphalted. The man stopped the car as close to it as possible and turned to us: “Give me your phones,” he said. After we gave them to him, he searched us additionally and motioned for us to walk. The building was empty. While entering it, I noticed that logos of the firms that were about to move in were already printed by the door, among which was the one I worked for. The man took us up in the elevator and then led us through a massive iron door with an electronic lock, leading to an apartment that was equipped as an office. In the main room, there were several desks. Next to them – brand new computers with water cooling. There were also two smaller rooms, one of which was a kitchenette with a coffee machine, and the other – a server room equipped with stable hardware. Yes, the place looked exactly like an office with one difference – in the middle of the room was a large mattress. “If you need anything, tell your boss.” The man slammed the door and the latch slid down behind him like a guillotine. Then I realized what all this was for – Strugatski wanted me to write the Core Algorithm that would power the thinking machine. And he wasn’t going to let me out until he saw it working. Upon examining the premises, I established that the man had left us with no means of escape. The windows were tinted and didn’t open. There was no one and nothing around us, and I could already guess that the computers were connected only to an internal network with the other office. More precisely, to one computer in the other office – Strugatski’s. My thought was confirmed when he started writing to me: “Your files are here” – That was the first message he sent me. And indeed, all the information from my work computer had been uploaded to this one. “What files is he talking about?” That was Lovedearly. “Do you remember the project I told you about?” “Yeah, and?” “Well, apparently he really wants me to finish it.” “I had your colleagues test all the code of the program,” Strugatski continued. “And upload it to a decent machine – see the server room.” I closed the window and opened my files again. Everything was exactly as I had left it last time. It felt like an eternity had passed since then – I felt my fingers were stiff because they hadn’t pressed a keyboard in a long time. “What are we going to do?” Anton asked. “What are YOU going to do is the question. You’ll have to find yourself some occupation while I work on the CA.” “When are you starting?” “I’ve already started,” I said. Less than five minutes after we were locked up, I was already immersed in work. Half an hour later, Lovedearly got bored and started peeking over my shoulder and asking questions: “What are you doing?” “Writing the CA.” “But do you know how to do it?” “I have no idea…” He let me work for a few more minutes, then interrupted again: “But if you don’t know how to do it, don’t you want to stop and think about it?” “No.” “Why not?” “I’ve been thinking about it the whole time.” I blurted out the answer instantly, almost without realizing its meaning. Then I thought more deeply about my own remark. What was happening to me? One would think that under such circumstances, I had already forgotten what I had been struggling with a few days ago from nine to five. But I hadn’t. Behind all the fright, behind all the unexpected events of the last few days, my brain was reasoning about this task. A machine that thinks like a human… I hadn’t even thought about what it could be used for. I wasn’t convinced its development was possible. I didn’t think about the moral side of the question – whether. But ever since the task stood before me, at some deep level of my consciousness, I hadn’t thought about anything else but it. I felt the problem was there and was just waiting for me to dive into it and forget everything else. At first, the development didn’t go anywhere, and that forced me to stop and think about the way computers and humans think. Software executes certain functions, and our brain? What functions does it execute? What do we do with the thousands of terabytes of information that come from all our senses? What do we remember, what do we delete, and how are our thoughts formed? I’m sure these questions confuse you further, but believe me, I felt no less confused than you, locked in this huge room, filled with technology, and at the same time pondering questions that are usually asked during philosophy lectures, or at best, in pubs, at night. And in the background, Lovedearly was rummaging through the library of technical literature (who knows why he decided he could help me with my work) and uttering remarks like “Damn, how did they explain this” or “Couldn’t they think of something dumber?” I decided these thoughts were going nowhere and returned to the question of the function of the thinking software. It could have many applications. But Strugatski had never mentioned what he needed it for. He had only dropped that phrase “For my purposes.” And before, I had wondered what he meant, but now I wasn’t afraid to ask him. And the connection between us gave me that possibility: “To work, I need to know… why do you need this whole thing?” – My question was laconic, but not as laconic as his answer: “I can’t tell you. It’s personal.” It made me laugh out loud. He didn’t even