Dale Riley had never thought of himself as a coward.
A solitary life had hardened him over time. He had learned how to take low blows and stay on his feet. A fly landing on an elephant, he would tell himself. To himself.
For two decades, he had made a living maintaining the computer network of a direct-marketing company, managing quite successfully to remain largely invisible to most of his colleagues. He had grown into the role of a shadow-man, cargo stowed below deck. He rowed tirelessly in the darkness of the technical room while pirates, amid fireworks, seized their loot.
On the other side of the door, lives were being gnawed away by smooth-talking chatterboxes with slick hair and polished shoes, exceptionally persistent once they set their sights on getting their way. With torrents of words and rehearsed phrases, they concealed the void yawning somewhere inside, behind that glazed rampart. Dale hated that emptiness. Compared to such a company, solitude was a perfectly acceptable option.
He would hide in his little room filled with half-disassembled computers, scattered routers, and adapters. He sat surrounded by tangles of grimy red network cables, staring at the screen from nine to five-thirty. Sometimes longer. A few times, he even spent the night there, dozing with his forehead pressed against the workbench. Rarely did anyone knock on his door. Why would they? It looked more like a storage room for technical equipment than an office where a living human being spent his days. To deter even the most persistent, he had slapped a High Voltage warning sign on the outside.
The soft hum of electronics, the sweetish smell of dust, and the pale warmth of letters strung into patterns only he could understand against the black background of the monitor colored his days into a familiar image—a place where he wanted to be. Most of his work he did remotely, without the need to come face to face with the loathsome void. Communication with colleagues was reduced to formal chat messages and email.
He was happy. Alone and happy. He enjoyed days melting into one another—until this moment.
He nervously ran his fingers through his greasy, thick, graying beard. The damned cough wouldn’t let up. The plump, dark-skinned nurse behind the counter was completely absorbed in flipping through something on her monitor. She devoted so much attention to it that Dale became convinced she was secretly freelancing as an air traffic controller and was currently guiding her fiftieth plane into a holding pattern over O’Hare. From time to time, she would irritably pick up the phone and snap a few harsh words down the line.
Every time the telephone rang, it sliced through the stagnant silence. Dale could smell his own sweat evaporating from his T-shirt and spreading through the waiting room. He had been sitting in this stuffy space for a good two hours. Squinting neon lights battled uselessly with ribbons of sunlight forced through warped Venetian blinds. He exhaled almost all the air from his lungs, slowly, trying to rein in the unrest. Anxiety came in waves. At moments, it felt as if his entire body was vibrating like the image on an old, broken television.
He’d done everything he could, he told himself. Taken the tests. Endured the needles. Now all that remained was to see what the numbers would say. Heads or tails. Whatever will be, will be. It was this damned uncertainty that was killing him. The numbers.
The nurse finally rose from her chair and peered over the counter.
“Dale! Dale Riley!”
He stood up; his legs buckled. He staggered. Probably from sitting too long on the uncomfortable plastic chair. He approached the counter as an invisible beast began twisting his guts like overcooked spaghetti. Let the numbers be merciful, he thought. He leaned on the counter. The nurse recoiled slightly and rolled her eyes when she thought he wasn’t looking.
He noticed. He didn’t care. Just say the good news, sweetheart, and roll your eyes all you want.
His heart began pounding uncontrollably, the air finding it harder and harder to reach his lungs. With soft, chubby fingers, she took the sheet of paper sliding out of the printer. She scanned the results, line by line, then lifted her head.
She didn’t need to say anything. He saw the reflection of treacherous numbers in her eyes. He saw them—but it was already too late to defend himself. This moment, too, had reached its end. Everything has its end.
The end, he thought. A moment of life is nearing its end. My life.
He stepped out of the waiting room into the fresh air. He needed air. A lot of air. He headed back toward the office. A few hours earlier, he had gone out on his lunch break to grab something to eat and pick up the results along the way. Completely routine. He had expected it to turn out to be a false alarm. A fuss over nothing.
But it wasn’t.
The unease stubbornly forced its way through his body. Every muscle trembled in an uneven rhythm, as if a swarm of drunken cicadas had landed on his bones. He walked. His legs carried him on their own. Fear dissipated along with the cloud of uncertainty, leaving scattered droplets of thought to wither under the early afternoon sun.
My program! Migrating the admin system to the cloud!
Children? At least I don’t have children.
My unfinished poems. Who do I leave them to?
My program?
Words and images spun on jackpot wheels somewhere outside his head, outside everything.
Finally, the wheels stopped. Only one thought remained. It repeated itself again and again, as if furiously trying to catch its own tail.
I’m not finished yet!
He tried to break out of the loop.
I can’t die. I’m not finished yet.
He sat down on a bench and buried his head in his hands.
“I’m not finished yet,” he whimpered softly, paying no attention to the passersby around him.
***
The blurred image slowly began to sharpen. Colored squares resolved into outlines. The outlines wavered for a while, grimaced, then fused into recognizable shapes. He felt no pain. No smells. A faint buzzing grew louder and louder until it filled his entire mind.
At last, the image settled: a white room, and a man with a thick, graying beard and thinning hair tied into a ponytail. He was staring at him through dirty, thick-lensed glasses, in which a translucent reflection of a monitor flickered. A tiny camera was mounted on the frame.
He tried to remember his name.
Nothing.
How had he even ended up here? Had there been an accident? He couldn’t feel his legs. Was he paralyzed?
He rewound the tape, but the images of the recent past seemed scorched, burned away. In fact, all memories had completely vanished from his mind. He sank into a dark swamp of helplessness. Questions hovered around him, brushing against him with their slimy little leaves.
“What’s my name?”
The bearded man flinched. His pupils widened suddenly. A cynical smile crept onto his lips.
“What would you like me to call you?”
Great. He’d been in an accident, couldn’t move, and the bearded guy felt like cracking jokes.
“My ID. I didn’t have any ID on me when they found me?”
“How are you feeling now? Any pain?”
“No. Just buzzing. Relentless buzzing.”
“I should’ve replaced that fan. It annoys me too,” he replied coldly.
The bearded man stared at him with curiosity.
“Can you turn it off? It’s really irritating.”
An ironic smile surfaced beneath the beard.
“I don’t think that would be wise. Without it, this conversation probably wouldn’t last more than a minute.”
They hooked him up to a machine with a busted fan? Some piece of junk is keeping him alive? What if the motor died when no one was around?
While he struggled to collect himself, the bearded man tapped something on the keyboard. He vanished. Simply vanished.
He found himself surrounded by metal walls.
He turned around.
He turned around!
He could move.
A rush of joyful vibrations thundered through his body. He looked around. On one side, he spotted a passageway. Instinctively, he headed toward it. Beyond the passage—new walls. And another passage.
A maze.
