Kostya + Lila =
Kostya Zotov opened his eyes. He stared at the ceiling for a long time, studying it like a puzzle.
It was written there: "Kostya + Lilia = "
(His old feat, from back when he was tormented, wondering if she loved him or not.)
He hadn't finished the equation—he was waiting for life to suggest the answer. Well, and then there was no time for such foolishness.
(... What the hell did I dream about, anyway?)
Oh well. Lilia was snoring beside him, alive and real. His Lilechik, Lilenok, Liliusik. His Fluffy Baby.
Kostya slipped his hand under the blanket. He found a warm thigh and stroked it from bottom to top. Then again and again, kneading the breathing, sleep-softened skin.
The Baby purred and rolled over
onto her back. She was only nineteen, but to Kostya she seemed like someone akin to Venus, initiated, enlightened, and so on. The thought of her previous men (Lilia didn't want to talk about them) sweetly burned his nerves...He didn't have the strength to play the experienced seducer, and Kostya, whimpering, pounced on the languid body.
Sleepy Lilia smiled. Her nipples swayed like berries in sour cream. There was something frightening in this happiness—to not hold back his passion even half a penny's worth, to release it without brakes and spill it right into his beloved, into her deepest depths...
— And you? — he asked when he could speak.
— I don't want to, — Lilia purred. — I'm still sooo sleepy...
She stretched sweetly.
He wanted to crawl into her entirely, head and guts, and live there, inside the adored tender body, dissolve in it like in cream...
— Did it feel good?
— Aaaa... It all spread out so much inside...
— How? Tell me.
— Oh, come on... I'm embarrassed...
— Tell me!
— Aaaa... well, it's like you were greased with oil inside, hot like that... and it's melting inside you... oh Kostya, I can't talk about such things! Where are you going?
— On business.
— Big business?
— Not really.
They had been together for six months already, but Kostya still couldn't believe his happiness.
(... Ddamn, what kind of trash did I dream about? Some dude was yelling something... How does that get into your head!)
He didn't believe that the beauty and charmer Lilia, with whom he had fallen so savagely in love, had reciprocated. That now she was always with him, and he could touch her, stroke her, kiss her, press her to himself... And even...
(... Ddamn, it's always so tight after this business... Who knows how long I stand over the toilet...)
Their love seemed like a happy dream. Any moment now something would happen, some draft would blow—and it would all dissipate like a mirage. And Kostya would wake up alone again in his room, rented through connections for 30 bucks...
The window vent slammed shut behind him. A stream of cold wind washed over his back.
Kostya strained as hard as he could. Three drops fell into the toilet.
(... Ddamn! That's it, can't squeeze out any more. Go, go. Don't run! You believe in the Bogeyman, right? Or vampires? Well, one just flew in through the vent...)
— Lilenok! — Kostya called out cheerfully, entering the room. — Lilenok... Where are you?
She wasn't in bed.
She wasn't in the apartment either. Neither Lilia nor her things.
Not even her scent remained.
***
— ... What Lilia? — everyone told him. — Are you sick?
— Kostinka, you study so much, — his mother clucked with concern. — Let's go to the doctor, okay? Remember Sigizmund Palych?...
No one had ever heard of her. Not his parents, not his friends, not his classmates.
His grandmother, as usual, didn't get it and admonished Kostya:
— Stop grieving so much. One Lilia left—another will come. Do you know how many such Lilas there are? You're young. Erase her from your memory! Erase her!
— Erase? — Kostya shouted.
He suddenly remembered what the dude in his dream had yelled at him.
He had yelled:
I WILL ERASE HER FROM YOUR LIFE!..
— 1
— Konstantin Ivanych, congratulations! A world sensation! The press from all the leading agencies... the whole internet is buzzing, and even MacMorren from Harvard... And China, China! Do you know what they're offering, huh?
— I know. Kolya, I'm terribly tired, — said Professor Zotov, walking into the laboratory. — Three days on my feet. I need to nap for an hour or two...
— Then let me make up a bed for you in the on-call room, Konstantin Ivanych! Natal Semyonovna will allow it, don't worry, we're friends...
— Please, I'm asking you, — the professor said wearily. Kolya Kopeykin, his assistant, secretary, fan, right hand, courier, lab technician, etc., etc., was both indispensable and unbearable. Sometimes he managed to be both at once. — I'm asking you, Kolya. We still have work tonight.
— Work? I'm amazed by you, Konstantin Ivanych! After such a report...
— And who will work for me? MacMorren from Harvard?... Come in an hour, wake me up. I'll lock it from the inside. Here's the code, you'll open it... But no later.
— Okay, Konstantin Ivanych. Rest. Rest... — Kolya backed away.
He had enamored, girlish eyes, magnified by his huge glasses. Zotov suddenly felt disgusted.
(... Ddamn! He's a good guy though... Talented...)
The door closed softly. Zotov went to it and entered the code. Making sure the door was locked, he went to the cot. Sat on the edge, sighed. Looked at his watch.
He had an hour.
He had been waiting for this moment for fifteen years. 5898 days (yes, he had counted them)—5898 days of work, sleepless nights, struggle, fainting spells, humiliation, and more work, stubborn, hard labor without rest or hope.
Hope had appeared only three years ago, when the phenomena he described in theory began to be confirmed by experiments, causing sensation after sensation. The science he discovered—bioprogramming—moved from "pseudoscientific theories" to "young and promising disciplines"; the possibility of working with the human subconscious as a software environment had already turned from fantasy into a fashionable theory, and from that—into the norm. Zotov became a cult figure in science. And even his impossible idea that life is an Interface, and sleep is an exit from the Interface into Programming, into another dimension of being where there is access to the Central Computer—even that idea now evoked not laughter but condescending sighs: well, every genius has his quirks...