suspect that he gave me the most precise possible answer. “What, really? But this guy is really messed up!” Lovedearly said when I let him read the log of our short conversation. “Yeah. Come on, let me finish this now. I’ll get it running somehow. And then, Lovedearly, know that I don’t want to see a computer as long as I live.” “At most two days.” Lovedearly said. “To finish it?” “No. At most two days you’ll last without a computer.” I deleted everything I had written before and started from the first line. This time I decided to try another approach: I almost immediately put in a huge number of variables. Countless processes that didn’t lead anywhere, exactly like most things happening in my brain. The work captivated me so much that I lost track of time and was periodically surprised when I saw the clock on my monitor spinning like a whirligig. And after a few minutes by my internal clock, which equaled several hours of external time, my eyes started to close. I knew I had to fight the fatigue. If I fell asleep and woke up again, I wouldn’t remember anything of my work up to that point. In principle, I never use stimulants, but when the lines of code started to look wavy to me and I couldn’t focus the keyboard, I turned to Lovedearly, who was sitting at the adjacent computer, with an unusual request for me: “Hey, make me some of that special coffee of yours. You remember?” “Okay.” “What are you doing, by the way?” “Programming.” “Okay, keep yourself busy if you enjoy it. But the coffee…” “Okay, fine, I’m going right away.” He got up from his chair, with his hands still pressing the keyboard. He sat like that for about half a minute. Then headed to the kitchen. But when he came back with the coffee, it was too late – I had already fallen asleep at the desk. I dreamed that I continued working on the core algorithm. I program for six days straight without eating or sleeping, but in the end, the damn thing works, and I spend the seventh day in twenty-four hours of sleep. Strugatski is very pleased with my work and releases us immediately. He even offers me an apology for treating me like that, which I accept. He starts implementing the CA in all programs made by our company. Soon the algorithm becomes established on the market as a panacea for all humanity’s problems. People who are afraid of making the wrong decision start using it to free themselves from responsibility. The algorithm becomes indispensable in all business management systems, as it guarantees maximum profit in companies with minimal investment. It becomes so widespread that real brains become useless – whatever problem people have, they don’t strain to solve it, but instead input the data into the program and it tells them what would be the most logical action given the conditions in that particular situation. Several scientists start working on implementing the software into their heads, to replace their real brains. The scientific community unanimously claims that this is the next step in human development, which will eliminate biases as an obstacle to conducting research and will contribute to raising science (and people in general) to a higher level. Next dream: I’m at Lovedearly’s house, with him and other people, and together we watch a report about some professor who has managed to prove mathematically that life has no meaning. His proof is irrefutable. So much so that the greatest minds of our time worship him as a god. His theory is advertised everywhere. It starts to be taught as early as the fourth grade, in elementary school, and the phrase “Life has no meaning,” from a remark associated with depression and helplessness, becomes an indisputable fact that changes the way people live. This fact devastates Anton. He says there’s no reason to live anymore. I comfort him as much as I can and assure him that his life is still valuable. Then Strugatski appears on TV again. He invites everyone who feels depressed by the report broadcast a little while ago to go to the nearest hospital where they can already have the beta version of the brain activity simulation software installed. The software took over all the functions performed by the normal brain, but was better. Then I say to Lovedearly: “Come on, let’s go too.” And he smiles bitterly and shakes his head in that way that makes you feel like a complete fool. Then he points to the calendar. And says, “You’ve forgotten, haven’t you?” And the calendar shows the fifteenth of February. And then I understand that the Phenomenon will come again. And that when it does, the brains of all people will enter an infinite loop and there will be no way to help them. I immediately run to the hospital. Huge queues have gathered there. I try to convince people not to undergo this operation, but no one listens to me, and I realize I can’t prevent the disaster I’m responsible for. That’s how the dream ends. I woke up on the floor. Anton was leaning over me. “What happened?” I asked him. “We have to leave quickly!” He replied. “But how are we going to get out?” “The thinking software is working.” “Are you kidding?” “What kind of joke would that be?” He said, offended that I had underestimated his sense of humor. “Come on, drink your coffee and let’s get out of here.” If you doubt something, destroy it on the spot.