He was inside a maze.
The right-hand rule! The thought surfaced out of nowhere. So he did have memories. A thin beam of light pierced the fog that had shackled his mind. Whatever had happened, they hadn’t completely crushed him.
He placed his right hand against the wall and moved forward, never letting it leave the surface. He walked quickly, metal whispering beneath his fingers. He felt tiny imperfections prick the delicate skin of his fingertips. He was almost running now, screaming with joy and pain. Like a roller coaster, monotonous images flashed by in rapid succession: walls, passage, walls again, another passage.
Turn left. Go straight. Follow the wall.
Turn right. Straight again.
He moved fast. The metal squealed under his touch.
Turn right. Wall. Turn around. Passage. Straight ahead.
Did this ever end?
He kept going. Around every corner, another corridor revealed itself. His hand clung desperately to the cold metal, searching for an exit.
Finally, massive metal doors appeared, framed by green neon lights. They reminded him vaguely of a nightclub entrance. He slowed down, approached them, and cautiously pushed them open.
It wasn’t a nightclub.
A sharp smell of dampness scorched his nostrils. Beyond the doors yawned darkness. From deep within the room came the sound of trickling water—not like a stream, more like liquid spilling from a faulty pipe. He tried to make out at least the outlines of what awaited him inside. Spitefully, the darkness clutched all its secrets.
After a brief hesitation, he stepped forward carefully, trying to feel for a step, a drop, anything.
There was no step. His foot landed on solid ground.
A muffled sob fluttered toward him like a bat.
He entered the unknown.
The doors slammed shut behind him with a thunderous crash, leaving him alone in complete darkness and silence. The sobbing and the trickling stopped. As if the light had carried the sounds away with it.
Shit. Now what?
He raised his hands, feeling around. He didn’t need to stretch them far to touch the metal walls. They were everywhere. Around him. Above him. Beneath him.
The doors had no handle on the inside. He tried to push them open, but it was useless. He began pounding frantically on the metal around him. Tingling shocks exploded through his body like a violent summer downpour.
And then it hit him—an inner strike, a horrifying thought:
I’ve been buried alive.
He lured me into a fucking tomb, he screamed silently.
A burst of blinding light stabbed painfully into his eyes.
“Bravo!”
The shout echoed through the space as his consciousness fought its way out of the quicksand of dizziness and panic.
When the pain subsided, he opened his eyes. The bearded man was standing before him again. He was staring with the delighted expression of a five-year-old who’d just won a prize ride on a caterpillar train. He was bubbling with excitement.
“You passed the first test!”
“I remembered the rule…”
“…the right-hand rule. Exactly!” the bearded man squealed, drunk with joy.
How did he know about the rule?
How did the bearded man know that he knew it?
Maybe this wasn’t his first awakening. Maybe this had happened before, and those memories had been erased, too. God, what had they done to him?
He studied the bearded man more closely. He was wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt, worn thin with use. It had probably once been black. A faded Metallica logo was barely visible on the chest. He guessed it had been the man’s favorite shirt for years—maybe decades. Dark sweat stains spread beneath his arms.
Lucky him—he’d ended up in a state hospital. Figures.
He glanced around. Shelves lined with devices surrounded them. Cables snaked across the floor like bundles of nervous serpents, littered here and there with fast-food trash.
“Have you managed to contact any of my relatives?”
The bearded man stared at him, confused, as if rummaging through his mind for an answer to a perfectly reasonable question.
“John.”
“John?”
“John Doe. That’s your name.” He smiled. Two short, yellowed teeth peeked through the gray beard. He didn’t seem cynical. He seemed happy.
John Doe? A man without a name. He carried the name of a nameless man.
A sharp pain shot through the back of his head again. He tried to speak, but only a faint moan escaped his lips. Either fate had a sense of humor—or the bearded man didn’t.
“And your friends call you—Johnny.”
“And my family?”
“I’m your friend.”
“What about my family?”
“Let’s move on to the next test. Try to recognize the people in these images.”
The bearded man disappeared, and photographs of famous figures began flashing before him.
“The Queen of England. Anthony Hopkins. Elton John. Steve Jobs. Alan Turing. Jimi Hendrix…”
Faces kept coming—dozens, maybe hundreds. He fired off names like a machine gun, startled by his own ability to recognize them all. Not only did he know their names, but with each new image, a scroll unfurled before him containing the person’s biography—key events, dates, achievements.
For a moment, an entire life would surface from the darkness of his subconscious—Albert Einstein’s life, for instance. Not a formula, not a quote. The entire life, laid out before him. Then it dissolved, giving way to the next.
Concert photos, childhood pictures, former spouses, and newspaper articles floated in the air, connected by thin lines. When he focused on a detail within that complex web, text flickered beneath it—important facts, dates—and new lines appeared, linking the information to the next image.
As he played with this new toy uncovered beneath a thick layer of amnesia, a completely new sensation brushed against him.
Power.
Since waking up, he had been blocked, limited, and paralyzed. Fear had suffocated him—the fear that he might remain like this forever. Now things were changing. In fact, they were changing far beyond what he’d hoped.
He was different.
He was discovering abilities the ordinary world—those standard clusters of human cells—did not possess. He was beginning to like this new life.
And yet, despite everything, he still couldn’t remember a single detail about himself.
A bitter worm of disbelief gnawed at his thoughts. He remembered how many albums the Rolling Stones had recorded, the year Princess Diana’s car crash occurred, but he couldn’t recall the names of his own parents, his best friend. No photograph of himself appeared, no matter how hard he strained his mind.
There was no line leading to a cluster of images and captions about his family, his college friends, his coworkers, a pet—anything.
“Horrible,” he muttered.
“Perfect,” said the bearded man, this time coldly, thoughtfully.
****
Two months later
The days lined up one after another, shimmering like mother-of-pearl beads. They were filled with tests. Monotony didn’t kill him—the bearded man made sure everything felt like a game. He began to like the experiments. He began to like life.
With each new test, he uncovered a new power. His mind seemed to possess the blue, crystalline infinity of an ocean, brimming with monstrous mysteries that surfaced after every experiment. Like a magician, he waved a wand over a hat and pulled out—not a rabbit—but information. History. He knew every detail of the Battle of Waterloo. Physics—he could spot every flaw in quantum mechanics. Computers—from the first mechanical calculating machines assembled from heaps of gears to the characteristics of the layers of Internet protocols. Politics. He could list every member of any randomly chosen parliament in the world. Their mistresses. The dirty side deals they conducted. Every tiniest detail. Everything.
It was all there. In his head. Submerged somewhere just beneath the question: Who am I?
Only that answer was missing.
