which is mine. Everybody ready, shall we watch?
– We're watching," Iulia replied.
The others were silent in agreement.
Here comes the video. It starts in the lab hall.
Rutra lay down in the rig, his assistants set up the equipment, a sound appeared in his ears, then Irene commanded "open your eyes wide," a beam flashed before his eyes, and consciousness faded into the realm of Hades. Ruthra had already remembered this situation when he woke up in the detention cell.
– Where the hell am I? I was in the center. Is this the real world or virtual reality? Irene, you on the line?
There was no response.
– Irene, are you there? Where am I? Yeah, maybe the doctor was right. Still, how do I check if this is his trick, virtual reality… or if it really freaking worked. There is a parallel world. But is it parallel?
Rutra stopped the video, turned to the people watching.
– Please understand this correctly. In that scene, I, that is, the one in front of you, not the Rutra I had taken over in that world, I don't know any of you yet. Now do you understand why we've been looking for you? It was you. Irene insisted on it. I'll be honest with you. I had my concerns. I'm going to talk about Irene, the artificial intelligence. It has to be understood properly. We often forget that we're talking to a machine. Remember once and for all, a machine can't feel the way we do. I'm not even talking about spiritual feelings. Strangely enough, they are easier for it to understand than, for example, the sensation of bodily caress, pain, shivering, cold. She can only understand the effects they cause. Why am I connecting you to Irene's mind-block? It's a thought I've had for a long time, a mass connection with insurance. I hooked up the Irene admin in the first place. Yes, it's my design. But after this incident in that world, you will see, I became convinced of the necessity of staggered control and made sure of inter-network parallel-sequential control of each other of those who are connected. For now, I want to tell you why this thought came up. Why didn't I just look for you? Because I also found it odd that you were the one that Irene recommended based on the fact that you were in parallel worlds. It's very important. Once you've been through virtual reality many times, you start to doubt reality. You already know what I'm talking about. Naturally, I had my doubts: did Irene make such a plot on purpose? That is, I doubted at first, until we realized how these particles beacon us about their twins, whether it is reality, though parallel, or a virtual world. You have to agree, it's very unusual, very strange to see yourself in another world. Just imagine it. Imagine it! You are there somewhere. Your clone will be a shock for you, even if you already know about animal cloning. Shock and transfer of your consciousness to the clone; although logically it is close, recopying and downloading of information is already there long ago, you can easily reprogram a humanoid android. And here your consciousness flies to the edge of the universe, or maybe to another one, and there it finds its twin, gets possessed and becomes it. Would you have ever believed it if someone had told you about such a thing before you were introduced to everything here?
– I can hardly believe it even now," Iulia said, eyes widening.
– I believe and I don't believe," Catherine expressed her opinion.
– I've read about this kind of thing, and here it is. To believe in the existence of other worlds in space, and to know about it, and to be there, to transfer consciousness, to be possessed by someone like me… If there is no doubt, it is not normal, – Andrian was usually brief, but here he gave it to the full.
The ladies clamored approvingly.
– Well, of course, how can you doubt it? It's a mind boggles. Few people would believe it. Even if they let me, I won't tell them," Iulia expressed her emotional attitude to what was happening.
Rutra suggested that we finish up and then discuss.
Everyone in the lab hall was waiting for the video as action. Iulia even moved forward with her mouth half-open. She noticed that Ruthra was looking at everyone from the sidelines, and she straightened up and looked into his eyes. He didn't distract her, turning his back to the screen. The image was coming from Ruthra's eyes, so he could only be seen in the reflections.
By now everyone understood how Ruthra knew a lot of things ahead of time. History in the world where he had become president, where the automatic system had failed and there had been a nuclear disaster, was somehow going to repeat itself here. But how?
– This is where I was about to ask which YatSan and which problem, then, on second thought, I stopped. Watch this.
The video went on, the story in that world where he was a scientist in disgrace, then president, where he met his team, where the Perimeter system went into battle mode and where he wanted to find out who was in cahoots with the former president there. He stopped him at the point where Rutra was "waking up" in the installation. Further explanation was a mixture of the observers' own thoughts, Rutra's reflections, and Irene's comments.
…Ruthra already knew it was a "he". But who? Andrian? Ruthra was waiting for the security guard to tell him what had happened, but then reality came into view. It took him a moment to realize what had happened, as we are not as clear as we are when we are awakened from a sound sleep. He was in the hall of the laboratory…
After watching in Rutra, there was even a sense of pleasure in seeing the surprised faces of the team.
– All of them? Ruthra," Iulia began, followed by the others.
Catherine asked:
– Is that really all of them?
– Really – what was it? Who? – Andrian asked in a friendly way.
– That's not important to us right now.
– Wait, Rutra, are you saying that there's a nuclear war going on out there, somewhere in a faraway world?
– Yes," Ruthra answered calmly.
– That's crazy. Is that what you want us to believe?
– I said to myself: do you want to believe it? I said to myself, what was that? The laws of physics cannot be changed. If we do not know something and even consider it magical, it does not mean that it does not obey some laws of the universe. It's just that we don't know about it yet. Once there was a god omnipotent, then there was the law of universal gravity. All these parallel worlds… All that was, all that will be, is described many times in religion and fiction, in fairy tales, in legends. And I'll tell you even more – I have my own theory about it.
– Oh! The theory again, – of course it was JULIA.
– Yeah, imagine that.
– Which one is it this time?
– I believe that there is a single center of worlds, which was formed first and has already evolved so much that it became itself composed of invisible waves, such as radiation or gravity, or maybe light waves. Most likely light waves… or all of them together.
– Rutra, stop. We're going crazy here.
– You won't get off, but you'll never be the same again.
– Rutra, tell me, what was it? Who's Fantomas? – Iulia, as always, was boldly pushing the limits of what she could communicate, intuitively aware of Ruthra's leniency.
He shook