NOTE: The liquid Lovedearly called coffee was so strong and bitter that after I took a sip, I couldn’t hold it and spat it out on the floor. He started giggling uncontrollably. Then he scolded me with feigned seriousness: “Ugh, who’s going to clean that up?” He said. “Good thing we’re leaving.” “We’re leaving?” “Didn’t I tell you, the software is working. Strugatski let us go. Come on, let’s go!” And indeed, the exit door of the office was wide open. I got up slowly, still half in the real world and half in my dream. My gaze fell on the computer, which was continuously spitting out new lines. I slowly focused my eyes on the monitor and began to distinguish the individual letters. “Come see what nonsense it’s writing!” Anton prompted me. I approached the monitor and started reading. The software’s entries were initially completely meaningless, but gradually began to form into human-like remarks: Start algorithm. … Why this? … Attempt. Unsuccessful. … Where error? … Why am I here? If you are afraid of something, destroy it on the spot.

NOTE: While I was still half-asleep, I grabbed the keyboard by one end and hit the monitor with all my might, so that several rows of it went dark. I kept hitting until the entire screen sank into darkness. “What are you doing?” Anton asked me. He suddenly became nervous, which definitely didn’t correspond to my previous impression of him. “How did you do it?” I asked. “How did you activate the program.” “Little Engineer, that’s enough.” He started to get worried. “That’s not important right now. We have to go, I think I know how to get to the Phenomenon.”

NOTE: Don’t trust anyone. “What? Did we cause it? With your super-genius plan to recreate the situation, maybe…” “Pardon?” Anton laughed in surprise and went to pat me on the shoulder, in response to which I pointed a piece of the broken keyboard at him. “I have the feeling you’re not so stupid as to not understand what I mean….” I said. “You lured me to my office. The man was waiting for me there! And then he seemed very willing to invite you to get in with me… And now somehow it turns out that you or Strugatski developed the thinking machine while I was sleeping, and during that time I’m having a pretty lucid dream related to exactly this machine. What do you say to that? It would be quite unreasonable of you now to deny that my suspicions are, at least partly, justified.” “Look, screw your suspicions, we have to get out of here quickly. Strugatski is crazy and…” “Strugatski?” “Yeah, he…” “A minute ago you pointed to the Phenomenon as the reason for our departure.” “Stop with that. You just have to come with me…”

NOTE: Attack before you are attacked. “NO!” Shouting that, I mustered all the strength I had left and shoved Anton back, so he staggered. Instinctively, he pulled his hands back. I immediately jumped at him and delivered the strongest blow I was capable of. He met my fist with his cheek and the energy from my entire body threw him back in an uncontrolled lunge that ended with him falling on his back a few meters from me. For a few seconds, he was unconscious, then he opened his eyes and started to get up. I ran at him intending to deliver a second blow. I aimed my fist at his cheek, but he managed to defend himself by catching my arm. And before I could react, he stood up and twisted it behind my back almost to the breaking point, putting me on my knees. “Let me go,” I said. He loosened his grip so the pain subsided, but continued to hold me. “So you think I’m in league with Strugatski, and the two of us are extracting information from your brain while you sleep? And that seems logical to you?” “Let me go.” “No, I’m not letting you go! How can you suspect ME? We’ve known each other since we were kids. Have I ever lied to you about anything? Have I ever tried to use you?” “Let me go! Will you let me go?” “Of course I’ll let you go!” He released my arm, and in the next moment turned his back to me, slightly hunched. “Alright, I’ll believe you!” I shouted. “It’s just that I want a logical explanation: How did the software start working? Why did the Phenomenon appear now? And why do we have to run from Strugatski? Didn’t his wish come true?” “I can’t tell you these things.” Anton said. “You don’t know them?” “I know them!” Anton turned to me and blood was flowing from his cheek, which he was gathering in his palms and spitting on the floor. “But you, at the moment, are not capable of understanding them.” “Why?” I cried out in surprise, half because of what Anton was saying and half because of his wound – I had never hit a person before and didn’t think I could inflict such damage. “How do you expect to understand anything? Look at yourself! You feel threatened… You suspect one of your best friends… You give in to primal emotions… In other words, you’re acting like an ordinary person.” He dug in his mouth to check if one of his teeth was still in place, and then continued to speak without indicating he was in pain: “I don’t know how you managed in exactly two minutes to fall to the bottom of the pyramid of needs. Remember what you told me Mirko said to you?” He continued. “‘A big part of being a scientist consists in asking the right questions.’ You, at the moment, are not capable of asking the right questions. Or rather in the right way: You can’t ask out of pure curiosity, and without worrying that the answer might confuse you.” “How do you want me to ask you?” “I expect that soon you’ll come to your senses and remember. And until then, however old-fashioned it is, you’ll just have to BELIEVE me that we need to get out of here as quickly as possible!” It had gotten dark. We left the block, and after half an hour of walking on foot, we noticed a bus stop, which was about a kilometer from the edge of the city. When we finally reached it, I collapsed onto the bench. Lovedearly, despite being more tired than me, started looking at the schedule. “Which bus are we taking?” I asked. “This one. First, we need to go through our place to take some things, and then straight there.” “Where?” “Haven’t we agreed already?” Nothing special happened during the journey. After an hour, the two of us reached Lovedearly’s house and he dragged out a leather bag from somewhere. Then he rolled a joint, smoked it, and headed to the kitchen, where the unwashed dishes from our previous meal still stood. He took out all the products he had in the fridge and started making sandwiches. It was clear that he planned for us to spend a long time outside. But my plans were different: “There’s no need to prepare food for me.” I said. “I’m not coming.” “Why? Don’t tell me another conspiracy theory has popped into your head?” “No, look…” Again, my gaze stopped on his wound. “Sorry about that. I don’t suspect you of anything… But that doesn’t change the fact that for a few days I’ve been following your lead, and so far nothing good has happened to me. You say I’m Chosen for something… Shouldn’t I, in that case, be able to decide what to do?” “Apparently not.” He said. “Because you’re a complete blockhead, and you need someone like me to tell you what to do!”

