Morning. Moscow was waking up. Over the years, she had become a well-groomed woman. Her freshness had been replaced by refined beauty, turning her into an elegant and stately lady. People and robots were tidying up the ancient capital, trying to quickly remove the traces of recent events.
When the "Collective" began its work and the plans of the corrupt group in the highest circles of power became known, people gathered for a demonstration or simply relaxing, suddenly transformed into a well-organized army, consumed by a burning thirst for justice.
Published evidence of crimes, including voluntarily provided witness testimonies and the disclosure of secret documents with other materials, based on which a planetary trial was conducted, allowed decisions to be made for each accused within two seconds. Precautionary measures were imposed in accordance with current legal norms.
This prevented the overflow of popular anger towards the innocent, as simultaneously, all connected people were judging the defendants in a people's court, which, combined with the impartial supervision of the collective AI, separated the innocent from the true culprits.
The lower ranks and officers of the General Staff, who sided with the people and were chosen by popular vote, coordinated those who wished to take justice into their own hands, while civilian activists organized non-combatants, ensuring their safety.
The forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs did not interfere with the people's court, stating that they would act according to their oath... ensuring the protection of citizens and maintaining law and order. The police announced that all attempts at looting and crimes against ordinary citizens, not tainted and not condemned by the people's, all-human court, due to the complex situation, would be punished by execution on the spot. And the decision was supported by a spontaneously organized committee of law enforcement forces of the entire planet.
Thanks to this, chaos and anarchy were avoided. Despite the fact that the people's militias, consumed by anger, stormed the Kremlin, encountering only symbolic resistance, or rather, cooperation from the city garrison forces, the clashes were quite heated in some places. The most prominent hotbed of resistance was the building on Lubyanka. Too many tainted members of the State Security Committee were found there, and not all of them wanted to surrender to the mercy of the new order.
People, woven into a single living organism by a neural network that united their emotions, sensations, and memories, could no longer be stopped. Their anger, their thirst for justice burned like a flame, because it's not every day you find out that you almost turned not just into a slave... but into something much more terrible. To become a will-less cog in the system, deprived even of the illusion of choice... Such a fate could not but horrify anyone who still had a spark of humanity.
A small group of elites, who considered themselves gods, decided to play with the people, but they miscalculated severely. They did not expect that those they considered submissive slaves would suddenly rise up, put the "great ones" against the wall, judge them, and mercilessly execute them, crushing them like bugs, regardless of threats. And when they, choking with horror, rushed to their last trump card – the neural network, the very one that was supposed to forever bind the will of the crowd, the AI, with a voice dripping with mockery, replied:
"Command not recognized."
The army had already switched to the side of the rebels. Power was snatched from them in an instant, transferred directly into the hands of the people, and once all-powerful money turned into pathetic scraps, cheaper than the paper it was printed on. Money was abolished as a relic of the system and replaced by a system of social points.
Points were awarded for any positive action or deducted if an individual violated generally accepted laws or norms. They could not be accumulated. They could not be transferred. Their quantity, available for the reporting period, could be increased or decreased by one's actions for the benefit of self-development or public good. Everyone monitored their accrual, as the collective AI was a part of all connected people.
Live your life peacefully, do your job, don't break the laws, take care of yourself! Moreover, everyone could receive a minimum, which included food, personal hygiene items, social housing, and qualified medical care! You could simply provide your brain's computing power and receive this guaranteed minimum without feeling any changes for yourself, but benefiting!
Want more than a standard pencil-case apartment or food that is not only nutritious but also varied? Work for the good of society. Develop yourself. Create works of art. Be yourself! Moreover, any knowledge could now be downloaded into your head, and you would be awarded points, not deducted.
With more points, you would have access to a wider selection of consumer goods. No need to humiliate yourself before your boss. Your contribution would be appreciated by an impartial artificial intelligence, whose work you ensure by your existence.
Everyone decides how to receive them. If you want – just allocate part of your brain resources. If you want – go study, and then engage in science or art. Don't like it? Download another set of knowledge and go to the factory. Don't want to? Gather with friends or associates, start your own workshop. Manual labor and small-scale production are encouraged. You will be awarded points separately for yourself and separately for the artel, and they can only be spent on its development, not on yourself. All individuals are free up to a certain point, as long as their actions do not harm others. But exclusively small entrepreneurship. Factories are the prerogative of society.
There was also a common family pool, to which a percentage of points from all its members was transferred, which could be spent on the family. And there were already cases where children, through their good studies, managed to earn their parents a new car or a larger apartment. Or a combine harvester for the family farm. With family contracts and personal development, one could live comfortably, although if you worked, you could already afford a lot.
If you don't want this either, and don't want to live in society or haven't connected to the network at all, then no one will force you. Just undergo polymerization so you can't harm others, and go in peace. If you want – society will find you a job you like, where connection is not required, and if you want – live off your garden. Freedom of choice is the cornerstone of the new society.
In the end, five percent of people did not decide to connect or did not want to. No one oppressed them; they were treated with respect for their choice. They became teachers for children, guardians of traditions, philosophers, and simply a backup in case something happened to unified humanity, or they were simply left alone if it was their choice. There were also connected hermits. They were offered work far from people. But that was in the future.
Now the cities of the planet were adorned with black banners and pennants. People were preparing to mourn all those who died in the Battle for Unification.
Skirmishes were still occurring in some parts of the Earth with the old world, but this was only agony. Society still had to fight the hydra of crime, but today, on the day of mourning, people, tired of blood and death, were giving everyone who stood on the other side of the law an opportunity to break bread. Refuse. You are given the chance to start a new life, without condemnation.
People felt that others also hurt, having punished their failed enslavers. Everyone could feel the pain of another. Humanity, tired of wars and epidemics that had claimed so many lives, no longer wanted to kill. Nations tried to negotiate, choosing a new path. Disputes were heated, sometimes leading to fights, but the matter was limited to a couple of black eyes, not the clanging of weapons. The price for the new era was too high.
Moreover, people understood: a threat loomed from outside. There were those infected with an alien force that drew out the darkest and most beastly, and no one knew what these invisible puppeteers wanted, but they saw what they could do to a person. The images of the dead brought to life with the help of technology, which witnesses of this shared with all of humanity, haunted many in their nightmares. And in some cases, the trials were an act of mercy to the infected.
Humanity had emerged from its cradle, but it was not ready for the horrors of cold space. People did not enter the next stage of evolution, but literally jumped three or four steps. They began to change, paying with pain and blood. Now everyone could only hope that they had not made a mistake. Therefore, enemies shook hands and forgave each other. Entire nations reconciled. Everyone saw what even a shadow of conflict could lead to, as it was so easy now to crush the timid shoots of the new world.
On this Thursday, mourning was not only for the victims but also for those who had to be killed. Society was not going to forgive. It only gave an opportunity to atone for sin, without condemning its members. Everyone would forget who you were, but only until you decided to go back to your old ways, disregarding the memory of those who opened humanity's eyes and died fulfilling their duty.
Hundreds of people walked to Red Square with flowers to lay them near the sarcophagus with Stalin's body. The people forgave him his sins, having learned why he did what he did. Citizens understood: he was not perfect, but that despite the infection and the whispers in his head, he fought his battle for them... People appreciated his sacrifice.
The embankment where the life of a little girl, who saved everyone connected by giving a part of herself to the newborn AI, ended, was piled with toys and flowers. She sacrificed the opportunity to continue living in the neural network when her body faded, without hesitation.
People who decided to fight the old world, ready to pay with their lives for the hope of a new future, stood like a mournful post near her body... They burned with grief and shame. Scientists, special services employees, and soldiers were ashamed that a little girl had to pay such a price for them.
The neural network was churning. The dead, who were connected and did not fall asleep, preserving their "self," becoming simply a memory block, also mourned. They were grateful for a new life, albeit in a new reality. Their very existence, the understanding that death was not the end, melted humanity into something new.
