Broken cup

Dazzling white sports "Mitsubishi" raced on a smooth and smooth razor track in the direction of San Diego.

From time to time I cautiously squinted at the speedometer, and when she passed a hundred miles, my nerves could not stand:
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“Amy, don't drive,” I asked.

Despite the fact that from that terrible plane crash, in which my former human body was destroyed, several years passed, the memories of it were still fresh and reminded of themselves with nightmares, fear of height, or, for example, speed. And although the engineers assured me that my present synthetic body is much better, I didn’t want to test it at all.

“Do not worry, we have almost arrived,” she answered, however, slowing down a little. - I do not like to be late.

All that remains of the former me is the neocortex, the cerebral cortex is a layer of cells the size of a table napkin and the thickness of a plastic card. Twenty billion neurons, in some incomprehensible way containing my personality, my memories - all of me, were carefully removed from my head while I was in a medical coma, and placed in an artificial body. For several hours, nanomachines wove them into the nervous system. Another week was spent on calibration and tuning. A month later, I completely ruled him as my own.

“Commendable ...” I clung to the chair when she turned left, onto a narrow but no less well-groomed road that branched off from the main road, would have been all such punctuals.

No one knew how, despite all the precautions, they carried the bomb into the plane, and no one claimed responsibility for the explosion. Our plane was landing at Lincoln Airport when there was a loud bang and the cabin was filled with acrid smoke. A multi-ton car crashed into a runway, caught fire and broke into pieces; I gasped, the hot air burned my lungs, and the last thing I remembered was the flames and pain that engulfed my whole body.

Then there was a bright, burning cold light of mercury lamps, ghostly, as if painted with watercolor, doctors in white coats scurried somewhere on the edge of the field of view. One of them, a Japanese man, leaned toward me and asked me:

- What do you feel?

“Nothing,” I replied.

He smiled:

- Now we fix it.

Outside the window, green hills flooded with the midday sun with thickets of bushes. Here in Southern California, nature conservation was very strict. The guys from Ecocontrol knew their work very well and could force anyone to fulfill the harsh environmental requirements. But this was not the case everywhere: to the east and south of the Ecozone, the burned salty wastelands, pitted by ulcers of open pits, framed with waste dumps, huge garbage dumps and abandoned cities covered with sand, stretched for thousands of miles.

I smiled at my reflection in the glass. For several years, this person did not become my family. I was fifty-seven, and I already felt the approach of old age. I should not have taken this flight at all, but a sudden call made me go to Washington. "Now you will always be twenty-seven," said Dr. Ishihiro, when I first saw myself in the mirror, "if you, of course, do not mind." Naturally, I did not mind.
What irony! Accident, almost took my life, made it possible to start it again.

Ten-foot steel gates began to open, although there was still a good third of a mile before them.

“It seems they are waiting for us ...” said Amy.

As soon as we passed the gate, green direction indicators appeared on the windshield, and a holographic map flashed on which our mitsubishi was displayed with a yellow pulsating point.

“And it seems that not for long ...” I finished her thought: in the rear-view mirror it was clearly visible that the gate remained open. It was a symbolic gesture on his part. Dr. Wessel hardly knows anything important. Thirty years at the Bureau made me a pessimist. Even if the "Association" and implicated in this, Wessel would not have risked.

The main road rested against an ensemble of fountains and flower beds of extraordinary beauty, and broke up into two avenues, which, according to the map, merged again just before the very private residence. The green arrow of augmented reality curved and turned left, Amy followed her.

Parking for guests is located under the open sky in the shade of trees. She was empty, and Amy stopped at the nearest cell, scaring along the way several garden-robots, similar to crabs, with gray metal-plastic shells that had removed foliage from the parking lot. Seeing the car, they rushed scatter. I opened the door, and the hot air from the street rushed into the salon, as if from a stove. Coming out of the car and slamming the door, I immediately felt a pleasant coolness - my sensory systems quickly reacted to the unbearable heat and reduced the sensitivity to acceptable. However, Amy, who did not possess such an ability, was not sweet.

Strict gray suits with thermal control, made of carbon nanofibers, had to maintain a comfortable temperature, but they were powerless against such heat, and it was well read on the face of my partner.

- Well, summer! - I said, - and yet it has just begun!

Amy stiffly nodded.

Amy and I put on glasses with mirrored lenses, my finger felt for a small switch on the handle and slid it over.