NOTE: I don’t need him at all. “Hey, what are you writing there?” He craned his neck to peek into my notebook. “What’s it to you?” I closed it so he couldn’t see. “You know I sometimes write some other thoughts in here.” “Sometimes?” I realized that in the last hour, I had filled two pages with notes. “I’m just writing some…” I continued to make excuses. “Some of MY own things.” “Aha.” He assumed a disinterested look, but then quickly reached for the notebook and with a jerky movement snatched it from my hands. “Give it back to me right now!” I heard my own voice. “‘Follow your own advice,’” Anton was reading. “What does that mean? ‘Don’t ask stupid questions, unless you want to hear stupid answers.’ Arguments with Lovedearly are meaningless by definition, huh? ‘When I’m sleepy, I should go to sleep?!’ ‘Pay more attention to details.’ What are these stupidities?” “Yes, they are complete stupidities. Now, will you give it back to me?” “And you think they can help you with something…” He continued reading in a mocking voice: “‘To not be sure of anything… To have a plan B…’ Damn it…” “Give it to me right now!” “‘To put an end to all of this.’” “I said give it to me!” “Wait, it’s getting more interesting.” After a while, he came across the last note I had written and read it with a questioning intonation: “‘I don’t need him at all’? For the first time, I saw traces of anger creeping onto his face. “No, Anton. Listen. That’s not true!” “Then why did you write it?!” He asked. “Because…” And suddenly I understood the answer. It’s just that lately, I had imperceptibly started using the notebook as a catalyst for my insecurity. As if I had developed some kind of schizophrenia… As if these notes weren’t written by me, but were rather the product of some desperate personality writhing in pre-death throes and living solely from the energy obtained when the pen touched the white sheet. “I understand why you’re doing it.” Lovedearly was talking to me. “Been there, so to speak… You know, you forget various things, and that terrifies you. So you decide to STORE all the information you get your hands on. You write down everything that comes to your mind.” “Well, I might need them…” I said. “Yeah, you’re just terrified that some thought might remain only in you, without you using it. But hear this. Sometimes…”

‘I must come to my senses’ “…the effect is the opposite… I mean, that little by little it starts to become a fixation for you that you’ll miss something important. You start writing things that have no importance at all. Then you look them over and search for the answer in them. But it was in you. The whole time. So obvious that it seemed trivial to you.

