Contents

Note from the author

Dear reader, thank you for choosing my work, I hope reading it will bring you a lot of positive emotions and arouse interest in it.

The action of the novel takes place in a fictional version of the future and does not claim to be scientific and factual authenticity. Any coincidence with reality is random and created for a deeper immersion in the plot.

Happy reading!

Prologue

It was the twenty-second century of the human era. The ideas of humanism, equality, democracy, environmental friendliness and love for beauty have reigned in the world. The problem with consumer waste was practically solved, people began to live more consciously, there were no more problems of discrimination against people on national and other visual grounds.

However, the main problem of the whole world has not ceased to exist — a person with his eternal thirst for something more. The calm did not last long. A long-resolvable lack of resources suddenly came to the fore. It is not known for certain what was the impetus for the destruction of the general peace, or whether people were tired of eating artificial meat, which at one time became a revolution in bioengineering and made it possible to no longer grow animals for slaughter. Perhaps they were tired of observing all the rules and trends that had developed in society at that time, but they did not exclude the appearance of people with nationalistic, xenophobic, intolerant views, which they could not fully implement, which made them feel inferior. Or maybe the problem was the exhaustion of almost all fresh water reserves and the low prevalence of sea processing stations. Also a big problem was the agreement signed by the advanced countries with the aim of annually allocating a large amount of money to eliminate social inequality and economic assistance in third world countries.

Unexpectedly for everyone in different parts of the world, wars for territory, long forgotten for everyone, began almost simultaneously. Considered a relic of the distant past, they struck humanity like a bolt from the blue. Former trading partners were already fighting fierce battles for trying to take over each other’s land. The world plunged into chaos. The only salvation was the complete elimination of nuclear weapons. This happened several decades ago, when the countries that possessed it met and decided that although it is a deterrent, it creates the danger of destroying the whole world when it is used by at least two out of a dozen states. An agreement was signed obliging to eliminate all stocks, including developments.

In the first months of the war, many research institutes around the world tried to repeat the achievements of their ancestors, but, fortunately, they could not do this, there were simply no highly qualified specialists in the field of nuclear fission reactions left in the world, which was the reason for the development of a fundamentally new and technological type of weapons....

Chapter 1. Vicissitudes of fate

The weather was clear and sunny. The rays of the rising sun gently touched the roofs of the buildings. This summer has been really warm. The crowns of shady trees created spaces where one could linger with pleasant coolness. In recent years, due to climate variability, heavy rain has become the main type of weather, followed by a sharp drought for several weeks. However, in general, people continued to wait for the onset of summer to enjoy the beauty and warmth of the moment.

Despite this, Sergey stepped out of his car into the parking lot of the research institute, glancing hard at the sign of the building. When he first entered its steps, it seemed to him monumental, impregnable and heavy. Now its walls reflected only melancholy and the burden of unfulfilled hopes and crushed destinies. Ten years ago, when he left the threshold of the Polytechnic University, he could not have imagined how hated his dream job would be.

Dyatlov was a tall, athletic young man with bright, expressive green eyes. His face was slightly proud, but always expressed self-confidence. He was usually dressed in jeans and a neutral shirt to match his business work style. He turned thirty-three a month ago. Sergey graduated from school with a gold medal, and in his youth, he was looking forward to helping people with his inventions.

Even during training, he came up with a method that would allow using electromagnetic waves to significantly increase the speed and quality of information transmission, which became the decisive factor in his interview.

However, as soon as military clashes began, and the country’s economy embarked on a war footing, the task of the research institutes was to develop developments aimed at the most rapid rearmament and technological superiority over the enemy. Sergey’s project was first shelved, and then completely «thrown into the trash» and the task of his department was to develop long-range weapons that could use gravitational waves as a method of mass destruction.

Sergey sighed heavily, measured his ardor, closed the car door and walked with an uncertain step towards the lobby stairs. He was very tired of the daily checks at the entrance, which are inherent in any institution of this degree of secrecy, but now the realization of this fact did not add calmness. After a personal search, he took out a pass and went into the main hall.

It was a spacious hall with a fountain in the middle and eco-design, fashionable for all offices of that time. Along the edges were armored doors, which in fact were gateways leading to dozens of buildings, many of which were underground and did not show their existence to the world. Sergey went to his door and leaned his pass, a camera and a keyboard came out of the wall, she considered his height, face, «iris» of the eyes and hid back. He leaned his hand against the flat surface that was the handprint scanner and entered the password: «Isaac Newton».

It was him who described the «law of universal gravitation», according to which the force of gravitational attraction between two material points with masses m1 and m2 is proportional to both masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. The keypad returned to its starting point and a yellow signal lit up on the door.

Sergey said: “Sergey Dyatlov, department for working with gravitational waves”. A green light came on on the door with the inscription: “Voice recognized. Good morning, Sergey”.

He took a deep breath and went through the airlock. This department was a large cluster of offices, divided into sections of three or four people working as a team on certain projects. Whether it was a sign of fate, or circumstances just happened, however, all four people in Sergey’s project experienced similar feelings towards their work. For two years, their team has not produced a single development that is somehow applicable in practice and is not a device for delivering coffee to the office without getting up from the couch. But this fact was not appreciated by the management, which set a deadline for the delivery of the project by today’s evening.

As always, which is not surprising, the guys did not even imagine the direction of the idea, which could somehow be developed to a mediocre solution.

Sergey slowly opened the office door and, upon entering, saw that Matvey was very diligently trying to get a pencil into the trash can, Andrey was dozing on the sofa, and Konstantin, who rarely appeared at his workplace before lunch, and sometimes came even after, was consistently absent from his work place. Dyatlov coughed loudly, so that Matvey dropped the pencil with which he was actively aiming, and Andrei fell off the sofa.

“As you know”, Sergey began, “we have a lot of work to do. Today is the deadline and we haven’t started yet. First, urgently find Konstantin, and let him bother to come to work on time. Secondly, we need ideas that can somehow pass for the appearance of work, and that we can quickly refine when correcting faults.

Andrey, rubbing his half-asleep eyes, answered, “Comrades, why are we worried, we will present a mediocre device, we will make it in an hour on our knees, we have enough knowledge for this, but, to be honest, we don’t have much ambition. We will not be fired, and everyone is happy”.

Matvey took out all the pencils from the trash can and silently nodded. His glance could only tell that he agreed to everything that would take him out of boredom, which he had been tired of for several months.

Sergey thoughtfully raised his hand to his chin. On the one hand, this idea did not force them to do a large amount of work, but it achieved its goal. On the other hand, what about his dreams, what about those aspirations to which he went, getting a job here? It turns out that all these years he lived in vain, sitting out his pants and a bright mind in an office with a lover of darts with pencils, a person who sleeps a day more than he moves, and also an eternal truant? So everything he wanted to achieve will never be realized?

“No, today everything will be different”, Dyatlov said sharply, not expecting such a surge of strength from himself from the phrase he said. “Today we will do what we should have done a long time ago. Andrey, quickly look for Konstantin and together create a mechanism for a magnetic gun that will economically consume the charge with maximum efficiency. Matvey, go to your colleagues who are developing the equipment and borrow from them a drawing of an all-terrain vehicle on which you can put this gun”.

“Sergey Vladimirovich, can I ask you a question?” Andrey suddenly said with incomprehension. “And what instrument do you plan to create?”

“We will create a cannon that will destroy everything in its path”, Dyatlov, proud of his idea, answered him.

Chapter 2. What is hidden behind the portraits

It was the third hour of the working day. Konstantin arrived earlier than usual, and his gaze reflected complete, resolute hatred either for the research institute, or for Sergey, who ordered him to come to the service. At the same time, Dyatlov walked around the office in circles, trying to come up with a way to distort gravity using a force field, and most importantly, how to fit this development into a compact installation that can be easily installed on a car or armored vehicle. The ideas that came to his mind either contradicted the laws of physics, or were difficult to implement, or, in principle, could not be assembled from inventions already available to humankind.