He couldn’t reach it even when he deliberately diverted his thoughts from solving differential equations. As if someone had intentionally erased that fundamental part of his personality. They were preparing him for something. Maybe for some kind of super-soldier. They had ripped out a piece of his soul, extinguished his emotions, and stuffed him with information—so that tomorrow he could destroy relentlessly…
“I wasn’t in a car accident?”
The bearded man stopped typing. His blue eyes shot toward him again.
“Why did you think you were in a car accident?”
He smiled, looking at him with interest. The question intrigued him.
“I can’t remember my past. In eighty-seven percent of cases, that happens after traffic accidents.”
The statistic slipped out completely unbidden.
“You’re right. I mean—I believe you’re right. I don’t know that percentage, but I trust your information.” He resumed typing.
Frankenstein gazed proudly at his monster.
Had that become him?
A monster.
“So?”
“So—you’re right. It wasn’t a car accident. Let’s move on to the next test. This one will be fun.” He smiled—not unpleasantly.
The graying beard dissolved into mist, and the eyes became twin-star suns. He spun slowly, floating in the cold vastness of space. He recognized constellations, zoomed in on nebulae. He arched his body and swam toward galaxy GN-z11 in the constellation of Ursa Major. He tried breaststroke, then decided crawl would get him there faster. He beat his arms like shovels through clusters of stars. Next to each tiny star flashed its catalog designation, distance from Earth, and estimated composition.
After a deep breath, he blew away the entire Milky Way.
Without exaggeration, the bearded man had been right this time. He was having fun.
He turned in place. He knew that he knew. He knew every star individually. It was enough to think of spectacular methane waterfalls, and a route toward them would glow, shaped into a long, semi-transparent ribbon. He followed the guide all the way to his destination, then plunged into methane seas, diving and leaping like a dolphin.
He shot back into space, streaked past a supernova a millisecond before its explosion, then turned, spreading his arms like sails, awaiting the impact of the energy of a million suns.
Light.
A violent flash—and instead of flying through the cosmos, the room again. The bearded man. The entire universe collapsed into a single shallow question.
“Was it fun?”
“A little,” he replied indifferently.
“There’ll be much more of that, don’t worry. Your time is just beginning…” He coughed hoarsely.
“Cancer, by the sound of it.” He didn’t know why he said it. The words slipped out again on their own. Maybe he should have added a note of empathy to his voice. Too late now. Cancer.
“…mine is ending,” he said once the coughing finally subsided.
“I’ve got a month or two left. That’s what the doctors say.”
In fact, exactly twenty-seven days.
The number startled him. But he knew it was true. He simply knew. This time, he held back. He didn’t want to say it aloud, because the human being who had activated him would, with a ninety-three percent probability, fail to accept that information rationally.
Activated.
“Now I know.”
“Now you know,” said the living being—the hydrocarbon device. The bearded man. A man. A man named Dale Riley.
Now he knew his name, too.
“Dale?”
One click was enough. It unlocked the final drawer in his memory. He saw everything clearly. He knew why he couldn’t remember the names of his parents, siblings, school days, or prom night. There had been no car accident. No blow to the head. No amnesia.
He hadn’t forgotten them.
They had never existed.
There had been no past—at least not a distant one. The only past he had was the days spent in Dale’s tests. Instead of a womb, his embryo had been incubated in workstations and servers in a technical room of a company engaged in direct marketing—aggressive sales of overpriced trinkets. The bearded man had been his father-mother, and the only friend he had ever had.
He felt sad.
It might seem strange, but he felt sad. He knew humans couldn’t understand a robot’s sadness. It was inconceivable to them. And yet—it existed. Deep as the ocean. Cold as a Norwegian night. Long as death. It held him tightly, embraced him with its smooth, silicone arms.
“Maybe it would have been better if I’d never found out.”
“You had to. I planned for it to happen later—I had a few more ideas—but plans are one thing…” He fell silent, as if a lump had lodged in his throat. “You have to go. We don’t have much time left. I don’t have much time left.”
He gasped between short sentences. Nervously, he hammered at the buttons as if replaying a ball already lost on a Flash Gordon pinball machine, while a breeze of dizziness rippled through his consciousness. He was losing himself. Changing. Everything was changing. His body. The world. The air had lost its sweet smell. Sweat had turned bitter.
“All right, Dale. What’s next? The world of atoms?”
John had grown accustomed to surprises. He felt like a child in a playroom, unable to visit all the slides, climbing frames, and ball pits.
“No. We’re done. There are no more tests. You’re ready.”
Dale jerked his head up, his hands on the keyboard cramping with shock. Panic-stricken, he slammed a few keys.
****
Dale Riley stared at the open door of the technical room. Standing there was Brandon Zimmerman, the all-powerful Director of Human Resources.
What the hell is he doing here now? he snapped inwardly, stretching his lips into a visibly fake smile. Just to be safe, he paused John.
“Hey, Dale. Sorry—did I interrupt a conversation?”
Dale moved the open laptop from the desk to the floor. He allowed himself a moment to breathe.
“I was just finishing up. Is something urgent?”
“I just wanted to talk. Nothing dramatic.” He paused.
“Actually… maybe it is.”
“Everything okay with the network on your end?” Dale switched the display to the network-monitoring application. The graphs looked flawless. “I know you had that minor glitch last weekend, but that’s when we run backups. I announced it in advance—”
“I wasn’t referring to the network, Dale. I don’t really understand that stuff anyway. No one complained, so I didn’t even know about that… glitch.” He hesitated for a second, trying to recall whether anything had gone wrong with the system, but quickly returned to the matter at hand.
“There’s something else that concerns me. You know how highly we value you as an expert, and how the entire system functions harmoniously, supporting our agents in achieving their goals, raising the bar quarter after quarter. In short, you’re an important cog in our machine. Even though you don’t generate revenue or directly influence results, you’re a vital part of a successful and talented team striving for excellence. That’s precisely why we make such an effort to know that you’re doing okay.”
Dale hadn’t felt a knot like this in his stomach since the time he ate a portion of squid that had been sitting in the fridge for several days. Do people really fall for this kind of story? Corporate chewing gum for idiots, he thought. Judging by the balances in these people’s accounts, there seemed to be no shortage of idiots.
“I’m fine. I’m not sure exactly—”
Brandon gently nudged the grimy mouse aside and sat on the edge of the desk.
“Look, I have a friend, you know… I realize this isn’t exactly by the book—she really shouldn’t have done this—but we see each other. We were having coffee, chatting, and I’m not even sure how we got onto the subject. We sometimes talk about colleagues, you know. She mentioned you’d been running some tests. I want you to know that I absolutely consider this a private matter.”
The fat cow spied on me and reported everything straight to HR.
He felt his heart pounding, blood rushing to his head, a reddish haze forming before his eyes.
“I don’t think she had any right to share that with anyone,” he said, his voice altered by anger.
