There was no transport around her, except for old “carts” – as she called gasoline-powered cars that had long been decommissioned, but used by very wealthy businessmen who didn’t save on energy but bought fuel from dealers from newly developed wells abroad. Looking into the rearview mirror, which followed her, she gladly found that there was nothing to fear, no one tried to overtake. To get to the location of the first and last theater in the city, she quickly flew at maximum speed to the post where the duty officer was stationed.
“We urgently need to check your electric car,” said Gabriel succinctly, frowning severely at the thought of leaving the post.
“Are you afraid I’ll die?” Regina asked this time.
She secretly fawned on a responsible officer who was in close proximity to her.
“Such incidents occurred periodically at our airport,” keeping a distance, Gabriel said carelessly, who was on duty that day.
“I hope you will save humanity and me from impending danger or a global catastrophe,” she said, being impressed by the accident seen in the morning, when three passengers from an updated small-sized sedan were laid onto the asphalt.
“I guess it all dreamed of me,” rejecting thoughts, she thought, looking away into the distance.
“Sure.”
“Then my car is at your disposal,” Regina suggested taking her to the place where the theater district of the city was located.
“Now I will call my colleague – the duty officer. Let him send a robot to record the radar’s radio emissions. Then we can cross the light frame, and I will take you wherever you say.”
He pressed the button of a nearby backup robot, so that the clones brought a new, radiation set to recharge. So he acted every time in case of emergency.
“Can we really go?” Regina asked, not realizing herself that she had already enveloped Gabrielle with an atmosphere, a slight breath, a subtle aroma, like an aura, with her own mystery.
“Sure. But you need to wait for a response signal that my actions are legitimate. Do not put employees at risk.”
“Well, we will wait as you say.”
Gabriel spent his life at the airfield, where his father served as deputy commander in chief, and his mother was counted among the attendants at the hotel complex as a restaurant and cafe manager. Their airfield was considered closed, as prisoners worked there with code bracelets on their feet. After three years of stay, they wrote off, sending to the exclusion zone, to live out their term or, at their own request, they could break the contract; engage in private business for supplying the airfield with fuel and lubricant, issuing materials, as natural oil and mineral springs disappeared from the depths of the earth because of the energy crisis. This regrettable event took humanity fifty years after the military disaster in Chernobyl. Then no one wanted to believe that for weddings and peers there was neither money nor territory: everything was set up with military training grounds and broken power lines.
Brussels sprouts, cucumbers, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, apples, plums and pears grew exclusively under glass caps in specially constructed greenhouses. Other names of fruits and vegetables were weathered from dictionaries, everyday speech, no longer emerging from anyone in the memory or on the surface of shelving than they all used as furniture.
The elaborate products of the XXII century of a proud digital civilization have gone into the distant past, leaving behind piles of plastic utensils, dilapidated concrete skyscrapers, smart phones, canned, unfinished greenhouses with no heating and watering, abandoned after several explosions of factories; overcrowded seaside beaches, piled up with tourists’ waste, and a large number of wearily wandering around, unemployed clones, whose place of residence were the same waste cemeteries, rusty, submarines abandoned in countless numbers in any accessible place.
The metal was considered the lowest-grade building material, suitable only for sale in suburban areas for the exchange of graphite and cellulose, in order to adapt the sprouts grown in the upper ground for transplanting into the area difficult for clones. Confucianism finally took precedence over visible other religions. Flourishing, destroying all the Gentiles, the world turned into a latrine for blasphemous evidence of the former digital civilizations, which had long gone to self-destruction thanks to the efforts of terrorists and criminals who managed in a relatively short period of about two centuries, which for the entire development of the planet was a trifle, – incur the curse of descendants.
“The wired system is deteriorating,” said Gabriel, when he examined the entire electric car, a signal came in that he could leave the duty officer to let the car through to the access zone.
“Is it dangerous?”
“We need to meet again after a general test,” he immediately scheduled her business meeting, trusting the roller robot as he did himself.
“Yes, you already told me about this,” she replied abruptly, suddenly losing her patience, not hoping to get into the theater troupe in the next half hour. “How much can you remind of the same thing,” she said in a melodious voice, like every opera diva who considered her personal duty to lead the process in any situation.
“Is it? I didn’t notice something,” he parried in embarrassment, soaring in the clouds.