If you die, your knowledge will live on in the "Collective," but if your mind is strong and your memory is structured, you will either fall asleep with your "self," or, if you are strong enough, you will wake up and continue to exist if the impartial AI, a part of you, helps you awaken. Not every scientist could preserve their essence after death, just as not every ordinary person lost it or fell asleep. A hero might not wake up, simply not wanting to.
Death ceased to be the final destination. It ceased to be the only option. The arbiter in the form of artificial intelligence was only a greater incentive to be better. A criminal would simply fall asleep, plunging into a dream where he would feel everything he had done. The mind punished itself. The AI, by court order, only gave a push.
But even if you wake up, you shouldn't relax. If you settle in one place, you might fall asleep. The dead now helped preserve and catalog information. The living bring new data. Some helped conduct research or create works of art, and sometimes acted as philosophers. In general, the inhabitants of the array had something to do, and they could live a full life, to some extent.
A dead person could also inhabit a mechanical body. His "self" would cease to regress, but even the most perfect body did not give the feeling of life. The "self" of such a person could no longer spontaneously fall asleep in inaction, but if its vessel perished, it disappeared completely. Only the memory archive remained, without a mind.
The scientists had ideas for stabilizing the personality of the deceased in another way... The processes of Vera's personality decay and KhRAZ's memory archive indicated two possible paths, but the "Lazarus" and "Cipher" projects were not even at the theoretical stage, but at the stage of formulating technical specifications.
The world would never be the same. The uncertainty of what awaited everyone beyond the threshold had disappeared. The very fact that one's memory would continue to exist was a relief for many.
Each person decided which path to take. Voluntarily. On their own. The only question was, could you make it? Would you want to? Those who truly wanted to die, died. And the dead told the living to live as long as they could, cherishing every day, because immortality, even conditional, had its own subtleties. But even so, the very understanding of life, death, and what makes us human was changing.
In the time of grief, when anger subsided and the realization of change came, people began to seek these very paths. Meanwhile, the memorial service began. It was time to pay tribute to those who could not wake up. At sunset on the fourth day of the new world, funeral pyres were lit. The sun slid its red warmth over the bodies, melting in the hot flame, giving it a golden hue. It was already a dark, gentle night, and the scarlet flame still burned, glowing with this golden light, carrying away the remnants of the old world...
***
Seven watched the funeral pyre of the one who saved them burn down. The air around them literally thickened with the emotions that overwhelmed them. The ruby-like minds of the soldiers, like the stars of the Kremlin, pulsed calmly with the crimson embers of extinguished rage, shrouded in torn sunset-scarlet blots of shame, accented by the cloak of cold, silver-steel resolve. It was this cloak that not only gave their faces a resemblance to worn gun steel, which seemed even harsher than it was in the reflection of the dying funeral pyres, but also became a wall around their figures, frozen at attention. So different, yet so similar, like blood relatives, the surviving fighters of the "Argentum" detachment from the "Enterprise" paid their last respects to a child, shielding their backs to the inconsolable mother...
The girl's mother was quietly crying, hugging her son and pressing him to her. She placed her hands on his shoulders, as if seeking support and strength in him. A little distance away stood the brother and sister's friend, accompanied by a very remarkable old man, who had become nothing less than the military commandant, albeit temporary, of the ancient city. If the woman and brother radiated a dark grief that sent shivers down one's spine, and the elder quietly shone with the gray silver of regret, then the friend... His mind seemed burned and shone with an open wound, oozing almost physical pain where there were sprouts of something bright, the existence of which the boy himself did not know until he felt it at that moment...
The people who flocked from other cities and even countries to bid farewell to the one who illuminated the path for all with her sacrifice did not dare to disturb the solitude of these people. Even those who were more tactless stopped, pinned to the spot by the gazes of five other surviving operatives with three of their comrades. The five had tasks at other facilities, while three others sported new mechanical bodies. It was from their mirrored masks, which had replaced their faces forever, that outsiders recoiled as if doused with icy water.
Minutes passed. Only faintly smoldering embers remained where the flame had raged. Waiting until they too began to die out, the fighters simultaneously placed a clenched fist over their hearts, paying their last respects, and then simultaneously turned. Only after that did two boys approach the tired people of the future, radiating fanatical determination.