“There is contact,” said Amy. Now she saw my eyes, as if the glasses were transparent, while for the casual observer they were still mirrored. Amy did the same with her glasses, and the mirrors of their lenses dissolved, leaving only slightly noticeable rainbow halos around the rim.

“There is a contact,” I confirmed.

Once, at a technology exhibition, an engineer from Nikon Bio Optics tried to explain to me the principle of their work for fifteen minutes, but I did not understand anything. The only thing I remembered was the word "metamaterials."

- Well, let's go?

- Now, look around a bit.

I switched to infrared vision, and the world around me was painted in bright color temperature equivalents. In the lower left corner of the field of view a translucent legend surfaced and disappeared after a moment. To call it again, it was necessary only to present a visual image associated with it. The entire temperature range in my field of view was divided into equal intervals, and each of them was assigned one of the seven primary colors. Thus, purple corresponded to the coldest temperature, and red corresponded to the hottest one. And so that objects do not look like flat color spots, information about their brightness — the so-called irradiance map — was taken from ordinary visible light.

The familiar colors have changed their original meaning. Mitsubishi turned orange, with yellowing windows; Amy's face turned yellow, her costume was replete with shades of green. But the green vegetation remained green, and even those parts of plants that have a real color were different became green. Insignificant differences in temperature were reflected in the change of colors from pale green with a yellow inclination to emerald green and dark green with an admixture of blue. Heated paths and statues glowed orange-red, and surrounded by green flower beds glittered and sparkled with all the colors of the rainbow fountain. It was an amazingly beautiful sight, and it is a pity that Amy could not appreciate it. Cold violet streams of water rushed up from the marble angel's mouths upwards, quickly replacing the color with blue, blue, becoming green at the top, then falling down, turning yellow, and finally falling in orange drops into the yellow pool.

In those places where the soil looked through the plants, I saw through it the bluish halos of drip irrigation pipes. Just in case, I looked at his mansion, as expected, it was bright orange with yellow window openings.

- I don’t know about other things, but it doesn’t seem to violate environmental standards on energy saving. - I nodded toward his mansion.

- In terms of?

- The building probably includes air conditioning, but outside it is almost not visible.

Amy looked at me.

“There are no thermal imagers in our glasses, and ... well, of course, you are so much like a person that I forget all the time.”

Her last phrase seemed to sound like a slight disappointment.

- Would you like to install them yourself? I asked jokingly, knowing that she would answer. - Do you want me to write an application? I'm sure the bureau will pay you all the costs.

- Body modification? - Amy pursed her lips, as if I had offered her something indecent, and this, together with the mirror glasses, gave her face a comical expression. - We are not any cyborg!

Technically, I, too, could be considered a cyborg, although officially everyone tried not to use this word; so Amy’s disdainful attitude towards cyborg I could take on my own account, however it rather amused me. However, maybe she really did not consider me a cyborg, or, in any case, tried not to count.

When Amy, a graduate of the academy, came to our department, the project that I was unwittingly involved in was not declassified yet, and only a few people in the head office and my boss knew about my past. For everyone else, I was an optimist.

But everything ever becomes apparent. So it was this time. One night we had an urgent call: the police found a group of illegal immigrants in an abandoned factory. Fleeing, illegal immigrants set fire to the building, and when we arrived, it was already blazing. Jumping out of the car, I rushed into the burning building, hoping to find evidence. And indeed, I discovered a couple of computers abandoned in a hurry. They were hot, some more and the hull would melt. Taking out the memory strip, I jumped out through the fire exit, ran down the outer stairs and found myself on the street a second before the ceiling collapsed.

Amy rushed to me:

- Felix, why! You almost died!

And stopped a few steps away.

It turned out that my hand was burned, and the caring nervous system turned off the pain receptors so that I would not get distracted!

I looked at my hand with interest: the artificial skin cracked below the elbow, and the milky-white plasma of the outer contour came to the surface - the process of regeneration began.

Amy had a gamut of conflicting emotions on her face, and it was not clear what was more: joy, because I was alive, or disappointment, because I was not at all what she considered me.

- So you're a cyborg? She asked coldly.

- Not really ...

Having passed through the whole alley, we went out onto a path paved with granite tiles along the estate wall, turned right, walked a little more and found ourselves at the main entrance.

Wessel is located directly on the lawn in a wicker rattan chair under a huge awning that did not fit into the classical architecture at all. He was wearing gray kimono and Japanese bamboo sandals with bare feet. In the arms of his cozy little kitten settled.