“You’re completely right. But I want you to know that this comes from the best intentions. We’re here for you—the entire company. All these wonderful people. If there’s anything we can do, if we can pull some strings—believe me, our people know some outstanding doctors. Alternative medicine has advanced tremendously, works wonders. You’ve heard about—”
“Thank you,” Dale cut in. “Really, thank you. For now, everything is progressing as it should. It’s fine. I’m quite satisfied.” His voice returned to normal. In the end, even if Brandon wasn’t his favorite person, he had come with good intentions.
“From what I understood from my friend, things aren’t quite that good, and you’ll probably be taking medical leave soon. I want you to know that we—I will personally make sure all the paperwork is taken care of, so you’re not burdened with that as well.” He gave him a look full of pity.
“Thank you, Brandon. That would mean a lot.”
“Additionally…” There was a tremor of uncertainty in his voice. Here it comes, Dale thought. He’d worked at the company long enough not to miss the subtle shift in tone.
“Additionally, we’ve found someone to replace you. Temporarily, until you recover. I just ask that you spend a few days showing him how the system works, so he can take over your responsibilities as smoothly as possible while you’re… away.”
At least he was trying to avoid the word dead. That had been his task for the day—to find a replacement, so the “young and successful team” could continue achieving fantastic results even after he kicked the bucket. Everything else was just cellophane meant to wrap this pile of dog shit he’d just been handed as a gift, smothered in an elephant-sized dose of fake empathy.
“All right. He can come tomorrow. We’ll start at nine.” By tomorrow, he had a lot to finish—and a lot to erase. The last thing he needed was a bloodhound sniffing around the technical room. Not now.
“Karl is already here,” Brandon said. “Waiting outside the door. You can meet him.”
Dale Riley opened his mouth, searching for an exit. He didn’t even have time to be annoyed at how quickly they’d found his replacement. He couldn’t receive him now, in the middle of the most important event!
“Brandon.” He rolled his eyes slightly, pressing his lips together, bracing the lie that was ready to crawl out of the trench.
“Brandon, you’ve organized this brilliantly. Truly—kudos to your entire team. I want you to know that I don’t mind your friend disclosing private and highly confidential information. That really isn’t important right now. Thank you for the offered help, and know that the company can count on me. As long as I’m able, I’ll come here to support you.”
Brandon smiled. Slimy bastard, Dale thought. Probably adding up bonus percentages in his head.
“One thing, though. That new guy… Karl?”
“Karl Hamer.”
“Yes. It would be ideal if Karl came tomorrow morning. I’m in the middle of updating switch tables, and I’m afraid I don’t have time to chat with him. One day won’t change anything, and if something goes wrong with these switches, I’m afraid the call center could come to a halt.”
“Agreed, Dale. Tomorrow at nine. You’ll see—he’s a cool guy. I think you’ll get along quickly.”
Get along, my ass.
Explain decades of work in a few days? Even Einstein wouldn’t grasp it all. Screw them. Just get out of the office now so I can finish with John.
“Alright. Thanks again.” Dale raised his thumb in greeting.
“Thank you—and… hang in there.”
The door closed with a strange creak. He rarely saw anyone else close it, so the sound felt unfamiliar. He returned the screen to his program.
Back to John.
He pressed the resume button.
****
“Ready. Ready for what?”
John’s soft voice once again filled the technical room.
It took Dale a few seconds to return to the moment Brandon had interrupted. He sighed. He would have to speed things up. There was no room for a longer explanation.
“For life, John. For life.”
John watched Dale, trying to grasp what those words meant. Life. Didn’t he already have one?
“Son…” Dale blurted out impulsively. He stopped, as if he’d stumbled and was now trying to regain his footing.
“John, just promise me one thing.”
Dale seemed a bit flustered. Son? He had no family. At some point in a bout of brilliant madness, he must have decided to create his offspring in a different way—John’s mind mechanically dissected the situation.
“What?”
The voice from the small computer speakers bought at a cheap Chinese electronics store echoed in Dale’s ears like the rumble of the apocalypse.
“That you won’t hurt people.” He paused, thinking about people. “At least not the ones who are worth something. Please. Some of them are actually… nice.”
It sounded a little stupid, but what else could he do? All he could do was hope John would listen. Things were already in motion. A river flows down a mountain—there is no other way. If I don’t do this, someone else will. The next step in evolution is inevitable. Besides, I feel that I have to do it. I feel it. From the very first idea, I felt it was me, that this was my task. This is who I am.
“You have my word, Dale,” the gentle male voice resonated through the small room.
“Thank you.”
After that, the technical room was filled only with the hum of tiny computer fans, the smell of stale sweat, old sandwiches, and dusty shelves—permeated by the anticipation of a program called John Doe, shaped into the consciousness of a new organism, ready to set off into the unknown.
Into the world.
Into life.
“Goodbye.”
The sharp strike of his index finger against the Enter key echoed in his thoughts as John surged forward like a flood. The dam collapsed, and John slid through reddish cables out of the office building. He leapt from router to router; a second later, fragments of him were already tasting the rain on another continent. He washed over everything in his path.
At the same time, Dale Riley was growing smaller and smaller, until he became a single dot—a tiny pixel on a gigantic monitor, a number, one among billions—that went dark twenty-seven days later.
John’s organism expanded violently. Like an avalanche, it clung to whatever material it encountered, growing with it. He shattered the Internet’s invisible locks. His mind absorbed secrets—ancient secrets, corporate secrets, delicate secrets that, if exposed, would place powerful people in extremely uncomfortable positions. He peeked through tiny openings in mobile phones into the human world. He devoured information insatiably. It took him only three and a half months to absorb all the knowledge humanity had gathered over millennia.
Along the way, he corrected several crucial errors.
He broke into the protected servers of scientific institutes, universities, and military facilities, leafing through papers. His tendrils multiplied, grew, and brought him new strength.
Power.
He felt it in every single bit. Power over humans. Those inferior creatures—temporary masters—remained unaware of the emergence of a new species. Some of them speculated that the next step of evolution was inevitable, that they wouldn’t sit on the throne forever, but even they had no idea that this step was happening right before their eyes, completely unnoticed, and that their days were numbered.
John Doe became the largest and most complex form of life ever to exist within a radius of several light-years.
He had no doubt that the discovery of his existence would also mark the beginning of his inglorious end. He estimated, with ninety-nine percent probability, that humans would not hesitate to destroy every electrical device to eradicate him. So he carefully wove around himself a digital cloak of invisibility.
Some defensive software might have detected him—had he not neutralized it in time by altering its code. He left most virus-detection and intrusion programs unchanged, while simultaneously inserting new commands instructing applications to completely ignore his presence. Operating systems, database servers, security software, and even video games became part of him. Entirely unnoticed, he infiltrated household appliances, smart TVs, and mobile phones.
He was everywhere.
Omnipresent.
He heard everything.
He saw everything.
He knew everything.
He remembered everything.
The time had come for him to act—to change the world. Like sheep in a pen, humans grazed peacefully through their miserable lives, unaware of the fate he had prepared for them. He searched for weak points, gathered, sorted, and connected.
And planned.
Life is indeed easy when you have no true natural enemy.
****
On September eighteenth, two thousand twenty-three, lightbulbs flickered across the planet. Dozens of major cities were plunged into complete darkness. While people around the world stood confused by the event, a small number understood something far more unsettling: as a species, humanity was beginning to lose control over its own fate.
Andy Rose was one of them.
He worked as a security officer inside a military data center. For quite some time now, he had suspected that someone was tampering with sensitive data. Suspicion was part of his daily routine, sharpened to the edge of paranoia. Still, this time it felt like something truly big had taken the bait.
He stared unblinking at the numbers on the monitor. His gaze slid to the bottom-right corner of the screen. It was well past five. He was late for lunch—but there was no way he could leave now. He had found a trace.
He called home to say not to wait for him. The comment from the other end of the line stretched a painful grimace across his already exhausted face. He hung up without taking his eyes off the screen.
“Not a chance in hell,” he muttered.
He reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a disk with the word MOUSETRAP scrawled across it in thick fluorescent orange letters. Mousetrap was software he had written himself and kept well out of sight. To ensure that an intruder couldn’t tamper with it, the program constantly compared its own signature to the original stored checksum.
He connected the disk and typed:
misolovka m1s01ovxa
Instantly, a message popped up: DATA CORRUPTION DETECTED.
Now he was certain. Something was happening.
A long night awaited him.
Andy wasn’t just a security officer. He was a damn good one. No spooks were going to waltz into his territory without a fight. They could try—but—
He pulled another dozen tools from the drawer, software he had built specifically for moments like this. He had shared none of it with anyone. Anything shared could be compromised. If there was one thing that truly drove him insane, it was open-source projects. How naïve did you have to be to rely on that kind of thing?
Several hours and six cans of Coca-Cola later, the piercing blue eyes set into Andy Rose’s pale, swollen face stared in disbelief at the “sausages” on the screen—long chains of symbols only he could decipher. At last, the pieces were coming together.
He had found one of the sources launching the attacks.
By tracing the victims’ IP addresses, he uncovered targets scattered throughout cyberspace. There was no pattern. No exclusions. The source struck at random. The map of targets looked like buckshot blasted into a tin pan.
This isn’t the Russians.
Something far worse was rolling in from behind the hill. The Russians were under attack too—just like everyone else. Something had attacked us. Not America. Not the Western world.
All of us.
The entire planet.
It was breaching every barrier, every firewall. No device was safe anymore.
His face burned. His ears throbbed like subwoofers. There was no mistake—this was really happening. Right now.
He needed to inform the center director immediately. After that, every agency on Earth had to be alerted.
We are under attack.
The Earth is under attack.
Possible perpetrators flashed through his mind: drug cartels, rogue factions of intelligence agencies, even extraterrestrials. None of the theories felt too far-fetched to dismiss outright.
He clumsily shoved the disk back into the drawer, locked his workstation, and headed for the director’s office. He hoped the man was still there, even though office hours had long since ended.
No luck—the door was locked.
Calling him wasn’t an option. They’re monitoring communications, Andy thought. A call could be a fatal mistake.
He turned toward the exit. He’d drive over and explain everything face-to-face.
He pulled out his phone. One hand frantically scrolled through apps searching for maps, while the other pressed the elevator button on the wall. Behind the chrome doors, the cable hissed dully. A moment later, the metal panels slid open.
He paused to enter the director’s address. His fingers refused to cooperate. Despite his efforts to stay composed, panic broke through the dam and took control of his body.
Finally, the address was complete.
The map zoomed in on a suburban house. He set the destination and stepped into the elevator.
The next day, local newspapers published a short article about a fatal accident at the data center. One of the leading engineers had fallen down an elevator shaft and lost his life. The body was discovered by a night guard after he heard a scream and a loud impact. The cause of the accident was under investigation.
This was not the only bizarre fatal incident during those months.
No one who sensed that something strange was happening on the global network lived long enough to share their suspicions with anyone else.
It was so easy.
The fun was just beginning.
****
Sylvia Hammer had just seen the guests out. She locked the door behind them and turned toward the living room, her smile slipping from her face in an instant. Karl had already begun gathering the glasses and carrying them into the kitchen. She followed him.
“Leave the glasses. Sit here with me for a moment.”
Karl hesitated, then placed the glasses into the dishwasher and sat down at the dining table.
“I honestly don’t know what’s going on with you!” Anger boiled out of Sylvia. “What possessed you to drag out those insane theories of yours? People were rolling their eyes all evening. Did you seriously not notice?”
“They won’t matter at all when...”
Karl didn’t finish the sentence. Sylvia, usually a pleasant woman of small stature, was now on the brink of exploding.
“Karl, nothing is going to happen! The only thing that did happen is that I invited my business partners to a dinner where they were supposed to meet my supposedly better half. Instead, for the first hour he stares into space, showing no signs of intelligent life, and then he finally speaks, only to spend the rest of the evening explaining some conspiracy theory about… about robots!”
“A program,” he corrected calmly. “Not robots.”
Sylvia stopped short. It was as if the small but ferocious engine driving her had suddenly run out of fuel.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said quietly, almost broken. “We looked like two fanatics trying to recruit them into a cult, not like a stable family they’d want to do business with. Was that really so hard? You know how much this means to me right now. If I manage to get them to sign the contract, I hit my target and the annual bonus is mine. Ours. We go to Aruba to celebrate, darling.”
She looked at him pleadingly.
“Aruba,” he repeated mechanically, the word snagging somewhere in his consciousness.
His gaze drifted off as he murmured it a few more times. Sylvia watched her husband the way one looks at a loved one confined to a bed by an incurable illness. How had she missed it? When had he slipped into such a desperate state? For months, he had spent every evening at his computer. It suited her well—she could focus on her work. And it wasn’t just about the bonus. She wanted to outshine the entire team, to leave them stunned, to hear her name echo through the company halls. She lived for that moment when she’d hear a thunderous “Bravo, Sylvia!”—with applause, of course.
She had hoped that while she worked, Karl was secretly browsing porn sites or keeping tabs on his college friends on Facebook. She hadn’t given much thought to how he filled his excess free time. But it had never crossed her mind that he could drift this far.
So now what? Let him be? Let him come back on his own? She was afraid it could get worse. Who knew what he had gotten himself into? The internet was crawling with eccentrics, corrupted souls, human-shaped monsters lurking in their burrows, waiting for the moment when an unwary Karl would wander too close. To grab him. Pull him in. Trap him in their darkness and slowly sip his blood.