“We need to work better, and not run girls at night,” said the princess, unceremoniously, suspecting him of all mortal sins.
“We’re not going to joke,” the attendant warned, approaching so closely that Regina had the feeling that he was keeping back on something.
“We will meet in orbit necessarily, if you are not listed as anything reprehensible, for example, military participation in criminal squabbles on the Eurasian continent or in Latin America. We can communicate telepathically.”
“Great idea!”
“Remember that you can just call me a princess. I am never late on a date for telepathic communication,” Regina was as talkative as all the enthusiastic girls of her age who had completed dramatic courses with excellent characterization. They were able to participate in all the historical films made to capture themselves and the course of development of the present transferred to the distant future, as Durer, Rembrandt, Raphael and other painters, representatives of the Renaissance did.
“Such a suit like you was popular among Jews in the last century. You dug up this stuff somewhere in the ruins of Turkish caves where the last tourists dumped their bags,” he said with a tinge of envy and malice, affecting the most painful theme for her appearance, since she didn’t meet the requirements of the fairy-tale princess.
“What do you dislike about my appearance?” she asked, looking at his rubber, like a diver, a black suit with two yellow stripes on the sides and shoulder straps.
“Reggie,” he immediately switched to a familiar tone.
“What is the lieutenant?”
“You remind me of Princess Diana, who died in a car accident, somewhere around the turn of the twentieth and twenty-first century.”
“What is so old?”
She leaned on the bumper of a six-door electric car of a cylindrical shape, of lilac color, with a transparent top.
“I think you come from Trinidad and Tobago…” he turned on the power supply, looking at what the speedometer was showing. “I’m right?”
“If you like, you can assume that so. My ancestors often recalled that catastrophe, looking at me, in order to demonstrate their awareness in various, all sorts of cataclysms.”
“I have never met women in trousers and sweaters. All my acquaintances of the employee go only in overalls of gray color, with bracelets on their feet, in order to transmit signals to the Commander-in-Chief of the special units of the clones about their whereabouts.”
“You are not afraid?” Regina was surprised, mechanically adjusting the blond-ash strand of hair, which spread out because of the monsoon that had flown in from space.
“Whom? Women or clones?”
“Consider that both…”
“Not. They get excellent nutrition and monitor their posture.”
“I represent the staff weapon of your employees,” she snapped, showing off her tall stature.
“Our interests diverge with them, because our special forces are engaged in adapting submarine modules to simulators, redirecting ecological waste to the sedimentation tanks in order to cut down and store scrap metal, and remold it into hydraulic turbines for nuclear power plants.
“Probably often have you to travel to the disarmed third world countries?”
“It happens, but not so often…” he paused, remembering the only trip.
“Tell me,” she demanded imperiously.
“Then I had one to carry rusted ‘tin can’ in the Pacific Ocean. Blew apart one by one, pirate ships on the way,” he made a significant pause. “Cleared the territory, ignoring the statement of the Commander-in-Chief not to take up arms.”
“But is it like in a computer game?”
“Nearly.”
“And what is wrong?”
“It would take a long time to explain this. All cruisers were covered with some gray bloom, so it was difficult to distinguish against the background of water.”
“Why did you need this?”
“Earned annual premium and supersonic jet for personal use. Actually, I noticed you a long time here.”
“Follow?”
“This is included in the pranks of our gunners, and we just get information about all the drivers crossing the light box.”
Regina’s mood dropped a few degrees, suddenly causing a fit of anger.
“It’s good that I only found out about this now, otherwise I would have to swallow headache pills on entering my electric car into the access zone.”
“Will you give me an invitation to your premiere?” Gabriel asked, portraying bewilderment and desire to please.
“Rest assured. But you have to wait. To be honest, my career completely depends on the flagship and celluloid balls suspended from the ceiling of the theater.”
“Will you perform on the indoor stage?”
“We’ll have to get used to. But with a knife made of shiny cardboard, I already had a chance to rehearse.”
“It’s nice to hear that you are so busy,” he said, squinting as he sat down in the driver’s seat.
“Look, I have a lot of good paper,” she pointed to a stack of newspapers and magazines of the last century, when she sat in the back seat. “Can you imagine, it is a pity to pull the strap? Everything is already there. Nothing needs to be invented.”