"I kept my word," said the detachment commander, addressing not the boys, but the young men. Children simply don't have eyes like that.
Argon felt the whole storm of emotions swirling in the two young men who had once pulled him, wounded, from the river, seeing in them not just children who had suddenly grown up. The veteran saw them as his comrades, so he added nothing. A warrior will understand a warrior, especially when he sees the reflection of his soul.
Artyom, without taking his eyes off the detachment commander, took something from his pocket and, extending his hand, opened his palm, showing a slightly worn chevron with the emblem of the "Argentum" detachment. The silver thread reflected the glow of the smoldering embers, playing with a pleasant pinkish light. Clenching it in his fingers, the boy carefully put it back, saying:
"No one believed us," he said, and his mind lit up with something warm for a moment, then plunged back into crimson darkness, broadcasting images of laughing children to the world. "I gave her my word, and I intend to keep it."
Artyom shone with an emerald light of will and blazed with golden determination so that people turned to him.
The officer once again sized up the young man, and his gaze seemed to dissect and weigh his very soul. The boy did not flinch from the sharp, cold gaze, but simply said:
"I am already an adult by the new laws, and I can decide my own fate!"
"You've earned five hundred social points and passed the test. Not everyone your age can. But that's not enough," Argon said, continuing to freeze him with his gaze, blinking only to activate the augmented reality interface to study his personal file.
According to the Collective's code, children gained access to database downloads at twelve years old. At the same time, the percentage of social points transferred from parents to the child decreased, and their savings were unfrozen. If he earned five hundred points, the young citizen could pass the maturity test and be recognized as an adult with all the ensuing rights. The guaranteed subsistence minimum was fifty points, while the salary of a qualified mid-level worker at a factory provided seven hundred points. And such a worker, to get a car, apartment, and dacha under the new laws, needed to work for five years, but if two people in the family worked, then only two years. Therefore, five hundred points was more than serious, and usually children by sixteen, according to the AI's forecast, received a pool of one hundred and fifty to three hundred and forty points, depending on academic performance and social activity.
"If you go with us, we will teach you terrible things. You will have to see all the human filth and look into the abyss more than once or twice. Do you understand this?" after a moment of silence, the officer asked the young man.
He just stubbornly shook his head, indicating that he understood everything, demonstrating his unwavering resolve in every way.
"All right..." the detachment commander drawled deliberately softly, before giving the command. "Detachment, form up!"
The gathered people felt only a gust of wind. The people of the future formed ranks so quickly – warriors-testers, improved by the might of Soviet science, who had become a nightmare for their enemies.
"Do you swear to be loyal to the Motherland?" the officer asked demandingly.
"I swear!" a shaky voice echoed over the funeral square, reverberating through the network.
"Do you swear to be a shield for all people and a striking spear of the Fatherland?!"
"I swear!"
"Do you swear to bravely march into the darkness and bravely strike from there?"
"I swear!"
"From now on, you are the front line of defense against the abyss! Remember: even death is no excuse for you now. We serve even after it. Take your place in the ranks, cadet Pastukhov..."
"Recorded!" the voice of the Motherland boomed solemnly. The AI's words spread to all corners of the network, and now everyone knew that humanity had gained another defender.
Argon turned demandingly to Stas, but he shook his head negatively, taking the hand of the mother who had approached him.
"I want to become a doctor and learn to heal... I promised her too, and I won't leave Mom alone."
"Vera would be glad..." Motherland said quietly, feeling that somewhere deep in her core, a piece of the girl smiled. "I will be glad for your successes, Comrade Kholmogorov."
The commander of "Argentum," hearing these words, looked up at the sky. Cold stars twinkled there, but the warrior looked through them. He had vowed to reach those who pulled the strings...
"Commander," Nechaev addressed him, bringing him back to reality. "I've already seen this... when we got glitched in that craft after being wounded."
Plutonium was as if stunned, as was his wife, who also shook her head.
"And now I have questions for Academician Lebedev... Although I've had them for a long time," Kuznetsov drawled, looking at his deputy and his wife. Perhaps fate had just given him the beginning of a lead in his search...