“Well done, princess. Now run, change your clothes. I hope we will please our viewers in a week with the premiere.”
Regina returned three minutes later. The dresser was already keeping her costume behind the scenes. The girl, quickly throwing off her sweater, put on a ball gown right there. Then they played the whole performance to the end in theatrical costumes, observing pauses.
“I get goose bumps when I imagine that this idea of the composer probably took place in real life,” Regina exclaimed in the dressing room, addressing her friend, Giovanna’s performer, the girl’s mentor.
“My content doesn’t care at all. Outdated edition of our life does not apply. I think nothing was chosen such a tragedy. There is something more modern,” Violetta sympathized with putting her hand on Regina’s shoulder. “My name is also listed in the operatic repertoire.”
“We’re tired of space tragedies long ago, but at all costs we could even sing the drama ‘Orpheus Going to Hell’ by Williams,” Regina remembered the play she had seen on a mobile gadget a few days ago.
“The repertoire already has an eighteenth-century opera “Orpheus and Eurydice” by Gluck for three roles. Uneasy melancholy. Someday we will have a competition; we will fulfill all our obligations to the conductor of the orchestra. For now we will be content with what we have in stock.
“Do you have an affair with him?”
“Something likes that. We prefer not to cover this topic with our extras and the corps de ballet.
“Would you like to change the party with me?” Regina asked an envious and jealous girlfriend, finishing shoot makeup near the mirror.
“Why not? And you?”
“Everything is in our power, but all we need is time and patience,” the princess wisely remarked instead of saying goodbye, heading for the exit from the dressing room. Girls dressed in their daily costumes. They parted with a sense of satisfaction that the rehearsal was successfully over, not a single clone was hurt when they moved the scenery. Those were periodically thrown out of the windows in the hope of getting out of the state of trance, in which they were constantly after the next portion of doping.
“I waited. I see you are on the rise,” standing at the exit from the theater, Gabriel praised Regina
“How are you doing? Put in order the operating system and the coordination of impulses of my electric car?”
“Everything is fine. You can drive,” said Gabriel, skipping Regina forward, watching how she sat down easily in the front seat and began testing the engine – a set of wires connected to an electric charger.
He himself sat next to her.
“It seems all is well. Thank you,” the girl, who did not want to put up with loneliness, said laconically. They drove a few meters away. Suddenly they heard deafening cries:
“Down with the main director!”
“Long live freedom!”
“Down with the conductor!”
“We ourselves will be able to put on a performance and go out to the world level in order to earn millions of dollars!
“Soloists for the stage!” scanned clones.
They staged a strike, deciding to do away with their past at once, in order to prove to all the unemployed that jobs are open to everyone.
“They are on strike again,” Regina said, worrying about her friend, who was lingering in the lobby, waiting for a taxi.
Dark, night, city lighting required an increase in the number of power plants, increasing power.
“Do you have a target disassembly with the staff?” asked Gabriel, who was not used to disobedience, but always acted on instructions.
“Yes, the clones have their own requirements. They work for time off. Money they do not pay to limit freedom.”
“We do the same at the aerodrome, but we do not control the light frames, but we reinstall personnel, neutron isolators, where all clones flow in searching for a habitat.”
“Made a special sump for them?” Regina asked, completely internally devastated after the rehearsal.
“Something likes that. There is a means of communication. They can express their opinion or send any message up.”
“Are you not afraid that I will learn state secrets by breaking the sequence between you and them?”
“No, I am not afraid. We have no slavery. Everyone is busy doing things they love.”
“Or maybe you want to reorient me?” Regina asked, directing the electric car to the supermarket, where Gabriel was so eager that she treated him to something exotic and natural.
“What kind of talk do you have? Well, okay, such a beautiful girl can be forgiven for tactlessness,” he sincerely smiled, in order to find mutual understanding with Regina.
“Thank you,” she answered mechanically, softening, without in the least giving importance to the significance of the moment.
“Would you like to be my bride?” Gabriel took into account all possible answers.
“What is so right?” Regina asked worriedly.
“Why immediately? We will be together forever. In the meantime, you just need to answer ‘yes’ or ‘no.’”
“What do you think?” Regina began to ask basic questions that required the most creative answers in the spirit of the Chinese princess Turandot.