Sergey stopped and fell into a chair. He had not experienced such desperation in a long time. After drinking his fourth cup of coffee in an hour, he slowly looked up at the ceiling, examining the cracked plaster. “They demand so much, but they can’t do repairs from my device to work,” he thought with anger. “No, we can’t do it, it’s impossible to create something fundamentally new that will change the world in a day”, Sergey whispered bitterly in his voice.

From boredom inspired by depressing thoughts, he got up and left the office to walk around the institute. His favorite place was a candy store that served the juiciest honey cake he’d ever eaten. That’s where Sergey went. On the way, he decided to pass through a winter garden where tropical plants were grown all year round. What kinds of species were not there: Monstera Friedrichstahl, and rattan palms, and a dromelian flower, as well as many others.

Passing through the garden, he found himself in a large hall, which is a tribute to history. There were portraits, sculptures, samples of past times. The central place in the composition was occupied by the department devoted to cosmonautics, as a scientific field, which turned out to be the largest, difficult and poorly studied even two hundred years after the first flight into space. Usually Sergey passed through this hall at a quick pace, since he did not feel much trepidation for the study of outer spaces and their history, but now his gaze caught on a portrait in the corner of the room. He stopped and walked towards him. The portrait depicted Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky, a Russian and Soviet self-taught scientist who developed the theoretical issues of astronautics.

Under other circumstances, Sergey would not have noticed him, but now a vague, but obsessive thought has surfaced in his head. Dyatlov quickly turned around and jogged to his office. What the portrait suggested to him can change today, and the world as a whole.

Sergey literally flew into his workplace and jumped at the computer. He was interested in one single concept of Konstantin Eduardovich — “Artificial Gravity Chamber”. Tsiolkovsky believed that it could also be created using a ball, based on a gyroscope with several degrees of freedom. That is, if the so-called “donut” rotates in one plane, then the ball or chamber of artificial gravity rotates in all three planes simultaneously. Thus, the emerging centrifugal force acts on all bodies inside the ball from its center to the inner surface.

So Sergey’s task was to make such a design, only with the amendment that it would work in the conditions of existing gravity, that it was necessary to make the device compact, and also that the resulting overload should be converted into a field in order to “crumple” all objects that fall under the action within its radius.

On paper, everything looked simple in general: just convert the drawing and reduce it. However, in practice, when Dyatlov began test modeling, the design refused to work. The theory about the settlement of other planets with the creation of the Earth’s gravity based on their natural attraction did not function at all to increase and transform the Earth’s gravity.

Sergey fell into despair. Here it is found such a simple but effective solution to the problem, but it cannot be implemented. The only option that came to his mind was to check what his colleagues are doing and invite them to consider creating a model with artificial gravity.

When Dyatlov entered the adjacent office where Matvey, Andrey and Konstantin were sitting, he saw Matvey throwing darts at the printout, which was most likely the result of unsuccessful test runs. Andrey was drinking coffee at that time, the cups from which were scattered all over the room would be enough to create a small copy of the city from cardboard. Konstantin was clearly going to go home. When he noticed Sergey’s questioning look, he immediately turned his gaze maliciously to the window and angrily said under his breath that he would no longer work for bureaucrats, put on his coat, kicked the door with his foot and went out into the corridor. The rest of the team was clearly not surprised by the circumstances and expected his departure a long time ago.

Sergey froze in a daze. Thirty seconds later, he approached the sofa, slowly sat down, leaned on the back and said, “Guys, I found a solution to our problems, it was invented by Tsiolkovsky back in the 20th century. We just need to put it into practice”.

“What is the problem? — Matvey asked, looking up from his already bored lesson. “If everything was so simple, you would not come to us for help, but did everything yourself in the collider and presented it to the management”. Matvey got to the point, but to tell him about it meant to sign his own impotence and arrogance, so Sergey answered, “I don’t agree with the first or the second, but the fact that we are a team and must find a way out of this situation is undeniable and does not need discussion. Therefore, I brought a drawing of a gun for you, it remains only to understand what is wrong in it, why an error occurs during modeling”.