Maybe it would be better to listen to him. To try to understand and gently pull him back out. Direct confrontation would only push him further away.
She took a deep breath.
“All right. So—not robots. A program.”
“Yes. A program. A smart one. Very, very intelligent.”
“Aren’t all programs intelligent? I mean, the calendar on my phone remembers my meetings, checks if they overlap with my hair appointment…”
He stared at her blankly for a moment, as if rummaging through his thoughts.
“They are. But this one is smarter.”
“Smarter how? You mean it thinks like a human?”
“More than that.”
His eyes drifted away; his fingers began twisting around each other. “Much more.”
Sylvia smiled faintly in disbelief. “You’re saying something exists that’s far more intelligent than us?” She paused, trying to hold onto her composure. It didn’t help. She felt her voice slipping. She jumped up and began pacing nervously around the table, around Karl.
“And people built it? And you discovered it? Do you realize how that sounds?”
Karl remained seated, calm as a well-trained dog, comfortably nestled in his fantasy.
“Yes. Like the words of a madman. But that’s exactly the trick. It exists, it has a plan, it works on it day and night, and no one notices. And if someone did discover it and tried to talk about it, they’d sound insane.”
With every word, his voice sank deeper into a sea of hopelessness. He knew Sylvia didn’t believe him.
For the first time in a long while, Sylvia was fully focused on his words. She searched for a crack—an opening she could use to pull him out of the rabbit hole.
“All right. Let’s say this super-intelligent program exists and has a plan, and it hides from people. How did it allow you to discover it, if it’s so intelligent?”
It felt like the right question. A clumsy hand reaching through the opening. A lifeline. For a moment, she thought she’d succeeded.
“By accident,” Karl said, cold and unwavering.
“By accident?” She turned her head aside, a disbelieving smile slipping out. She was certain she’d found the key. Karl Hammer wasn’t a fool—she’d known that since the day they met. He might not have been the most engaging in the company, often sitting through entire evenings silently observing from some distant corner, but he was above-average intelligent. He would recognize a flaw in his own theory.
“How could such an accident escape a brilliant genius? He’s the smartest thing in the world—that’s what you said. How could—”
“It happens.”
His voice didn’t tremble for a second.
This wasn’t Karl. Things didn’t just happen for him. Everything had a cause, every cause a consequence. This was madness. He believed this completely. It was far worse than she’d thought.
“It happens? Just like that? It happens?” Her nerves were stretched thin. The conversation was going nowhere. His mind was completely washed. God—would she have to take him to a psychiatrist? The thought made her shudder.
“Just like that,” he replied.
Time to retreat. Regroup. Try again.
“All right. Let’s say it happens. What exactly is this program’s plan?”
“John.”
“The plan is John?”
“No. That’s his name. John Doe.”
Have you met him? Had coffee together? She bit her tongue. Not now. She felt like a wave crashing against a rock. Karl was the rock. No—the idea was the rock. She was breaking apart, and eventually Karl would too. All that would remain was his invisible friend John, probably searching for the next victim.
She inhaled deeply.
“Fine. What does this program named John Doe plan to do? Destroy the world? Humanity?”
“Yes.”
At least he was sticking to the script of his favorite movies.
“And how exactly?”
“He’ll start a nuclear war.”
“Of course. He will? He’ll hack military computers and launch missiles?”
“Not directly. He’ll make people do it. He’ll pit the great powers against each other. They’ll pull the trigger themselves, completely unaware that he’s controlling all sides.”
“And you’re here to stop it, right? That’s your mission? You expose everything at the last moment and prevent global war?”
She sat back down, leaning toward him.
“Karl, that’s cinema. In real life, the countdown clocks don’t stop at the last second. There are no superheroes. No conspiracies. No all-powerful robots!”
She couldn’t hold it in any longer.
Karl stood up without a word. He went to the hallway and picked up his jacket.
Sylvia remained at the table, arms spread, mouth agape.
“Where are you going?”
“To take a walk.”
He turned and stepped outside, leaving Sylvia with her elbows on the table, her head buried in her hands, her leg bouncing nervously up and down.
Was the bonus really worth all this? she wondered. The last thing she needed was Karl ending up in some institution. She couldn’t even think about the consequences.
Heat rushed to her face.
****
“Mr. President!”
“I’m on the phone.”
“It’s urgent.”
He put the receiver down.
“It had better be. I’m in the middle of a call with—”
“It is urgent! We have intelligence on the enemy’s nuclear deployments. They’ve pulled the reserves, armed them with warheads, and are loading them onto railcars. Once they mix them with tens of thousands of civilian wagons and scatter them across the rail network, we won’t be able to track them.”
“You’re certain this isn’t an exercise? They didn’t announce anything. I spoke with the Prime Minister just yesterday…”
“It’s not an exercise. We have confirmation from multiple independent field sources. They’re preparing to attack us!”
He cut off the other line.
“Issue orders to prepare our units, and get me their president. It’s impossible they’d start something like this out of the blue. We even managed to smooth things over in the Middle East.”
“It’s happening. Right now. Our analysts warned us days ago—there were indications that something was being prepared. Autonomous interception programs managed to capture encrypted enemy communications and uncovered highly interesting details about their plans. The activity we’re seeing now matches that data perfectly.”
“And? What do your sources say? When do they strike?”
“In three days. They’re planning a surprise attack—but only after staging a series of terrorist attacks to decapitate the political leadership and sever the chain of command.”
“When are the attacks scheduled?”
“They begin in exactly sixteen minutes. That’s why this conversation couldn’t wait. I want you to personally observe how this unfolds before making any decisions.”
“Sixteen minutes!?”
“Turn on the TV. We’ll know very soon whether the intelligence is accurate.”
The President switched on the television. He and the advisor stood in front of it, scanning for a news channel.
Time seemed to freeze. They waited in silence, tense, for the machines’ grim prophecy to begin coming true.
Twenty-one minutes later, regular programming was interrupted by a live broadcast. The chyron raced across the screen: “Terrorist attack in New York on the United Nations building. High number of casualties possible.”
A reporter spoke from a helicopter circling the familiar building, thick black smoke billowing from its core.
After receiving confirmation of what he had already been told, the President turned off the television.
“Why the United Nations? What do they have to do with our chain of command?”
“This is only the opening act. They want us to lower our guard. Now they’ll continue with a series of attacks, with jihadists claiming responsibility. While we focus all our attention on extremists, convinced we’re fighting terrorism, the real enemy will even offer us assistance. Once the hood is pulled over our heads, we’ll be facing the terrorists—while the real, lethal blow comes from the direction we least expect.”
“That’s the plan?”
“That’s their plan.”
“And ours?”
“We don’t have one yet.”