“I think that my intellectual abilities will be useful to the theatrical diva. The position of the Commander-in-Chief looms on my horizon,” he insistently made his urgent demands.
“Do you want to grow up in my eyes?” she continued the telescopic “shelling” of the coded object sitting next to her in an electric vehicle.
“Awesome shrewdness,” Gabriel agreed wholeheartedly.
“Note that I am still a top model, a fashion model, an actress,” the girl decided to share her achievements in the show business.
“Probably, this addition means a positive solution to our problem with you?” Gabriel tried to convey, as easily as possible, his inner feelings, which are not reflected on his face in any way.
“Good,” she said with a blank look, slowing down near a supermarket decorated with a network of unsurpassed advertisements with all sorts of flashes of a planetary character.
The conversation ended in a mutual consensus in the lobby, near the elevator to the second floor where the cafe was located. Regina did not feel offended when they were ordered: roasted chestnuts and two cups of coffee. They refused soda water and cakes due to the lack of natural oil because they could treat only the surrogate prepared from margarine.
Girl Named Quiet Doe
The views of all the library staff were fixed on computer monitors. They were busy examining their stock, counting in Excel a number of books sent to the archive and those that were withdrawn by readers for a certain period. There was a terrible confusion. But the total is consistent with what was a year ago, including new arrivals. A few books were literally accepted only by those that were tested in the Book Chamber, so it was necessary to register by sending to a paid subscription so that fans of high-quality exhibition editions had the opportunity to read popular literature in an hour free from work. None of the librarians paid attention to the visitors of the reading computer room, trying in vain to find one or the other edition for themselves or to look in their mailbox to determine whether there were messages from friends, business partners, parents and children.
In the hall there was not a single empty seat. Visitors brought chairs from the corridor to sit next to the lucky subscriber who was lucky to attack first, having received permission to temporarily use the personal counting assistant.
“Can I join you?” asked an interesting, modestly dressed woman of Balzac age with a very beautiful, brightly made up girl sitting near the monitor, nervously knocking on the panel keys, not really getting the right letters.
“Only after when I finish. You are stopping me from concentrating on my dissertation topic,” the girl replied arrogantly, leaning over the monitor, making an impression on the stranger. The girl was wearing a bright mini skirt and a purple tank top. Because of her long legs with her knees, she rested against the table, feeling quite comfortable away from the scorching summer sun.
“Imagine that I have the same problem. I am preparing to take the candidate minimum. Need answers to questions for the exam in philosophy,” explained the woman who approached articulately. “I was allowed to join you.”
They looked at each other with dislike, realizing the hopelessness of their position.
“Well, if allowed, sit down, but you have to wait. I completely lost my sight with these letters. I can’t find what I need in terms of numbers in any way,” complained the future dissertation scholar to her elder neighbor.
“Get some rest, but for now I’ll look for the biography of the philosopher Seneca. And in my textbook given little information. What is your name?”
“Quido. But it is abbreviated. Deciphering is a quiet doe,” she said, very indistinctly.
“For the first time I hear such a name. But in general, everything in life can be excellent once,” the newly arrived visitor somehow casually put it.
“Now from work jumped into jail. Interviewed women prisoners. I am impressed. I want to write to my parents in Italy, so as not to worry about me,” Quido, overjoyed by the sudden, casual communication, emotionally shared her plans.
“My name is different, suppose, Irina Vladimirovna,” the woman continued tritely. “I have no parents in Italy. Of course, it’s great when someone cares about you.
“We are friends, even meet sometimes when I come to them on vacation. We have to work hard to earn a trip,” Quido said, continuing to read letters with sadness.
“Probably you have to travel a lot?” Irina asked with the appearance of a professional reporter who knows how to find an approach to people.
“I have been working since childhood: now an actress, then a model, now I work in journalism. I study in graduate school. And I was in a childhood queen of beauty. Is it not noticeable?” very simply asked the girl, exuding magnificence densely applied, purple shadows on the eyelids, colorful cream powder, the color of the tan, on the cheeks, blinking, brightly painted black mascara, eyelashes, appearance identical with Ornella Muti, famous for the film “The Taming of the Shrew”, directors Castellano and Moccia. It was hardly possible to resist the gaze of such a world beauty. Irina was embarrassed, but did not show the view, but internally gathered and retorted:
“This is noticeable. Still, you better roll in a movie. Charges will be stunning. You will participate in film festivals, biennials, views. There will be a lot of fans. You will be signing autographs to everyone, defiling in front of journalists and photo reporters.”
