How I met the new year

Now, while I am writing this text, my hands are trembling, and my thoughts are confused. It is already morning, but I still can not move away from what I saw and learned that night.
Often we hear that people want to celebrate the new year in an unusual way so that it will be remembered for a long time. If you ask me, I would prefer not to remember anything. Spend these few hours just like all my fellow citizens, embracing Olivier and alcohol, calmly and habitually.
But first things first. Although, again, a coherent presentation is now given to me with difficulty.

It all started with a phone call yesterday at about five o'clock in the evening. At first I thought that this one of my friends wants to congratulate me on the New Year. But on the screen of the phone there was an inscription: “the number is not determined”. Still not anticipating anything bad, I pulled the green call acceptance slider.
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“Hello, old man, this is Misha, we studied together,” said a calm, slightly tired voice, “I need to tell you something about something.” Tickets for the plane I bought you, departure in three hours. I am waiting.
- Stop, what a crash? What are you talking about? - to say that I was surprised - it meant to say nothing. With Misha, my classmate, I have not talked for a long time. I remember right after uni he started a small business, something related to cell phones. Then he became interested in some strange teachings and went to India. Since then, I have not heard anything about him for about five years. Up to the present moment.
- Have you ever flown on airplanes? - in Misha's voice, irritation was heard.
- Well, yes, I flew of course ...
- So, check-in in two and a half hours ends, and you still have to go to the airport. Write down the flight number and address.
- Stop, wait, - I began frantically fumbling around the table in search of a pen or pencil. Since I graduated from high school, all the writing materials with the need to write something with my hands have been transferred at my home. I make notes on the phone, I write something more serious right away on the computer. I take a ballpoint pen only to sign on the check in the supermarket. The only thing I managed to find was a stub of a pencil from Ikea.
“I am recording everything,” I said.
Misha called the flight number, address and hung up.
Sighing, I got dressed and went out into the street. By the way, the city did not name Misha, so I did not know where I would be in a few hours.

The flight on New Year's Eve is not much different from any other flight. Safety rules do not allow garlands, colorful balls and alcohol in the cabin. Well, at least in economy class. As if to compensate for the lack of external manifestations of the holiday, most of the passengers took the holiday inward. Therefore, the salon was full of smiles, the smell of alcohol and congratulations on the coming. Some passengers were sad - it was obvious that they made the flight only when necessary. The commander of the aircraft on behalf of the airline congratulated the passengers with the new year and asked to fasten their seat belts. We took off.

When the plane landed, it was already the beginning of the eleventh. Despite the New Year's Eve, a whole platoon of taxi drivers was on duty in front of the airport. I sat down at the first one. While we were driving, the taxi driver was talking about the fact that I had the last passenger for him today, that now he would take me, and go home. At home he has a wife, daughter. He has already prepared gifts for them.
My phone rang. The taxi driver was politely silent and turned down the volume of the radio.
“I see you are already approaching,” Misha’s voice sounded still calm.
- Yes, I'm in a taxi now.
- Correct solution. I believed that you would not leave me.
I grunted back.
- So that's why I called you. I want to give you some documents. In them, I described in detail, as far as possible, everything that I had learned over the past few years. And I learned a lot. Even, probably, too much for the world around me to remain the same. I understand that for you it sounds pathetic, but still. All these years I have been studying the Internet. No, not protocols, servers, and so on. Not at the level of what people did. At the level of what he has become and what he has been for many thousands of years. Yes, do not be surprised, the Internet existed long before the appearance of man as a biological species. Of course, this is not about the physical implementation of the network, but about the information space. But let me tell you everything in order, the good time we still have.

I glanced at the electronic clock on the car stereo. It was 23:28. We have already entered the city. I shifted the phone to my other hand. Misha continued the story:

- Before, before leaving for India, I was one of the co-owners of Linear Solutions. As you, probably, understand, NDA does not frighten me, so listen. The Institute of Direct Interaction in Switzerland is one of the subsidiaries of Linear Solution. My area of ​​responsibility was different, so I didn’t really go into what the Institute was doing. How surprised I was when I found out the truth. You must not have heard of the Paris project. I'll talk about it a little later. So, here, in Russia, I met a girl from Japan. Her name was Iwakura, she traveled. Now she is no longer with us, her path lies in completely different places, but I found myself not entitled to follow her and returned to Russia. Well, it's not about that. She persuaded me to sell my stake in Linear Solutions and go with her to India. The money would have been quite good, with proper savings we could live on them for several years. That's exactly what I did. We rented a small house on the outskirts of Panaji and devoted our time to spiritual practices. Once during a meditation I saw a computer. The real computer. The graphical shell there was extremely uncomfortable, somewhat reminiscent of Unity. The browser was expanded to full screen, but the text was fuzzy, as if defocused. The only thing I understood is the url of the open page. The vision disappeared as soon as I remembered the contents of the address bar. Not remembering myself from excitement, I turned on my laptop and dialed this address. This was a gopher page. There were several chapters from the book of a certain John Ono. I was struck by the similarity of what I read with the practitioners Iwakura and I were engaged in. I did everything as it was written. I bought somewhere from a dozen old computers and an innumerable number of very different monitors. Even now ask me, and I will not say how many there were. All the walls were occupied by monitors. The goal was not to look anywhere without receiving a dose of new information. I began to eat only fish and carbohydrates, and all the time to spend on the study of arbitrary texts or meditation, going out only to buy food. Soon, my friend began the same way of life. And we opened up.

Misha paused, as if taking a breath, and continued:
- The Internet has several levels. I described them in detail in the document that I am going to give you. You see, for most users, the Internet begins, and ends with http, ftp, mail and streaming. Well, more Top and I2P for the most persistent and inquisitive. But I always believed that the Internet is something more, that it is some other reality. So it turned out. I want to say that there is life on the net. The Internet is not only an infrastructure for data transmission. Our visible Internet is like an island in the endless living ocean. And you know what I found there? Gateways. These gateways lead to a completely different network, built on different principles, with different information carriers. Why, in this network, information is life itself! This place I call Primary Internet. It existed long before the advent of computers. Why, he existed when there was no man yet. Here we got to the project Paris. Paris stands for Parallel Issue - Identical Offspring. So, the purpose of the Paris project is to research the Primordial Internet. It is clear that I was not the first to get to the bottom of the essence. Only we studied the Internet through meditation and brain overload, and they connected the wires directly to the nerve endings, using the body as a kind of software and hardware and biological Internet gateway. For their experiments, scientists from the “Institute of Direct Interaction” selected victims of murders and accidents. As a rule, those whom no one will miss, although they did not disdain to exhumation. It turns out that not all people were suitable for their purposes, but only with certain gene diseases. I personally saw one of these devices. These are no longer people, these are gateways. I will not tell you how I managed to get there. All the details in my documents are described. When you come, I will give them to you.

Taxi has arrived. I paid and left. I did not see any secret documents.

A huge trench was dug right in the middle of the courtyard. On one of its banks lay snow-piped pipes, and on the other a shadowed excavator towered. A fetid steam rose from the bottom of the trench. Public utilities are also people, and they also have holidays. To the great regret of all those who remain on the new year without hot water. Through the trench, forming a shaky bridge, several boards were slung. I stepped on it, still holding the phone pressed to my ear.

Suddenly, on the other end of the tube, there was a rumble. Misha swore.

“Old man, everything is canceled,” he said quickly, “forget everything I told you.” Better consider me gone. Turn around and drive back to the airport. Everything.

Misha hung up. Hiding the phone in my pocket, I stopped in the shadow of an excavator. At the very entrance was parked car. "Fourteenth" with tightly tinted glass. Contrary to Misha's advice, I began to observe.

It was a few seconds before midnight. That is the time when the whole city calms down to listen to the president’s congratulations, drink champagne under the national anthem, and then run out into the street to launch fireworks.

And now, under the shouts of joy from the windows, two healthy men in leather jackets went out into the street. They led the third by breaking his arms. Not even led - dragged. It was Misha. Before he was shoved into the car, he looked up and looked, as it seemed to me, directly into my eyes and smiled. The car abruptly pulled away and disappeared from sight.

I walked up to the porch. In the snow lay a piece of paper. Perhaps he fell out of the pocket of Misha or one of his captors. On the stairs he heard footsteps and funny voices. People in red caps came out from the porch, with some kind of firecrackers, crackers and flashlights. They smelled strongly of alcohol. Nobody paid any attention to me. Bending down, I picked up the note and put it in my jacket pocket. I did not dare to go up to the former Mishin’s apartment, and therefore slowly walked away to the bus station to get to the airport.

I returned home at about five in the morning. And only then I pulled a piece of paper from my pocket. Here he is. Habr, I do not know what it is. Yes, and I'm afraid to repeat the fate of my friend. But maybe you can help me?

UPD

This morning I received an SMS. At first I did not attach any importance to him, but now it seems to me that it may be somehow connected in this whole story.