Andrey and Matvey slowly approached the table and began to look at the drawing. At first glance, everything looked accurate: the dimensions corresponded to the required ones, while not reducing the effectiveness of the weapon, it should have created the main function of destruction due to gravity overload under any circumstances.

“We are missing something”, Andrey said, “something important, but insignificant, which generally affects the result, but does not spoil the overall picture.” This version was very similar to the truth. “But what is this detail?” thought Sergey.

“A particle”, Matvey suddenly blurted out. “What?” — asked Dyatlov. “A particle (or a set of particles) must have a negative gravitational mass, or artificial gravity can only be obtained through acceleration. Accordingly, the collider cannot create a gun model that will be assembled from a material with a positive gravity value and will be static at the same time”, Matvey answered enthusiastically.

“You are a genius”, Sergey and Andrey said at the same time. Dyatlov ran to the computer, reconfigured the device so that when gravity was created, acceleration would occur, and launched a test. The program began to calculate, a 3D model of the future weapon with full characteristics began to “assemble” on the screen.

The room froze in anticipation, now or never. 95 percent, 98.99. A flash of green light lighted up the office, and the screen read: “Simulation completed successfully”.

The office exploded with cheers and applause. Never before have they experienced such joy at work. Sergey printed out the result in several copies: he put one in the project folder, and the second one he folded and neatly hid in the double pocket of his jacket. «The main thing is not to sleep during the inspection at the exit,» he thought. Life has already taught Dyatlov that it is not so important who is the author of the idea, you can assign it in no time, so he took the drawing for himself as «insurance» that their idea would not end up on the «achievement table» of some loafer who earned a post thanks to your connections.

After that, Sergey told the guys that he had sent the drawing to the printing and assembly department, and within four hours the experimental sample would be ready, all that remained was to inform the management and conduct a test presentation.

Chapter 3. Billionaire Doctor

Anton Borovitsky woke up earlier than usual today. Glancing at his watch, he saw bitterly that the hands had stopped at the time: five hours twenty-three minutes. Anton tried to fall asleep for a long time, but all to no avail: back pain plagued him for the third month in a row. At first, compresses, ointments, massages helped, but gradually the pain became stronger, and the previous remedies stopped working. And now the lower back ached with such force that the painkiller he had drunk only slightly changed the situation. “Today you need to look to the doctor, it can’t go on like this for a long time”, Borovitsky thought.

Anton Mikhailovich graduated from a medical institute with a degree in prosthetics and bioengineering. It has always been his dream to help people with health problems. And with the modern development of technology, he could do this at a double rate due to advances in biological development. Borovitsky was an athletically built forty-year-old man, but his young and energetic look, lush hair and face without a single wrinkle betrayed in him a man in his early thirties. He was of average height, but this did not prevent him from ever looking presentable against the background of others, and also very confident, which, in his youth, allowed him not to experience a lack of female attention.

Anton worked in his own technology company. Ten years ago, he created a prosthesis that has a titanium frame, while on top it is covered with artificially grown muscles, other tissues and skin. Due to the microparticles introduced there, when the prosthesis was sewn to the patient, all tissues began to actively “come to life” and connect with the natural parts of the human body, thereby creating for him the illusion that he had regrown his hand. At the same time, people did not experience any uncomfortable and alien sensations. A reminder of the performed interventions was only a small scar remaining at the place of “gluing”. Borovitsky named this technology “Schwartz” in honor of the actor who played the killer cyborg in the famous film of the late 20th century. These prostheses made a splash in bioengineering, and Anton very quickly turned from the small “Borovitsky Prosthetics” company created into the international corporation “Borovitsky Technology” with a monthly turnover of several billion dollars.

Thanks to the creation of artificial prostheses, he was able to do what he always dreamed of. His inventions have cured millions of people. The spinal column created by him made it possible to solve the problems of patients who, due to circumstances, damaged the spine and lost the ability to walk. Anton also brought artificial human internal organs to a new level, making them indistinguishable from natural ones, but at the same time overcoming some of the physical problems associated with age-related changes in these organs.

Borovitsky is regularly among the ten richest people in the world, while repeatedly falling into the top three. Among other things, Anton Mikhailovich is an exemplary family man and has repeatedly proved this by refusing to earn extra millions in favor of an evening in a restaurant with his beloved wife. For many years they were going to have a baby, but something prevented them in this matter until, finally, Anastasia became pregnant a couple of weeks ago.

Borovitsky got up from the bed, stroked his still sleeping wife, and tiptoed out of the room. He put on his bathrobe and went to the balcony to get some fresh morning air and look out over his beloved city. Their apartment was in the center, on the top floor of a high-rise building. It offered a beautiful view of the river and the Government building, on the opposite side, in the corner, there was a block of skyscrapers, one of which housed the office of “Borovitsky Technology”.

Anton was about to go back into the apartment, but he bent over sharply and writhed in pain. Reminds me of a persistent back pain. He grabbed his waist and slowly sank to the floor. After sitting like this for about half an hour, when the suffering began to pass, Borovitsky raised his hand, on which the bracelet was located, a small blue rotating circle appeared from it like a hologram. The voice assistant asked how he could help. Anton said in a heavy, barely breathing voice: “Call Herman, I will come to see him today.” Instead of a circle, a check mark appeared with the inscription “Done”.

Two hours passed, the back was slightly released, which allowed Borovitsky to slightly relax. He took a shower, had breakfast of scrambled eggs prepared by a robot chef, and went to get dressed. For this, a special dressing room was set aside in their house. Due to the need for a large space to accommodate automatic mechanisms with artificial intelligence, only a small number of residents could afford such rooms.

Anton entered the room, immediately the assistant’s voice asked what he wanted to wear today. Borovitsky said: «Something light of your choice.» «It will be done,» the assistant replied. He began scanning for suitable clothing, pulled robotic arms out of the walls and ceiling, and pulled a hoodie, sweatpants, and sneakers out of the closet. Anton stood in the middle of the room, raised his hands up, which served as a signal of readiness for the assistant, and he put on the chosen clothes.

Borovitsky left the dressing room and immediately ran into his wife. “Good morning,” she said. “Good”, Anton replied. “Where are you going?” Anastasia asked. “Yes, on business, to work”, Borovitsky lied. He didn’t tell her anything about her back pain and didn’t want her to know anything about it until the time was right.

“I was thinking”, she said, “maybe we fly to the Dominican Republic next weekend? You will rest from work, and the term of pregnancy allows for the time being”. “Great idea”, said Anton. “Sorry, dear, I’m in a hurry, I kiss you.” With these words, he left the apartment.

Chapter 4. Disease

Anton left the entrance and went to the parked car. A white convertible with a convertible roof made it possible to freshen up on the road in the summer. He leaned the bracelet against the handle of the car and stepped aside. Just then, the door slowly began to slam open. When Borovitsky got into the back seat, the door closed and he was greeted by the voice of an assistant, asking where to go. “Pirogov street, house 7”, Anton replied, looking thoughtfully out the window at his yard. Eco-quarters, which gained popularity in the twenty-first century, have already gone out of fashion, but apparently the architect of his house belonged to the so-called “dinosaurs” of urban planning, and the entire courtyard was created in the spirit of minimalism in relation to artificial materials and respect for plants and nature in general.

At that moment, the autopilot lifted the car into the air, the wheels bent and drove into the holes in the bottom, like the landing gear of an airplane, hydrogen engines poked out on the sides and behind, and the car jerked off. At first, with the invention of flying cars, the problem of traffic jams was quickly resolved, but this led to anarchy in traffic. Therefore, it was decided to unify the laws and create a separate section in the rules governing air transportation. After that, the plugs reappeared. Officials also flew with flashing lights, which caused widespread discontent, and eventually a tax was introduced on the use of airspace for the purpose of movement. The exceptions were airplanes, helicopters, spaceships, and, surprisingly, hot air balloons. Therefore, only wealthy people could afford to drive, or even rather fly, to work.

Borovitsky’s car was flying through morning traffic at the moment when he thought it was amazing how, with the modern development of remote technologies, people continue to commute to work.