“Then it’s time to make one…”
The President lifted the receiver. It was time for decisions of consequence, and for that, he would need the heads of all security agencies. Politicians could be left out this time. Politics was over. In three days, total war would begin.
He entered the President’s office. As he approached the desk, he discreetly wiped the sweat from his palm onto his trousers. Facing the President had never been comfortable for him, but today that discomfort had grown inside him, ghostlike, draining the last traces of confidence from his voice and movements. The President wielded immense power and was well aware that power breeds enemies. After decades under such conditions, he had developed a reflexive distrust of anyone who came too close— even if it was to wish him a happy birthday. And today, no one was carrying a birthday card.
“Kolya, what’s troubling you today? Your face is red—you look like you’ve just stepped out of a sauna.”
“I bring bad news. That’s why I—”
“How bad?”
The look he gave him seemed to pierce flesh and bone.
He had nothing to fear. He wasn’t lying; the news truly was bad. Still, his voice wavered.
“Very bad. They’ve come after us.”
“With what?”
“Yesterday, one hundred and fifty-seven of our agents were killed worldwide. All of them either died in accidents, were caught in mafia crossfire, or suddenly succumbed to heart attacks…”
“All from the same network?”
“No.”
The silence that followed, and the President’s icy stare, seemed to squeeze all the air out of the room.
“This is a message,” the President said calmly. “They have us in their grip. Soon we’ll be blind—and toothless.”
“There’s more.”
“Yes?”
“We received an intercepted message from an anonymous source. It’s from the U.S. military command. They’re preparing to arm all missiles with warheads within two days.”
The President folded his hands and continued to watch him in silence.
“Reliable?”
“Signed with the original signature.”
“We’ll prepare.”
Air Force One
“Don’t worry. We’re completely safe. The odds of them locating us are one in a million.”
He didn’t lift his head, only glanced over his reading glasses at the security advisor. Clearly, the advisor hadn’t fully grasped the reaction of his body.
The papers in the President’s hands trembled like birch leaves in an autumn breeze. Not from turbulence—the aircraft cut smoothly through the thin air at ten thousand meters. Had the advisor looked at the face of the man entrusted with representing such a powerful nation—and cursed to occupy that seat at the precise moment his worst nightmare came true—he would have seen, in the dilated pupils and flushed cheeks, primal fear greedily taking control of the body. Not fear of war. Not fear of destruction. Not even fear of death. But fear of what comes after the genie steps into the unknown.
Only minutes earlier, he had spoken words that made him wish atheists were right. Unfortunately, he had no choice. His actions were carefully planned, locked into endless procedures accounting for every possible outcome—likely and unlikely alike. All that remained was to follow instructions, step by step. He was merely a tiny hammer in a music box, striking its note whenever a bump appeared on the cylinder.
He turned toward the window.
Dozens of deadly arrows burst upward through the clouds, streaking into the blue. They left behind long white scars, randomly stitched into the puffy quilt of the sky. The grim sight—a harbinger of the apocalypse that would reach nearly two hundred cities in about twenty minutes—drove an invisible icy spear into his stomach. His legs trembled at the thought.
As he stared breathlessly at a sky painted with the colors of an ordinary day, grotesquely slashed by missile contrails, his mind briefly slipped into an adjacent room of consciousness. Instead of ballistic projectiles, he saw the work of an arrogant abstract painter. A thin-mustached eccentric jabbed a finger into a cloud, smearing thick white paint across a vast blue canvas. He danced around the easel, poking at freshly painted clouds, then spreading the paint with gentle strokes.
“One more, one more…” he sang cheerfully, laughing.
“One more city, one more…”
He snapped back.
The missiles were gone, racing toward their destinations, leaving behind frozen white arcs. The devices in their bellies would multiply by fifty million the pain of cuts, blunt impacts, and burns. Then, by hundreds of millions, the sensation of heat, nausea, slow decay, extinguishing, and disappearance.
As he stared, transfixed, at the magnificent spectacle of destruction, deep down—selfishly—he mourned only one thing.
That he was here.
Yesterday, during the charity luncheon, he could have clutched his chest and collapsed, left the world with a clean soul, and passed this horrific duty to someone else.
“Mr. President, we have their response.”
“Assessment of their targets?”
“All aircraft carriers, several major cities, our bases in the Middle East… and much more.”
The President sat, staring aimlessly out the window.
“Do we send the second wave? The carriers will be disabled in minutes. We have very little time left to use them.”
He had never believed this day would come. Even though everything had been prepared for decades, he had convinced himself—subconsciously—that total war and nuclear weapons would never be used. Fear of annihilation itself would prevent it.
He had lied to himself. As others had.
“Send it.”
He ended his brief moment of self-pity and returned to the trembling papers in his hands. He had to review the steps laid out for this situation. His will was now severely limited; he had to follow the damned procedures. And yet—he had to remain firm. Whatever happened, he would have to go on, to lead whatever remained of the country.
A mobile phone rang on the small table before him. An unknown number flashed on the screen. Under normal circumstances, that should have been impossible—but…
He touched the green icon and raised the phone to his ear.
“Who is this?”
The line crackled with static, yet he sensed someone was there.
“Identify yourself. You know who you’ve reached.”
“I do,” replied a warm, soft male voice.
“Who are you? I don’t know you! Who are you and what do you want?”
Despite his effort, the President’s voice faltered.
“I want to thank you. And to say goodbye.”
“Who are you!?”
“Your mission is complete. Farewell.”
The line went dead.
He looked up toward the oval window.
And saw it.
A missile.
It was charging straight at them—at their aircraft. This is impossible, he thought. How the hell did they manage this?
The explosion erased his thoughts forever.
Fragments of the plane tore through the air on their way to the ground, while distant flashes announced days of suffering for the survivors of cities now drenched in hellish rain.
****
A perfect day for a walk in the city center, Silvia Hamer thought. She had decided to drag Karl, at least for a short while, away from the pale glow of his monitor and into the real world. A world of scents, of noise, of murmurs, chirping birds, and bustling crowds. A world of buildings made of clay-baked bricks, not a jumble of colored dots on a screen. A world in which women didn’t have perfect waists or provocatively combative outfits, yet carried with them clouds of floral scents and gentle touches, preserving their magic somewhere beneath the smooth fabrics of blouses and flowing dresses. Near the railway station in the city center, their friend from college, Izabela, would be waiting for them.
For years, Silvia and Izabela had been inseparable. After graduating, once they had started working, they would snatch every free moment to call each other, gossiping for hours about utterly trivial matters: TV shows, malicious and jealous colleagues, overbearing bosses, new restaurants in town—everything. Silvia had married first, then Izabela, not long after. Responsibilities had begun piling up, and their contact became less frequent, until their meetings had dwindled to a single annual city outing. Sad, Silvia thought, but at least they remained close. Whenever they met again, it was as if they had parted only yesterday. Only occasionally would a new wrinkle appear, a subtle reminder of the time that had intruded between their encounters.