And only he alone knew What All This Was For.
The decisive experiment on a human had not yet been conducted. The professor knew the theory wasn't ready for it, and he himself seemed like someone wandering in fog over a gold mine: from time to time he found nuggets, but he didn't understand the vein and saw no system in his finds. The only thing Zotov knew for sure was that he was at the mine, and there were many nuggets around.
But he could wait no longer.
Taking a deep breath, he swallowed a gray pill. (No one knew of its existence. He had one more like it, and a third he had lost, dropped somewhere in the Institute, clumsy...) He laid out the instructions prepared in advance for Kolya on the table. Checked the equipment, attached the sensors to his arms and legs, lay down on the cot, and closed his eyes.
The sleeping pill was supposed to work quickly, in five to seven minutes. Especially since—he really was very tired.
Trying to relax, he thought of Her.
He pulled these memories, guarded like old photographs, from a secret compartment of his memory, and they came to life with a creak, reluctant to leave their refuge. He thought of Her, assuming it would help him. He didn't know for sure, but he had some grounds for the assumption...
He thought of Her...
***
— Ddamn! What the hell?
Someone had woken him up.
(... Has an hour already passed?... Did I miscalculate?... Did Kolya come early?...)
Zotov opened his eyes and discovered he was not in the laboratory. He was in... (ddamn!)... in the guard booth, at the checkpoint.
Right in front of him sat Natal Semyonovna, the all-powerful guard of the Institute, the terror of doctors and academics.
(... What the hell is this? Who dragged me here?)
— Well, why are you bugging your eyes out? — Natal Semyonovna inquired unkindly. — Got where you wanted, I suppose.
— Where I wanted? — Zotov repeated, like a parrot.
— Of course! I know, I know why you've come. Want to find your beauty, huh?
Zotov flinched. Natal Semyonovna couldn't possibly know...
— Ah... — he began, and fell silent.
The wall behind Natal Semyonovna was semi-transparent. Behind it, a flickering chaos was discernible, resembling nebulae from Google Space pictures. And Natal Semyonovna herself was slightly translucent.
— She's old now, I suppose. Thirty with a good bit—that's no joke. Probably an old woman already.
Zotov was silent.
— Still want her? Well, I know, I know. I know eeeverything about you, dear.
— Where am I?
— Where? Where you went.
— Ah... Why are you here? Why is all this here?..
— Look at you! Wanted to click around on the Main Computer right away, didn't you? Don't play dumb. The way things really are here, you can't seeee. Otherwise, Kolya won't revive you. You can't program from the Interface, and you can't jump out of it, silly, because you are your Interface. Your consciousness, that is. So it shoved what's here into images understandable to itself. For your own good, so you don't go off your rocker.
Zotov was silent.
— But it's okay, — Natal Semyonovna suddenly took pity. We'll meet you halfway. There was such an instruction, I'm telling you in secret, hear?
— She... was? Exists? Is she alive? — he asked barely audibly.
— Of course! Was, exists, and is alive.
— Where is she? — Zotov shouted.
— Don't yell at me, hear you. Your years aren't the ones for raising your voice at me...
— Where... is she? — he asked in a whisper.
— Now you're whistling like a little animal... Eh! Here, take it, — Natal Semyonovna shoved a piece of paper at him.
Zotov greedily grabbed it and read:
Viа Аlеgriа, 217, Buеnоs-Аirеs, Аrgеntinа, 8.00— 20.00
— Argentina?... What is this? She... is here?
— Here, here.
— Thank you so much! — Zotov muttered. — Thank you, Natal Semyonovna...
— Oh, it's nothing. Don't thank me.
— Ah... one more question. May I?
— Well, go on, — Natal Semyonovna grumbled discontentedly. — What question?
— Who... is he?
— What "he"?
— Well... You understand. Who... took her from me?
— Eeh, dear! — Natal Semyonovna shook her head. — Playing dumb again? You understand yourself what level of will is involved here, if He could delete her from your Interface with all drivers, files, and other junk. Such subjects aren't for you two-legged cockroaches to know. The Interface will freeze. It's not for your mind to grasp.
— Well, but still? Shouldn't I know my enemy?
— You should fuck off, you fucking dickhead, you piece of shit! Fuck off, Konstantin Ivanych! Fuck off! — Natal Semyonovna suddenly screamed, dissolving into a rainbow-colored spot. Her face contorted and sprouted huge glasses, continuing to scream: — Fuck off, Konstantin Ivanych!..
***
— ... Wake up, Konstantin Ivanych! Wake up!
The huge glasses materialized and hovered over him.
— Huh? What?..
— Wake up... Phew. Seems alive, — Kolya exhaled, adjusting his glasses.
People murmured around them.
— Via Alegria, 217, Buenos Aires, Argentina, from eight to eight, — said Zotov, staring into nowhere. Then he rose robotically on the cot and felt for the pen and paper prepared in advance on the table.
— What? What is he saying? What is he writing? — people buzzed behind him. — On himself... heroically... in the name of science...
— Vi-a A-le-g-ri-a, — the professor muttered, writing down the incantation that was evaporating from his memory quickly, like smoke. — Ar-gen-tina... Yes? Good evening, colleagues...
— 2
Via Alegria turned out to be a shabby back alley on the outskirts of the city. A taxi was apparently something like a UFO here, and everyone on the street gathered to gawk at Zotov getting out of the car.
Squinting at the half-naked brunettes (they seemed like extras from a soap opera come to life), he entered No. 217. And immediately, right in the doorway, bumped into a tanned shoulder in pink lace.
—