Anton’s car flew up to a high-rise glass building with vegetation on the balconies, which was made to symbolize the hanging gardens of Babylon. Slowly lowering, the wheels extended, and the engines moved back. When the car completely landed, its door opened, as if inviting the passenger to get out.

Borovitsky got out of the back seats and went to the elevator door, he was supposed to deliver him from the roof to the floor where the hospital was located. At the entrance to the elevator, he was met by a voice assistant with a question about his destination. Anton answered: «Hippocrates», the doors closed and the elevator began to descend.

Borovitsky left the elevator and entered a large hall with many plants in the center and corridors radiating in all directions. The end of one was difficult to see, while the rest went so far away that it was a difficult task to see their end.

Immediately, a car like a golf car with a robot driver drove up to Anton. He immediately asked to which doctor the appointment was made. “To German Veniaminovich”, replied Borovitsky. The robot processed the request within a few seconds and said: “Sit down Anton Mikhailovich, now I will take you to him”.

As soon as he sat in the back seat of the car, the driver quickly taxied out of the parking lot and headed down the right corridor from the elevator, the office door was not far away. On the plate above, on the screen, the inscription was burning: “The reception is conducted by German Veniaminovich Schultz”.

Anton knocked and went in. “Hello, Anton Mikhailovich, what happened to you and me? ' asked the doctor. “For several months now I have been experiencing terrible back pain, no means help, even painkillers”, Borovitsky replied. “It’s sad”, the doctor said sadly, “now we’ll do some tests.” He took out a small plate, like a metal detector at the guard with a screen in the middle, and brought it to the patient’s back, the whole examination Herman shook his head in displeasure. “So”, he said, finishing the examination, and typing something on the computer, “I made you a referral for additional tests, my assistant will be waiting for you at the office and taking you to the right place, when you are done, come back to me”. “Tell me, what’s the problem? — Anton asked with nervousness in his voice. “I can’t say anything specific right now, everything will be clear only after additional tests”, Herman replied.

Borovitsky left the office in confusion. He was immediately met by a robot that accompanied him, announced the list of doctors where he was sent and offered to sit down. Anton, immersed in himself, did everything he was told without hesitation, but his thoughts were completely different. He tried to understand how deplorable the situation is.

Upon returning to Herman, the doctor met Borovitsky with a sad look. “What can I say”, he began, “things are a little worse than I thought”. “To what extent?” — Anton asked with concern in his voice. “You have damage to most of your internal organs, metastasis comes from the kidneys, the main focus is there, unfortunately the disease is at such a stage that intervention will not work, it spreads faster. Let’s say we remove the source, but the tumor is already growing elsewhere. This is a genetic defect. I’m really sorry”.

“How? — Borovitsky asked in the cordon: is it really impossible to do anything?”. “Unfortunately not, we can only delay the inevitable”. “Inevitable? — Anton asked almost hysterically.

Yes, it’s fatal.

— And what if we resort to replacing all the internal organs with artificially grown ones?

— In a normal situation, this would help, but you have a problem in the genetic code, sooner or later it will return. You can only delay the inevitable. With modern facilities, it will be about ten years.

Anton was completely depressed. He felt as if the body had left the body so much that he was ready to slide from the chair to the floor. It was a big blow for him, especially now, when their long-awaited child was due soon.

Borovitsky spent the whole way home in this state. There, his wife met him at the entrance. “You are fast today. Did something happen?” she asked. “Nothing”, Anton answered rudely. “I have already booked tickets,” Anastasia said, as if not noticing her husband’s rudeness. “Now cancel the reservation, we are not going anywhere”, Anton said completely emotionless. “Why? What happened?” his wife asked incredulously. “I say nothing. Just go away, “Borovitsky already angrily answered her and pushed her aside with his hand.

Anastasia was shocked. Never before had her husband allowed himself such behavior next to her. Something definitely terrible has happened that he doesn’t want to tell her about. With these thoughts, she left for another room.

At this time, Anton went out onto the balcony and looked towards his office. There is what he needs right now. He took out the pill that the doctor had given him from the pack and drank it. Then he lit a cigarette bought on the way home, although he had never smoked before.