While we were still in the distance, I touched Amy by the hand and whispered in her ear:

“Amy, please be nice to him.”

“Uh-huh,” she answered without much enthusiasm.

Not only was it an informal meeting, I also have to answer for the rudeness of this girl before the boss.

Wessel raised his eyes to us and said:

- Hello.

Amy and I introduced ourselves and showed our cards.

“Agent Avel.”

- Agent McGill.

Hearing the name of Amy, he perked up a little.

“Are you by any chance the daughter of General McGill?”

Amy glanced at me and unexpectedly calmly replied:

“Yes, General McGill is my father.”

Wessel nodded, as if making a mark, but not to herself, but to Amy, so that she would not forget.

Karl Dietrich von Wessel was a living legend: a scientist, a businessman, a public figure. No one knew exactly how old he was. Even in our archives, at least in those to which we had access, his story began seventy years ago when he came from Europe.

Of a large build, with coarse, but completely symmetrical facial features, he could have made a serious impression if he had not been for his eternal pacified slackness. Despite his age, his skin was light and smooth, without wrinkles and any vegetation, with the exception of eyelashes and eyebrows. It looked as if the skin of a child was pulled on the body of a fifty-year-old man.

Now, when the fashion for everything natural again came to the modern world, its emphasized artificial appearance looked somewhat old-fashioned.

Taking this opportunity, I scanned it, and was surprised at how little organics remained in it, even for cyborg. However, he did not look decrepit, rather the opposite: he literally radiated vital energy, but not youthful impulsiveness of a blossoming meadow, which would wither in less than a month, but the mighty and calm maturity of Canadian coniferous forests, hundreds of years calmly looking at miserable human lives.

He glanced at me, then at Amy and again at me. His pupils dilated.

“You are not a man,” he said in a voice that was supposed to express surprise, “but not a cyborg either, did you ...”

“Synthetic,” I prompted.

“So it was you,” he looked at me with interest, like an exhibit at an exhibition.

- Yes, it was me.

- And how are your feelings?

“You don't have to shave,” I joked.

- Perfectly! - Wessel smiled, - and you do not accidentally know how many more like you?

“I apologize for interrupting,” Amy intervened, “but we came to ask you some questions.”

“Of course,” he said, “just a professional interest.” I am listening really carefully.

“Dr. Wessel,” I began, “we are investigating the recent bombings in San Francisco, and would like to ask you a few questions.” Thank you for agreeing to meet with us, I remind you that our meeting is informal, and you have the right not to answer questions if you consider it necessary.

“In any case for now,” Amy added.

“I don’t even know how I can help you,” Wessel said. - I have already told everything to your colleagues from the police and I am afraid that I have nothing more to add.

- In the fight against terrorism, every little thing matters. In addition, for a variety of reasons, this is not a common thing. - Amy paused. - For the first time cyborg terrorists were suicide bombers, and the most interesting thing is that cybernetic prostheses were produced in your company Sens Technologies. All of them were illegal, all became cyborg recently, and all had implants in the Al Ji Wee four hundred seventy eight series.

- This series was stolen a month ago, so I don’t know anything about her fate.

- Why didn’t the company’s representatives immediately contact the police or us?

“I don’t know,” Wessel shrugged. “They don’t report such incidents.” In addition, I decided to leave Sens Technologies, and, although I still remain a shareholder, I practically do not take part in the life of the company. I guess they just wanted to avoid a scandal, and tried to solve the problem on their own. Honestly, I myself learned about the theft after the explosions. By the way, as far as I know, the security service is conducting an internal investigation, and you may be interested to learn about its completion.

- Thanks for the information, we will send an official request. - Amy made a note in an electronic notebook. - Why did you decide to leave? Have you had conflicts with management?

- No, it's just that the company has become too cumbersome and cumbersome, it is almost impossible to introduce new technologies. You know, it's like watching your child grow old, while you are still full of strength and energy.

- Probably it was not easy for you to make such a decision?

- Not at all, I was from the very beginning ready for this outcome. This is not the first and, I hope, not my last undertaking. I am afraid that such is the fate of any large company. Under the contract, I still advise them for several months, and then I will take up my new project.

Suddenly I felt sympathy for him. I thought that I had a lot more in common with Wessel than with Amy. We both were born ordinary people, both had a hard time in their youth, and we both achieved some success. However, you need to be very careful with him.