“It’s all in the past. I want to start my life from scratch, as some of my former cellmates say, with whom I was imprisoned for almost an hour.”
“What took so long interview?” Irina said, making a displeased facial expression.
“I had to report to the head. He demands some facts that I now have,” Quido explained with a feeling of satisfaction, and Irina could hardly imagine that a girl with such appearance could move along the prison corridors or wait for a get-together in a meeting room.
“Great! And what is their crime?
“Mostly drugs. This is the most popular among them article of the law.”
“All this is very unpleasant and routine. No romance. Some problems. It’s just scary how many broken lives are due to a pernicious potion,” said Irina reasonably.
“Romance happens at festivals and screen tests. You will see me on the pages of magazines. I will appear in my ballroom, royal dress, got from my mother,” Quido said proudly.
“Right. You do not need to visit government houses anymore. There are no directors, no screenwriters, and some prisoners. You understand, you should do a career in your youth… You can lose everything if you follow a vicious lifestyle,” Irina pointedly added, marveling at the courage, magnificence and independence of a movie star who managed to become a beauty queen in childhood, to attract public attention due to a successful coincidence of circumstances, parental care and perseverance film critics.
“What did you visit there once?” Quido asked straight away – the future journalist and actress.
“Fortunately, I didn’t, and I’m not going to,” answered Irina, intending to finish the slippery topic of the conversation, nervous about the full house in the library.
“And I want to write a book about these sufferers. This will be the subject of my dissertation. Do you really have no pity for them?” Quido asked, burning, continuing to leaf through the letters in her mailbox.
“Sorry is not my profile. Evil must be eradicated. And pity can only harm in professional activities,” said Irina, sententiously, having the experience of educational and pedagogical activity behind her back.
“We’ll have to go back to those tables again. A lot of things interested me in the work of police investigators and experts. The prisoners themselves asked me to go in to talk with them,” Quido said with annoyance, recalling her independent previous steps within state institutions.
“I wish you good luck,” Irina encouraged the girl sincerely.
“Good luck a little. We still need permission and a pass signed by the warden. Could you help a prisoner with money? They all want to borrow some money from me,” Quido obviously wanted to pass on the shoulders of Irina the pressing problems and aspirations of people who were in difficult life circumstances.
“I think no.”
“Why?”
“This is a philosophical question. I am afraid that I will not be able to answer it right away. It is necessary to prepare, read at our leisure the necessary publications, and delve into periodicals.”
“They told me, too. Not enough time for everything. And you?”
“As you see. I am in a hurry to go home for lunch now, but I hope to come back after and find the necessary information. Why, it seems that one table was free,” Irina moved to a free place and started studying philosophy from the position of modern views on the subject.
The tense situation among librarians began to decline. They finished recounting the fund, checking between themselves the data extracted from the computer. All of them turned out quite clearly and without blots.
“See you after lunch?” Quido asked.
“Probably,” Irina answered vaguely, although the conversation turned serious.
“I’ll be here for a long time to deal with the letters,” Quido promised Irina, showing her appearance with the aplomb of a professional actress and a movie star.
In fact, after half an hour of respite, Quido noticed Irina hurrying into the computer room.
“I’ll kill two birds with one stone: I will work on a computer and look for books in the catalog,” said Irina, feeling her superiority over the famous actress. She was relieved from everyday worries and summer heat in the shadow of the computer room, where the quiet noise of the air conditioner did not interfere with the work of visitors.
“Let’s go together. I’m already tired of being here. How are you doing? Found what you were looking for?” the girl asked, not at all disappointed in her search.
“Very little information. But something dug up. Now I’ll print one sheet and leave,” said Irina, satisfied that she had managed to extract an interesting article about an ancient philosopher, whose biography was absent in the textbook, and intercourse with such a phenomenal movie star, whose work she could only admire.