“Yes, Isaac... why, her only relative, I know him well. A kind-hearted man. Selfless. He sold all, to pay for the treatment of his sister. I really empathize with him in this difficult situation. He has signed a contract for the operation, left a check, had to pay thus wanted money, the orange energy was supposed to help. But this terrible terrorist attack! He did succeed, and now his sister is in a coma. And now he's got another couple of months. He said he has found the means, so I hope they will be fine!”
“How did he find it? Where?” Pellegrini stiffened.
“It seems, sold his invention. Said, the money will be there soon.”
“Are you sure? How long is his sister being treated?”
“Nearly a year. And a sharp deterioration happened just then, before the attack. What would you like to ask?”
“Nothing. Thank you. I'll still call you.”
The Commissioner could not breathe. So the truth was that selling creativity for the sake of treatment of his sister. Isaac is not a felon, but a normal decent person. Pellegrini was terribly embarrassed that he so easily judged the good guy. The commissioner opened the Cabinet, poured some whiskey and drank. Such mistakes he had never allowed. Damn the Agency, brought up the fact that he, an experienced police officer, invented a criminal! Also scared the poor lad!
Calling back with apologies wasn't in the commissioner's manner, his job didn't really suggest things like that.
Something was dragging Isaac down, he tried to turn and failed thus waking up. With surprise, he found himself sitting on a chair, with bound hands behind his back. Next to him was also captivated Bikie sleeping right on the chair.
“Bikie, wake up!” Isaac realized that they are in serious trouble.
“What? Where are we? Isaac, is that you?” woken up Bikie couldn't fully understand.
“We are restrained! Professor! Jerk!” Isaac tried to free his arms – nothing worked.
"Damn it!” echoed Bikie.
From behind their backs silently the red haired guy emerged and quietly left the room. Isaac tried to understand where they were, apparently on the same Villa, only now in the basement. The walls were dimly lit, along them were various boxes, some wine racks, and a large cigar humidor. There were no windows, it smelt of damp.
The Professor entered the room and turned on the light.
“Good morning, boys! I trust you slept well?” he asked as if nothing had happened.
“What is it, Professor?” angrily asked Bikie.
“Nothing. A small check. Precautions. Now I can't say anything. Let's wait it out," replied Link.
The red-bearded assistant brought some equipment, both related to connecting several sensors.
“What are you going to do with us?” Isaac cursed himself for his gullibility. “What is it?”
“We'll have a chat. This is a polygraph. More precisely, the lie detector of my own invention.”
“And what are we going to have to tell you?”
“All. All that I decide to ask you.”
“And if not?”
“Then I will connect another equipment. I have been doing neural research for many years. A nudge here and there. At a small level, and I'll let you go.”
“Just let us go like that?”
“Of course! Minimal artificial amnesia will not hurt you. Unfortunately, it won't follow a chronological order. Memory fade will be random, and while I don't see what you really forget about this place, or what I was looking for, I have to proceed further.”
“So, we can forget not only you but also something else?”
“Unfortunately, yes. I'm really sorry. I didn't invite you here. You came.”
Isaac was terrified. The Professor could do what he said, he had no doubt about that. He could erase their memory! Childhood, youth, parents, Michelle, even Vicky! God, Isaac can choose to forget that Vicky needs an urgent operation!
“What are you, fucking Professor!” muttered Bikie. “We come to you with a pure heart, and you!”
“Let's check that pure heart," replied Link. “Isaac, you can start your story. How did you find me and why. Everything, everything, in fine detail. It's in your best interest.”
Isaac told the professor his story since the attack. He didn't conceal either Yoshi nor their trip to England nor a cigar shop. Wanting to protect Peter, he explained that Wolanski did not know where they are exactly and that he doesn't know they found the Professor. Michelle wasn't aware of their business at all. After the story, Isaac answered some additional questions. He didn't know how to work around the polygraph, so he couldn't lie to the machine, but he didn't have bad thoughts either.
“I think you have something to add,” said the Professor and eyed Bikie.
Bikie moved uneasily, and looking askance replied firmly:
“No!”
“There is a simple choice. You either say or stay silent, if you are silent or lie, I erase the memory of you both.”
“No,” repeated Bikie. “Nothing.”
“Think,” Professor sighed. “It's not just about you. Also, about Isaac, about his sister. Or are you satisfied with the role of Pascal-2? This time, it's in your hands, not his.”