Wessel politely and thoroughly answered Amy’s questions, even those that he probably didn’t like. He seemed friendly and pleasant, but it was a deceptive impression. And it is not surprising, since he was devoid of emotions in the usual human sense. Amy and I were for him nothing more than curious little animals, which can be studied and set all sorts of psychological experiments. About how scientists are letting mice into a cunning labyrinth, and if they sense a trap, they nevertheless hope to answer their challenge.

- What can you say about the American Cyborg Association? - I decided to return the conversation in the right direction.

- I was one of the founders of this organization and am its honorary member, but for many years I have not been a member of the Council and have not taken part in meetings. I also make regular donations, which you can verify by requesting my tax return. In my opinion, the Association copes well with its functions without my participation.

Wessel glanced at his watch — the time allotted to us was coming to an end.

“Dr. Wessel, can I ask you a personal question?” Amy asked.

I was wary, I didn’t have enough provocations from her side.

“Yes, of course,” Wessel replied.

- Tell me, what is it like to live for so many years, do you really not feel tired?

I glanced at Amy.

“It's all right, Mr. Avel,” Wessel smiled at me and went to Amy, “very good question.” No, I'm not tired. It may seem strange to you, but in fact, the longer you live, the more you value your life. And if you live long enough, you yourself will feel it.

- I see you do not part with your favorite. I didn’t think that cyborg like you love nature and animals, ”Amy clearly felt his patience.

“You know,” from his eyes, it seemed, eternity itself was watching, “the less human in me remains, the more I begin to appreciate the little that binds me to living nature.” And in the absence of emotions, you begin to look at the world in a completely different way.

Amy listened to him with a skeptical expression on her face, which she never learned to hide: she did not believe him. Wessel was a cyborg, and for Amy it was already a reason for distrust. In any case, so she was taught.

“Miss McGill, if you have no more questions, would you not be able to leave Mr. Avel and me alone?” - rather said than asked Wessel.

Amy looked at him with a withering look, as if she were going to burn through, and then looked into my eyes, looking for support. But I did not take risks. Who knows, maybe the cyborg decided to tell important information to me, and not to the optimist?

“Amy, leave us please,” I said.

Amy was clearly not ready for this outcome. A confusion was read in her eyes, she opened her mouth to say something, but instead she said good-bye to Wessel, turned around and walked quickly toward the parking lot. When Amy disappeared behind the trees, and her steps subsided, Wessel nodded in her direction:

- Hot thing, probably not easy to work with her?

“Yes, it happens,” I replied evasively, “so what did you want to tell me?”

“I wanted to ask you,” he looked away and looked off into the distance, “Mr. Avel, how do you think you were lucky to be on this plane?”

“Um ...” the question was somewhat unusual and took me by surprise. - Now, I probably will answer - yes, but at that time I did not think so.

Wessel nodded, as if reflecting on my answer.

- Thank you, that's exactly what I thought.

- Why did you ask this?

- So, simple curiosity, never mind.

- Anything else? - I asked carefully, counting on his frankness.

“No, that's all,” he answered, and smiled, making it clear that the conversation was over.

I felt deceived.

“In that case,” I handed him a business card, “if you find out something important ...

” I will certainly inform you about it.

- I am glad that we understood each other, - I said, - thank you for the meeting, you helped us a lot!

“You too, me,” a smile played on his face, as artificial as his whole body.

"Damn old schemer!"

As I expected, we learned nothing new. When they spotted me, the gardening robots frightened away into the bushes and watched me from there with their numerous sensors.

I climbed into Mitsubishi and shut the door. Amy was silent, tight-lipped, and her expression did not bode well. She abruptly moved, taxied into the alley, and rushed off. Finally, when the gate closed behind us, she asked:

“So what did he say?”

- Nothing.

I really didn’t want to explain myself in front of her, as Wessel circled me around his finger and made me an idiot.

- Really? You were not four minutes. Felix, we are partners!

- Nothing serious, a personal question about my past.

- Why did he ask me to leave?

- Amy, this does not concern you, better tell me, why did you provoke him? - I answered irritably.

“Didn't you see that he was lying in every word?” How can you trust him more than me? And in general, this is a violation of the rules!

“The only thing I saw was how terrible you behaved.” And yes, to hell with the rules!

- Felix!

- Not.

Amy glanced angrily at me and said dryly:

“Well, I will be forced to report this in a report.”

“Go ahead,” I said calmly, “write whatever you think is necessary.” You were sent to my department to spy on me.

- What nonsense!