NOTE: I don’t understand anything. “Stop writing for a second and listen to me!” Anton said. “But what answer are you talking about?” I asked him. “Alright. Let me think for a bit: All this is happening because…” I stopped mid-sentence and took a gulp of air. “No, actually, I have no idea why it’s happening…” “Because you started it.” Apparently, I had asked in the right way, because Anton smiled. “When I saw the Phenomenon, did I start everything?” “No, before that. From the very first moment, when you started thinking about the Core Algorithm…” “Wait, maybe you should first explain to me how you got the core algorithm running?” “Me?” Lovedearly couldn’t finish his sentence because he choked on laughter. “What gave you that idea?” “Who then?” “I’ll give you a hint: the simplest answer is the correct one. Still don’t get it? Is it so hard to remember that YOU DID IT. I just loaded your file.” “I didn’t manage to finish the file.” I objected. “Not that file. I’m talking about the file you started everything with. The file you wrote even before seeing the Phenomenon. On the damn fifteenth of February!” “That file?” I immediately returned to the first page. My face – filled with even greater surprise. “But it was empty.” I said. “There was only one symbol there. One question mark…” He smiled. “Is that so little?” He raised an eyebrow and spread his hands to emphasize the effect of his remark, but due to the lack of such, he remained in that position for a few seconds, then got tired of sitting up straight and positioned himself on the sofa. “What, do you mean?” Questions were already filling my mouth, like saliva fills the mouth when hungry. “That in place of the CA, there’s a file containing a question mark? But that’s not possible… Or is it because of the high level of abstraction? But wait. How did Strugatski react to this?” “Probably too excited to check right away…” “Yeah, I can imagine how he felt…” I said. “Considering how I feel…” “Why, Little Engineer? I mean… is it so hard for you to accept it?” “To accept what?” Alright, you have written a computer program that aims to resemble our brain. So the question in the case is: What do the two have in common? “Yeah, that’s what I was asking myself too.” “And what is it? Both the brain and the software have functions that are embedded in them.” “Embedded?” “Well, yeah. For example, in our brain, the function of keeping us alive is embedded, that is, the self-preservation instinct. Right? The reproductive function is also embedded – for preserving the species. And every program has functions, so I don’t need to lecture you on that.” Then: both need information to perform their functions, right? And as a result, both, so to speak, ask questions. Yes. But our brain, unlike the software, also asks questions that are not related to the functions it performs. You see? That’s why we can’t structure our knowledge. We can try, but we’ll never succeed. Because we ask just like that… Just because we want to know. That’s our nature. And for that reason, I was telling you that this thing… – He pointed to the notebook. “…can sometimes seriously mess with your brain.” “Yeah.” I nodded. “I understand now.” “You understood it before.” He said. “You mean when the ray appeared?” “I mean it didn’t appear, damn it! I mean, it has always been there. It’s just that a person appeared who wanted to know where it came from.” “Yeah.” I took a breath. Are you sure it has always been there? He smiled. “I bet it’s there now too.” Anton shook me to snap me out of my trance: “Stop lounging around.” He said. “Help me with the luggage.” “Take it easy, we won’t be late.” He didn’t catch the irony in my note. Instead, he started giving me instructions in minimal words: “Take the batteries out of the remote and put them in the flashlight.” “The tent from the top cabinet.” “A few knives from the kitchen – we’ll use them instead of pegs.” While I was preparing my luggage, I watched how Lovedearly prepared his. First, he prepared a few T-shirts and pants, and stuffed them into his bag without folding them. Some food from the fridge, various other life-saving provisions like a laptop, MP3 player, and flashlight. Then I realized that the similarities between him and the Snowball were becoming more and more obvious. How hadn’t I seen them until now? Like Anton, just like Mirko, he was trying to be better than the rest. And Anton had something in his life that stood above everything else. And moreover, he planned his actions with the same attention and determination… The only difference was that the Snowball was moving towards a specific goal, which he saw crystal clear, while Anton and I, just as confidently, were moving towards the UNKNOWN.

NOTE: The notebook was in my right pocket. There, where it had sat throughout my conscious life, ready to record everything I learned over the years. I took it out and with a precise parabola, I managed to throw it into the trash can on the first try. After a few days, I dug it out from there to compose this text based on it.

