Forty two seconds

The boy and the girl were sitting on the carpet of the floor of the brightly lit room, outside the window it was past midnight, the curtains on the windows were tightly drawn, and there was a plant on a single table.
This plant, and a small test tube next to it, were the subject of heated debate, which had just subsided. The girl tried in vain to convince her opponent that she shouldn’t change anything and should try; she should try to return to normal life and forget everything like a bad dream.
The guy was against it. Not only his desire to study and experiment made him to test the effect of the drug on the plant, but all the inner voices simply shouted that it was necessary to use the drug. Logic prompted that it was impossible to determine what would happen by empirical means. Even before the argument with the girl, he spent a few hours pondering everything with himself. More precisely, with those fragments of his personality that he managed to collect, after experiments on the transfer of consciousness.
- In the end, it can be considered a double suicide, clutching a pillow to the stomach, the girl said.
- There will be nobody to consider. Besides, you assure that nothing will happen.
- Yes, but I'm scared.
- And me.
“So stop all this ...”
- That's what I'm going to do. Otherwise, how many people still have to die in agony, so that it would become clear - there is no escape. The remaining scientists and engineers are supervising the construction of cryogenics for the elite and those in power. But they also will not help, if you believe the AI.
The guy walked up to the table and took the plugged tube in his hands. The dark purple liquid inside was very thick in appearance.
- Stop. And if all this is a lie, and only we die?
- Do not start again. Do you remember how people died in our city? I don't want that. Come out if you're afraid.
- How can you decide for everyone?
- And who can solve anything now? Everywhere there are devils going on. Even to return there is nothing. All destroyed.
- To hell ... You are now, hypothetically, deciding for everyone.
- Yes. First of all for myself. And the consequences are the responsibility of me. I wrote the papers ... And as for the rest, no one answered the simple question - "Why?". Even you could not. And I answered.
The girl sighed and closed her eyes, pressing her pillow even more tightly.
- And if scientists can find a place for all the rest? And we can take refuge?
- You know that there are no such people left. They either left, or are dead, or under supervision. In addition, you saw that the rest of the world is the same. And the experiments on the transfer of consciousness have failed, there is no one else to hope for.
- And what will happen to the cars? And the AI ​​is almost finished ... Ask him!
- I have already asked and built hundreds of models a thousand times. The answer was always the same. Want to make sure - prints on the floor.
- Yes I know. And I know that he was not mistaken.
- The only thing that the AI ​​did not know about was this. In one motion, the guy pulled the cork out of the test tube and poured its contents onto the plant.
These two died instantly. All the remaining 6.3 billion in exactly 42 seconds.
Somewhere on the other end of the Earth, someone did not have time to close the cryogenic chamber, just could not reach the button. The people who were in orbit at that moment lost contact with the Earth.
They still did not know that they would return to the pristine clean planet. Without cars, buildings, wars, misfortunes, sufferings and catastrophes.
Without people.

PS: I couldn’t decide for a long time whether to put it here for all to see, it turned out to be too crumpled up, but having become cheerful and remembering that today is Friday, I decided to imagine. Previously published only here . If errors are found, please report to the LAN.