“Was it your idea of ​​your father?” - I continued my offensive. - He criticizes us all the time, and in general, since when is the army sticking its nose in the FBI?

- Maybe since the cyborg in the Bureau has become as much as optimen? And honestly, I share his concerns.

I grinned:

- Do you really think that cyborgs are the main threat to Ecozone? However, I know that he said: "In no case should cyborg be allowed to get a majority in Congress and re-occupy key posts in the government."

- Do you think that cyborg is not dangerous?

- Do you know who our main threat?

- And who? She asked incredulously.

- Ordinary people.

- Naturals ?!

- Yes.Straight. Three-quarters of the country's population living in terrible conditions. Illegals that we regularly catch and send back. Ninety-five percent of all crimes in Ecozone are committed by them.

"They". Suddenly, I was surprised at what I said about those who had recently been myself. How little time has passed, and I have already forgotten what it means to be human. What can we say about Wessel.

- This makes no sense. Illegals are a serious problem, but in order to consider all naturals in the Reservation as a threat? Why should they hate us?

- You are mistaken, you are no better for them than cyborgs, and maybe worse. Cyborgs, at least, paid for their lives, ceasing to be human. What did optimans pay for for their eternal lives? Nothing! You cannot become an optimist, they need to be born. What did you pay, Amy, for the right to not hurt or grow old? What was born in the right family? And they will die at best at seventy, like their children and grandchildren.

- Everything is solved, Felix, their children can become optimans, and they themselves can extend their lives or ...

- Complete cyborgization? Is it really?- I laughed, - genomic optimization costs a million, biochemical therapy - seven hundred thousand every ten years, and the first stage of cyborgization - no less than a hundred.

“You can get a loan,” she tried to insist on her Amy.

- Who will give it to them? - I asked, - you, probably, do not imagine life in the Reservation. This is in principle unreal. Did you see the queues at the clinic? And I saw: people in them die from the heat. There are no legal ways, otherwise there would be no need for the Reservation.

“I’m sure the government is doing everything in their power,” looks like Amy’s arguments are over.

- I'm not sure! Because I remember very well how, fifty years ago, the Ecozone was called a temporary phenomenon. We were promised that the whole country would soon turn into the Ecozone.

In vain I got into an argument, but there was nowhere to retreat.

- And what do I see? - I continued. “The Optimen government has done nothing in half a century!” In addition to the construction of new barriers and air barriers. Of course, it is easier for them to blame cyborgs for everything than to solve real problems that will soon lead to a catastrophe. And, by the way, people like your father were directly involved in the section.

Amy broke out.

- You just sympathize with cyborg, because you are the same as them!

It was time to stop it.

- Hey, sis! - I said sharply, - actually, I'm still your boss, and if you don't like it, you can write a statement at any time. Is everything clear to you? I am sure, like you will be willing to join the army.

Amy squeezed the steering wheel so that her knuckles turned white.

- Yes, sir! - she said, - and in her official tone there was no agreement, but only forced submission was heard. “That's exactly what I'll do.”

- And do not drive!

I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes. So what have you achieved, Agent Avel? Spoiled relations with one of the best novice agents? Yes, she is naive, quick-tempered and sharp, but at the same time sincere and honest - qualities rarely seen among the staff of the Bureau. However, I was not very worried about Amy. If she saw the same thing as me, if she lived there and was a part of that world, she would know how dangerous people are driven to despair. People who have nothing to lose but their lives, and they did not consider it as a value.

They were ready to do anything to get into Ecozone, even to death. And I had to kill them. We were competitors with them: the less people cross the border illegally, the sooner I can legally cross it. Cruel. Did anyone say it would be otherwise? There were a lot of agents, and each illegal immigrant increased the chance that once again I would be given the coveted green passport. In any case, I thought so at the very beginning. But in reality it turned out that no one was waiting for us in Ekozone. The mercenaries were needed on the other side of the border, and the Bureau intended to use us until we were able to do our work tolerably well, and when, thirty or forty years later, you turned into an old wreck — if, of course, you were still alive — you for edification, the rest could be allowed to live their life in Hawaii somewhere in Hawaii.

“Look, you can legally live in Ecozone! - they said. - For example, a person honestly earned his citizenship. You just have to work hard! “

Of course, you still worked at the bureau, to the best of your ability. It was impossible to refuse, it was a prerequisite for naturalization, and you couldn't do anything else. In a sense, I was damn lucky.

“Mitsubishi bus on the road?” I suddenly thought. This is what I am most worried about.