Anton’s diary 4

I will wake up, will open the zipper of my sleeping bag, and will look towards the place that the Little Engineer is also looking at, through the tent’s slit. I won’t see anything there. But apparently, waking up won’t be uneventful. The Engineer will put the batteries in the flashlight and will start getting dressed. “Come on, get ready, I’m not going to wait for you.” “Take it easy.” I will get up, will put on the first pants and blouse that I find, and will run to catch up with him. “And what did you actually see?” I will ask, still out of breath from the sprint. “Let’s first get out of here.” “You’ll tell me when we get out of here?” “Yes,” he will say. “Don’t worry, we have a long way. Do you think we should call the Snowball?” “But tell me what you found, and then ask me who to call.” “Not who, but whom… I don’t know if there’s any point. After last time… He’s unlikely to believe us.” “Well, describe to him what’s happening.” “Hmm…” We will have to stop and wait. A group of children will pass by us – about twenty kids aged between eight and ten. They will be holding hands in pairs and walking in a line, as if they were links of some huge caterpillar. And in the place of the caterpillar’s head – an adult woman (apparently a teacher) will try to maintain order in this whole mess, applying the old polished techniques: “Everyone look after your buddy! Don’t get lost! Ivcho, why are you gaping!” “Brother, do you see her?” – The Little Engineer will say. That’s Bаeva. Our Bulgarian teacher.” “Which one was she?” “Don’t you remember? The one who constantly said I had a problem with concentration.” “I don’t remember her.” “And those two boys there? Could they be us two?” The woman will shout loudly enough to be heard even by the farthest pairs of children. We will also hear what she says: “These, children, are typical American beatniks from the sixties.” She will point to the hippie camp we found at the beginning of our journey. “They live in communes, separate from civilization, and travel continuously in search of the meaning of life.” The children will look dully at the people dressed in colorful clothes. “And these are our ancestors.” The woman will point to the fortress we also passed. “They worshiped the god Tangra. Tangra in our language means Sun. They believed he was the source of their strength.” I finally remembered this teacher. “And this,” she will point to the hunters. “A group of men who have gone out to kill animals. Killing, of course, is a very bad thing, but their hobby makes them feel they have power over nature and helps them be strong during the rest of the time.” The children will start whispering to each other. Then the teacher will point to a man, about 30 years old, who will be sitting on the grass with headphones stuck in his ears, watching some movie on his portable device. “And do you see this person? Movies and the Internet help him cope with stress. There he sees something familiar, made-up. But we must not forget that movies are more important than real life.” Along the way, the teacher will continue to briefly explain each of the inhabitants of this meadow. A little before leaving, she will make her conclusion: “And remember, children. Each of these people has their own way of surviving. And when you grow up, you can also choose any of these ways. You will be able to rely on your entertainments –” The woman will point to the family. “On your faith.” – She will point to the bivouac with the fires. “Or on whatever else you want. Just remember one thing: Never be like, that guy over there.” And she will point to me. “This one really spoke her mind.” – The Little Engineer will look around, as if someone patted him on the shoulder and then ran away. “Take it easy. The kids who have a chance of becoming like me wouldn’t have listened to the teacher anyway.” “Unfortunately, you’re right.” “Come on now. Lead me to whatever we’re headed for, whatever it is.” After we leave the outlines of the meadow, the Little Engineer will take the lead and will clumsily start climbing the slopes of Vitosha. “Follow me.” “No need, watching you climb, I think soon I’ll be back at the bottom.” And indeed, he will slip the first few times, but then will quickly learn to keep his balance and will start advancing. “And in the end, what did you see?” – I will ask. He will smile. “Try to remember.” “That’s all I’ve been doing for the last few days!” “Alright, listen now.” The Little Engineer will start telling me, but as always, he’ll start with the part that interests me the least. He’ll begin to tell me how right the Snowball was in his conclusions, and will make those huge digressions that drive me crazy… “Alright, but in the end, what was there when you opened the tent entrance?” “Nothing special… Just… It’s a clear night outside, right? You can see countless stars.” “Yeah.” “And when you opened the tent entrance, I decided to look up for a second and look at the stars. I don’t know why, but I decided I kind of wanted to make sure they were there. But they weren’t.” “Well, they are here, look at the sky.” “Yeah, they are here. But then you had opened the zipper slightly, and I saw only a thin vertical strip of sky. And exactly in that strip, not a single star was visible. Here, look.” I will turn upward and will see an area that starts from above from space and ends somewhere on the ground, where nothing can be seen. It will be like a huge black cloak, stretched from the sky to the ground. “But that’s not even a straight strip, it widens downwards.” “Yeah. That’s because we are approaching it.” I will recall the events of the last few days and suddenly will realize what is actually happening. I will get so scared that I will divert my attention from the stone I had stepped on. It will break off. I will slip and will be left hanging by one hand over an abyss. The Little Engineer will move above me and will grab me firmly. “But that’s the darkness.” – I will say, and he will answer me immediately. “I know. But by itself, it is not dangerous.” Soon we will have reached the top of the slope. The Phenomenon will begin to widen, and at one point, we will reach the place where the flashlight will stop shining. The Little Engineer will extend his hand forward and his wrist will also sink into the darkness. Then he will pull it out and will smile faintly, in the same way he always smiles. “But the darkness,” I will start to stammer, “I thought it personified danger.” “Yeah. But dangers don’t scare me anymore.” “And should I come too?” I will ask, and my question will sound stupid, as if he has invited me to a damn tea party that I’m not sure will be fun. “Will you come?” – He will return the question to me. “Well, how should I know. I don’t want to be like those pathetic supporting characters who accompany the main ones through all the vicissitudes and in the end get nothing. Right, they’re not cool?” “That’s how it is.” And the Little Engineer will head towards the boundary. It will look as if he’s not walking, but floating slightly above the ground. Then he won’t look like anything at all. Meaning, he will disappear. “What’s it like there?” I will ask, but no one will answer. So I will have to check. I will shrug my shoulders and will head towards the DARKNESS…

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