Isaac did not understand what was happening, but judging by Bikie's grim face, his friend was stubbornly silent about something.
“Isaac's motivation is clear to me. But yours... How far were you going to go?”
“I was going to kill you,” suddenly calmly replied Bikie.
Isaac caught an eloquent look from the Professor: "You see, Isaac, what's your buddy like. You didn't expect and it is the truth.”
There was a pause.
“But beyond that, Bikie, are you serious? You lied to me all this time?” Isaac felt betrayed.
“For his father,” calmly replied Link instead of Bikie.
“Yes. I was going to kill you. My dad was on heroin. And he was downloaded. Not cured, but downloaded. Then he died and I vowed to take down whoever is responsible,” Bikie's voice was hoarse.
“But it is now in the past. And I won't do, as much as I would love to do that. You are the key to ensuring that this all will stop.”
“Why do you blame me?”
“And whom? Einsteiner is actually your brainchild.”
“Come on, then all those who have lost their loved ones from electric shock will damn, I do not know, for example, Volt. Or Columbus for tobacco. I discovered the orange energy and learned to use it, have saved millions of lives!”
“Don't compare yourself to Volt. You will not find a whole a 1 percent of families who haven't lost their beloved ones because of you.”
“But it is a fact,” thought Isaac. “Pascal, himself, Sandrine, as it turned out, and also Bikie who lost his father.” Isaac was not pleased to realize that the Bikie isn't quite the straightforward man, as he thought; he is secretive, not sincere man who used him to his own advantage.
As if reading his thought, Bikie gave a guilt filled look to Isaac.
“Forgive me. You never asked me why I hate them so much. You were too focused on your own problems. And I don't really like to talk about my drug addict father. That's why I drank. Because then there was nothing I could do. It was my only secret from you. I swear! I hope not, I'm confident that this will not end our friendship. I wouldn't say this now if at stake was only my life and not yours with your sister's.”
Isaac was upset, but he immediately nodded in approval, allowing Bikie to understand that he doesn't hate him. Perhaps this is a real friendship. One doesn't have to turn each the other inside out, getting into the innermost corners of the soul to be considered a close and trusted friend. Isaac also felt guilty that he didn't know and wasn't particularly interested in what motivated Bikie.
Bikie was gloom, he didn't raise his head. Judging by the fact that the Professor did not ask clarifying questions, everything was clear. The original purpose of Bikie was to kill the Professor. However the fact that he changed his mind, too, was true.
“
Link, and why you disappeared?” asked Isaac trying to be casual. “Is your secret location important enough to kill us? My sister is being killed now, you should know for sure now.”
“It’s all very simple. I ran away because I was frightened. Secret Service agents came to see me ‘to have a talk.’ The government wanted to find out everything and then go public with it. I couldn’t get the agents to understand that the technology had nothing to do with artificial intelligence. I set up a conference in a hurry to present the technology and hand it over to Blake at the UN. And immediately after that memorable event, I got a call asking me not to leave the country. When I realized that Secret Service would stop at nothing to get hold of the technology, even though I had already signed it over to the UN, or at least to get a copy, so that they could have a system of their own, I decided to run anyway, just to be on the safe side. Yes, I got frightened and I bolted.”
“Think about it. How much time would pass before they sucked out my own Orange Energy? I possessed knowledge that they deemed top secret. Or some bright corporate spark would have decided that I must build another computer like that. A private one, so to speak. Then they would start kidnapping and downloading scientists all around the world to create a ‘creativity race’.”
“I was far too tempting a morsel for everyone, from the military and the big corporations to ordinary terrorists. But if I were to vanish, there would be only one computer in the hands of people who had spent their lives at least trying, if not always successfully, to maintain peace on earth.
“I thought about it a lot and realized it was an absolute certainty that someone would get the idea of downloading me. It was only a matter of time until they arrived at that brilliant idea.”
“But had they laid their hands on the idea, I’m afraid there would have been a few surprises in store for them…” at this point the professor, with a restrained smile, raised his index finger and narrowed his eyes. “If energy can be pumped out, then a way can be found to…”
“Pump it back in,” Isaac murmured.
“So again, it was just a matter of time until, sooner or later, someone unearthed this idea of mine, which was almost ready. And that was something I definitely couldn’t tolerate. But now we have everything developing according to a fairly positive scenario. The technology belongs to the UN, where there are decent people in charge. Things could have gone differently. If not for my reputation, I wouldn’t have been able to get to the Secretary General so quickly.”
“Thank God, the old friend understood me and the implications of my invention instantly…” Sweat beaded on the professor’s brow. “That was luck. The last thing I wanted was to become a man who had invented a super-powerful weapon,” he added confidently. “If the military had got their hands on the technology first, then… I’m afraid the word democracy would have disappeared, except from the textbooks, and it wouldn’t have stayed there for long.”
There was a minute of silence as each of them imagined a future with the military in control.
“But couldn’t you have thought about that beforehand?” Bikie pulled himself together.
“I did. Worked on university’s funding. My laboratory assistants wrote reports on the work and the expenditures. Someone obviously overdid it, and the authorities took an interest in my invention. I only had a week to organize the conference and my escape before Secret Service paid me another visit. So everything started slipping out of my control. But all’s well that ends well. It probably never even occurred to them that a highly respected fifty-five-year-old scientist could simply do a runner.”
Then the professor moved away to light up a cigar.
“You know, Isaac, when the professor starts talking, I listen to him and realize that compared to him you’re a dumbo,” Bikie said very seriously and immediately got a friendly punch from Isaac.
“Friends,” the professor intervened, coming back with the cigar in his hand, “you shouldn’t overestimate an old blockhead like me. In fact, everyone warned me the technology was extremely dangerous and it could be dangerous for me. But who were they to tell to me what I should do? It’s interesting that you found me. Anyway, I’m still glad my refuge was cracked by genuinely laudable individuals.”
“My refuge!” the professor continued. “How sick I am of this settled life in this lousy dump, pardon the expression, the cloying syrup of identical days. There was a time when a journalist came to see me every month to publish an interview about my invention. Frequent scientific conferences, learned debates. I used to feel the way explorers and pioneers felt, the way the greatest minds of humanity felt at the summit of their achievements. The world seemed to revolve around me! All the life of the planet.”
The professor’s eyes were glowing demonically. He felt a wild pleasure at remembering it all.
“Professor, that’s exactly the way things were,” Isaac remarked. “And I’d say they still are. A great deal depends on you. In the life of mankind.”
Still smiling, the professor frowned.
“It’s boring,” he said, continuing his skeptical complaint. “I’m so bored to live this way. All my memories, pangs of conscience, fears – they don’t count. That’s all trivial compared with the boredom. It’s all trivial after having reached my peak.”
“Who said you’ve reached your peak, Link?” Bikie asked, trying to make the question sound as intriguing as possible. “You have taught the world how to download OE, but you haven’t taught it how to give it back to people. But you said yourself that it is possible! Now that would be the highest peak, Professor, returning creativity to those who have lost it. Is it feasible?”
“Theoretically,” said the professor, brightening up. “I’ve had enough time and I can picture how to do it. Only, as you know, theory is theory, but implementation requires experiments and trials. We need a genuine Veggie. Practical tests, you know…”
“Professor!” Isaac had a glimmer of hope. “We have to make it a reality. And I even have a candidate for the experiment. I have… I had a friend, Pascal, I told you before, he downloaded and became a Veggie. You could use him for your experiment. If you return his creativity, we can all be sure the theory works. We in Monaco have a great base! There's enough room for everyone. We can conduct any experiments there. And Pascal lives very close.”
“And if not?”
“If not… we’ll keep on searching.”
Link was obviously very interested in this proposal and went straight to the specifics: when and where did Pascal download his OE? What was his rating? What kind of life does he lead now? Isaac replied briskly. For a while he forgot about danger, the uncertainty and the possibility of failure. It all paled beside the idea of pulling his friend out of his vegetable condition, bringing the first person back out of the Veggie!
By the end of the evening the plan of action took shape. It was simple and precise. Give Pascal back his creativity and thereby justify their struggle against the system.
Link tested something similar as he was looking forward to a new grand experiment, it almost smelled of an unconquered frontier. He got so excited that Isaac's last doubts evaporated because the Professor is not going to disappear and will not erase their memory because he needs them. The obsession of the scientist is comparable to the dependency of an addict! This chance he will not miss.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner, except an outstanding painter, Andrei Sharov. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
This book is a film adaptation of Collective Mind by Vasily Klyukin
Original version edited by Maya Azbukina
English language translation by Andrew Bromfield 2015, Sofia Bakhurina, Dina Kunets
Edited by James Gregory
Production by Maya Azbukina
Cover design by Vasily Klyukin
Cover Ill
ustration by Michael Tsaturyan
Einsteiner Page 20