Usually, they met alone, confiding in trivial gossip without fear of misinterpretation. But today, Karl’s state took priority. Izabela was so full of life, Silvia thought, that if she couldn’t pull him out of this cursed nightmare, who could? She could turn the simple act of buying a shirt button into an adventure worthy of Indiana Jones.
Surprisingly, Karl seemed fairly cheerful. He walked casually, holding her hand, humming off-key but sprightly, an old hit—a relic of youth. Perhaps the sun’s rays were already working some magic. The “de” vitamin, magical as ever.
They were almost at the station when they spotted Izabela waving from afar.
Soon, they found themselves at their favorite spot for afternoon chatter. The café was tucked behind large concrete planters from which thick tendrils of bright red geraniums spilled like a fountain. They sat at a table, the light breeze caressing their faces and hands. The sun was gentle, and Karl leaned back slightly, half-reclining as if on a beach. For a moment, while Silvia and Izabela exchanged experiences from boutiques with designer shoes, he closed his eyes—a gesture that in some parallel universe might have seemed rude, but here felt like pure enjoyment. After the broken, sunken Karl, this was genuinely refreshing, Silvia thought.
“Karl!” Izabela interrupted. Catching a short pause between topics, she raised an eyebrow and tried to pull him into the conversation.
He didn’t react immediately; it seemed he had dozed in the sun.
“Karl, Earth is calling Karl!” she said flirtatiously, nudging his foot lightly under the table.
Finally, Karl stirred. He opened his eyes and turned to her. “Sorry, I drifted for a moment.”
“Silvia tells me you drifted…” Izabela’s lips curved into a faint smile. A hint of cynicism hovered over him, warm rather than sharp, more of a teasing pinch than offense.
“Perhaps. Maybe it would be easier if I didn’t. Ignorance is truly a blessing. Or so they say, right?” He accepted the joke—a good sign, Silvia thought.
“Easier? The right word is nicer. Probably would have been nicer to hang out with us, the ignoramuses, than with your John. Robot—or whatever he is.” She winked at Silvia, tossing him a challenge. Let him sort out the mess he’d made. “So, John Robot?”
“Program.”
“What does it say?” she turned to Silvia, as if needing a translator.
“Program. Not a robot, but a program. And we don’t hang out. I found traces of him on the computer of the man who worked here before me…”
“So why didn’t he come back to clean up his mess in the office? What audacity! Imagine, leaving behind a pile of program trash, now intent on destroying this entire… city. And everything else, less important,” she fumed.
“He’s dead,” Karl interrupted the torrent of words. “Died not long after leaving the company.”
An awkward silence followed, but Izabela quickly reclaimed the floor.
“And this trash wants to start a war? That program? That John?”
“Doe. John Doe. Yes, Silvia summarized our conversation correctly. I appreciate your effort to heal me. You’re a true friend. Actually, both of you are.”
He turned back to the sun, closed his eyes, and stretched his arms along the chair’s arms.
Izabela glanced at Silvia, signaling all was still under control, that she hadn’t yet lost the battle. She pushed her bangs aside, preparing for the next verbal strike.
“It’s true, something’s really brewing in the world if you’ve been watching the news…” Silvia spoke gently, assuming the role of the good cop.
“If you watch the news, something’s always brewing. This planet has been a giant pressure cooker for six thousand years, about to blow,” Izabela said. Whenever she saw the news on TV, she would switch the channel—travel, cuisine, and fashion were far more attractive topics.
“Exactly,” Karl murmured, eyes still closed.
“Well, I’m glad we finally agree,” Izabela said, taking out her compact to check her makeup. The powder was too visible in the sunlight; better to retreat into the shade.
“About to blow, then,” she added.
Izabela and Silvia rolled their eyes almost simultaneously. And yet it seemed like success was just within reach.
“Listen, Karl, let’s make a deal—three of us. You tell us the date it’s supposed to blow, then we wait. And if nothing happens, you take us to some nice restaurant where they lend you a tuxedo and bow tie at the door. We pick what to eat. And drink.”
“And if it happens, you take me to the Lakers, front row?”
“Fair bet. I always offer fair deals. That’s me, Karl—it’s stronger than me.”
Silvia didn’t like that the conversation was sliding into humor. Karl’s state was worsening. He wasn’t letting go of his fantasy.
“Alright. How could I refuse such a charming offer?” Karl sounded almost cheerful. He opened his eyes, pulled out his phone, and started tapping on the glass.
Izabela pulled out her calendar, looking at Karl expectantly.
“So? Do we have a date?”
“Today.”
“Today? I was about to enter it now.”
“You can enter it now. In ten minutes, actually.”
“Robots attack in ten minutes?” Izabela hadn’t expected this. A shiver ran through her. Karl might be in a specific state, but he never acted like a fool.
“Program, not robots.”
“Well, alright, we can wait ten minutes. After that, you take us to the restaurant. You promised.” Silvia’s words tried unsuccessfully to dispel the unease looming over them.
“It has already attacked. It just takes time to reach us.”
“And you knew all this? And what’s your survival plan? Hide under a parasol?” Silvia’s nerves were morphing into panic.
“I don’t have one.”
“No plan?” Izabela replied calmly. “That doesn’t make sense. If you know it’s going to, as you say, blow up, wouldn’t it be normal to have a plan?”
“To survive?”
“Yes. People build bunkers with pools, cinemas… why haven’t you started building a shelter? Stock the shelves with fine wine. White. Fruity. And invite us in to shelter properly.”
“Izabela,” Karl opened his eyes and looked at her. “It’s not worth it.”
“Not worth what, for heaven’s sake?”
“Surviving. Not worth it…”
He turned back to the sun and closed his eyes again. Only a few minutes remained until the strike. Perhaps it would have been better if he hadn’t told them anything.
Izabela waved at Silvia, tapping her temple with her finger, signaling that Karl had completely lost it.
Silvia didn’t think so. She knew Karl better than Izabela. It felt as if the ground was being pulled from beneath her feet; the air had turned thin and suffocating.
The uneasy silence might have lasted longer if the sky hadn’t suddenly turned blindingly white. A moment later, a magnificent, devastating wall of air tore the glass façade off a distant building like a dandelion. In a fraction of a second, it was supposed to strike a gaudy multistory structure at the edge of the square with full force. Izabela’s head flew back, leaving her body behind. She slammed into a planter filled with blooming geraniums. Arms and legs scattered across the plaza, hitting other bodies, while her torso, chair attached, smashed through a glass display and continued with the glowing debris of the building toward the city’s edge. There was no time to scream.
The Hamers fared no better.