Disregarding the generally accepted standards of behavior, she, scratching the back of her head with something like a lighter, began to flip through what lay on top of the back seat.
“I’ll take you where you tell me, and then I’ll pick you up with valuable corrections to the chain of transmissions of your electric car. Agree?”
“Do I have a choice? I need to get to the theater rehearsal,” she said nervously, trying to joke again.
“None of our employees have this ugliness,” said Gabriel, implying her driving force.
“You can send me your message telepathically or just call the watch. I will immediately be summoned to an artistic dressing room for negotiations.”
Gabriel drove prudently at low speed.
“I hope that our interns will test your engine and send for revision.”
“How much will I owe you? I do not like to stay in debt.”
“Prepare twenty dinars.”
“Agreed.”
They passed the light frame, drove into the central area. The whole military garrison of the city was stationed there, and next to it was a theater, out of old habit, called the “Theater of War and Peace”. This state institution attracted not only the civilian population, but also the militia from Central Asia and the Mediterranean, who accepted refugee status.
“I’ll be waiting for you to appear at the artistic emergency exit,” said Gabriel, looking at Regina with enthusiasm and sympathy.
Definitely, she did not want to go to the rehearsal, so she pulled time, deliberately, melancholically folding a stack of newspapers and magazines in reverse order.
“These are the deposits I have. I also want to boast of postcards and ‘playthings and tricks’ for those who like to ride. But this is not new to you. You’re probably tired? You can have dinner or drink something stronger tea. For example, a cup of coffee with lime.”
“We’ll stop after your rehearsal in the nearest supermarket. There you can have a good time, at the same time and pamper yourself with some kind of local drink. Do you drink soda water with cakes or just eat some roasted chestnuts?”
“After the bel canto, the sopranos prefer both. I can even eat a week-long supply of products from a foreign manufacturer from an ice-bridge.”
“I will take into account your wishes and tastes. Good luck!”
They parted with bitter facial expressions. Everyone went about their daily business.
Gabriel left the zone of access to his hangar for the repair of multi-tier simulators, where besides him worked two mechanic trainees dismantling all types of electrical devices: exercise bikes for employees studying heart rate changes, body temperature and finding a pacemaker; side robots, leading the main work on the assembly of all aerodynamic simulators; operating systems that control clone bracelets; electronic payroll receipt orders; electric engineers, as in the subway, for employees when they descended into underground communication laboratories; light displays at the intersection of each inspection room, where all the secret materials of the aerodrome were placed, and much more that was their responsibility.
Regina, with the hope of a speedy meeting with Gabriel, appeared on the theatrical stage between the wings without a princess costume, afraid to move, causing the director’s anger, since there was no time for dressing up.
“So, I do not see the main character,” shouted the director, waving his hands for clarity. “Why there is no light frame. We must maintain our security from the sudden invasions of clones.”
He settled down near the stage in an armchair, and on his desk there was already a cup of freshly prepared coffee. In appearance he was about sixty. Tall, thin, greyish, with nervous movements, dressed in a suit and an ordinary gray robe, which he wore to warm in order not to freeze in a cold room. After working for many years in this position, he had several clones at his disposal, which he used for his work at hand, but did not allow him to approach himself, but only transmitted radio signals to their bracelets.
“I did not have ten minutes to disguise because of traffic jams and accidents on the road. I had to wait,” becoming the opposite of the director in the polar direction, Regina, the lead singer performing the main part, explained disappointedly.
“Ok,” the director clapped his hands. “Getting started. Your way out.”
Played a quick tune from the speakers. Regina, checking her voice with a phonogram that slid over a quiet background, sang Gilda’s part from Verdi’s opera “Rigoletto”.
The action of the second act, they rehearsed several times with the scenery, so the appearance of the indispensable, the only soloist so angered the director, introducing the entire troupe into such confusion that Rigoletto himself, who was both the director and Regina’s father, made everyone move in a circle. Other female actors, performers of roles, diligently brushing the dust from the dresses, entered the images, preparing to shine on the stage in a similar way. They were comprehensively developed, civilized, melodiously repeating to themselves the texts of the arias in Italian. Regina placed all her arias in a small box of a recorder, so from childhood she could not imagine her life outside the theater. They always trusted her, set the example of the whole troupe, not stint on compliments. And this time the director, having finished his role, instructively said: