For years, that's what Rutra has been doing, collecting, systematizing, hiding information from the citizens, for their own good. Yes, yes. In order to preserve peace, society and human peace, it is necessary to control not only the technology of production of chemical, bacteriological and nuclear weapons, but also ordinary wiretapping of telephone conversations. For example, a sufficiently competent chemist can produce potent slow-acting poisons, scatter them in a room and a person will die in a few weeks or months. And the cause of death will be virtually impossible to establish. And there is much more, up to connection to your phone and hidden broadcasting of a special program that will secretly adjust you, program you for certain actions.
Rutra had a kind of hobby: he was interested in alternative science. It could be considered alternative only insofar as it was quite real, especially for the system in which he was operating. Accordingly, Rutra's social circle was made up of the same "scientific fantasists". The advanced technologies, hidden from the public, with which he was familiarized by duty, gave him the opportunity to become nothing less than a scientific talent. This transformation in him was a kind of prelude to the future, perhaps for all mankind. A chip in his brain, a direct connection with a supercomputer, a "second brain", powerful and informed, in the form of artificial intelligence, gave enormous possibilities. One only had to know how to control it and have a talent for extraordinary abstract thinking.
Knowing Rutra's predisposition in this regard and his high leadership status, he was once invited to a closed secret meeting at the very center. More precisely, it was an invitation to a friendly discussion. Knowing Rutra's progressive, cutting-edge views, the center's scientific community was no stranger to presenting fantastic ideas, no matter how implausible they seemed. For example, Rutra and one of them seriously discussed and planned an experiment to implant a cloned thymus gland into an elderly person to test the possibility of rejuvenating the body. Studying this method, they came to the conclusion that it is easier to clone an exact copy of a human being, and then to transfer the mind, consciousness, i.e. the human spirit, into the body. For those uninitiated into the secrets of the center's technologies it seemed absurd and fantastic, but everything was much simpler. Cloning was no longer a secret for anyone. Rapid growth of the organism was achieved with the help of technologies long used in animal breeding, and the transfer of consciousness, which although seemed incredible and miraculous transmigration of souls, was actually a technique of launching pre-scanned, recorded in a special program of chemical reactions of the brain for no more than a day. There was even a technology of instant scanning, recording and transfer from one brain to another, only in this case the accuracy of memories could be broken, or even completely lost some fragments, which, however, could happen in the disease of any person and without "pumping" consciousness. The scientific community, even with all the freedom of action that was given to them at the facility, did not dare to conduct such complex experiments without the support of the leadership. Still, this organization was created and served certain purposes, which were indicated by those who govern all other secret or explicit organizations that are authorities on the planet.
Rutra took advantage of being the golden mean in the command of this power hierarchy and treating the main persons of power of their group. These are not police and military organizations, as many might think. It is not financial and economic organizations; not even religious ones. It is her majesty science and the doers of science. The priests of the modern world.
Rutra was trusted, his progressive and strict principles suited both sides, so he could enjoy almost complete freedom. No one in their system could boast of complete freedom, by the way; everyone depended on each other, and all decisions were made collegially. When they met at a meeting, which, however, was not so rare, they periodically discussed ideas that they considered secret only because the public would be horrified if they learned about the idea to realize such a thing.
Rutra decided to listen to the scientific community. In return, he wanted to propose something even more revolutionary. The general public, that is, ordinary citizens, could not learn about all this, could not adequately perceive the proposals due to the delirium of the ideas discussed. But the employees of the center were of great concern, because there were those who could use the technology.
This time even Ruthra was at a loss, if such a thing could happen; rather, he was confused. The scientist's idea was fantastic, unbelievable. And that made it all the more enticing to Ruthra, provoking a desire to try, not deny, even though he was merely proposing a real experiment with a human using his own technology. Rutra, despite his recklessness and bravery, was guided solely by a "sober" mind. In this case, it was impossible to send Squirrel and Strelka and then check the state of their bodies. In this technology, a person's consciousness was sent, so it was possible to check whether it worked or not only when this consciousness returned to the original body, i.e. to find out from the person personally. There was, of course, a risk of its non-return. In fact, it was something comparable to the first human flight into space. Was there a risk of Gagarin's death? Of course there was! Is there a risk for astronauts going into space to die even now with all the advanced technology? Of course there is!
The essence of the method proposed by the scientist was to test it on Earth. In principle, the technology was not much different from the state in virtual reality, only in this case one had to actually be in the real world only in someone else's body. It was certainly hard to imagine, but what else did Rutra have to wonder about? He was offered nothing less than to try to transfer his consciousness from his own body to another. According to the scientist, with whom they were already friends and like-minded, it was possible, in a state of hypnotic sleep, to retain one's body and then transfer one's consciousness back. Rutra was familiar with such technology, so he was not so shocked, and he himself had participated in experiments on the transfer of consciousness, only to save the native body after a complete transfer could not be, the autonomic nervous system for some reason shut down. The technology had been developed by a secret academician with whom Rutra had worked under the previous program at the Polygon facility, in an underground city-state (if not a separate civilization). Only then the technology had worked a little differently: after the academician had tested it on himself, it had led to his death. There was, of course, another version, which Rutra put forward: the academician transferred his consciousness into a younger employee, and made his body dead. An ingenious alibi. It didn't matter so much now; Rutra was engaged in a new, more scientific endeavor, as opposed to one dominated by the military and political.
After discussing the proposed program, Rutra agreed to try it in practice, that is, to try it out for himself. It was not easy for him. His brain could not yet adequately imagine such a thing. How could he take and incarnate in another body! Suddenly Rutra said:
And in what body, for crying out loud? he asked his friend, whose trusting relationship with him had caused him to miss this important question.
Don't worry about it. So that you don't worry too much, I understand how it is, I have made the following decision: I will become you, and you will become me.
You're so smart. How's that?
I've already tried everything on animals.
Without authorization?
Come on, I got free rein. Where it goes from here.
And how? How did you realize that they had become each other? Did they just say to you, "We're different mice now"?
Ruthra almost laughed. His friend jokingly gave a look of scholarly arrogance on his face. Ruthra gave an even more arrogant look in return, and only his smile betrayed the friendly banter.
Oh, oh, oh, we're so important. Such a great, brilliant scientist has, of course, transplanted the brain of a tiger into a rabbit.
Rutra laughed. The other colleagues present at the dialog couldn't afford to be so cavalier with Rutra, so they watched the "performance" in silence, smiling.
All right, you win. Yes, I transferred, as you put it, the brain, or rather, what's in it, of a mouse into a cat and vice versa. I won't tell you how I realized it worked, but I will tell you that it was very funny. You can laugh now. No, you're not laughing? Ha-ha-ha. I'll laugh for you. All right, ready?
Ruthra made a serious face, he was still trying to bring his comrade back to subordination in front of those present.
I'm ready. Let's get started. Let's go to the virtualization room.
Not in a virtual room. I couldn't conduct secret experiments there, especially not from such a harmful boss.
Uh-oh, tell me you've been keeping a secret from Big Sis.
They smiled, however, and so did everyone behind them. Big Sister was the name of the artificial intelligence in the facility, which was connected to literally everything, either wired or wireless. For example, even the plates in the dining room showed the temperature of the food in them, not to mention the total control even without surveillance through video cameras. The artificial intelligence that Rutra had named after the chief administrator, Irene, not only constantly scanned the entire space inside and outside the facility, but also had a perfect view of what was inside people, even their emotional state. That was the price of the highest caste. In return, there was life in another world, where there were no concepts of "can", "can't", "cost", "boundaries", "power" and many other things in the usual understanding of society. It was a different world, a world of power and omnipotence over people's consciousness, and it demanded constant perfect trust.
Ruthra guessed that his friend, and now his colleague, since he was also involved in the scientific development of mind transfer technology, was not telling him something. If the technology was ready, if it could be tested on humans, the main computer would know about it, and sanctions would be necessary. Most likely, the scientist wanted to present something similar in virtual reality and show that the program is worth spending time, money and human resources on it. And the use of supercomputer resources also required reports, including the subsequent results and their practical usefulness. Knowing the methods of the "luminary of science," as Rutra jokingly, and not only he, called his friend, he agreed.
Being in virtual reality was not new. Rutra had even stopped arguing with himself and the staff about whether the event was in the virtual world or in reality. He was already calculating reflexively at any moment it was necessary to foresee the possibility of being in the virtual world. The main trick was that from there you were constantly returning to the real world, that is, you couldn't fail to realize where you were in the end. And from here, from the real world, the entrance was always through virtual reality settings. Virtual reality was like a dream. We don't know if we're dreaming or not. And once we realize it, we're actually awake. The virtual reality session was necessary to check real intentions, motivation, actions, desires, i.e. how a person would actually act depending on this or that situation in which he or she might find himself or herself. All variants of events were modeled by the supercomputer, it had knowledge about any person of the Earth: the data were in some database one way or another. Especially about the personalities whose deeds and decisions influenced the course of events of mankind. However, in the modern world, where free will was officially declared, a person could never be a personality, on whose deeds fateful changes depended, without giving rights for it to other similar personalities, who were already those who made global decisions. In all disputes and disagreements, the power-holders observed an unspoken rule of preserving their dominance and power rotation was allowed only among themselves. For the same reason, checks in virtual reality directly in this center were a periodic procedure like a session of psychoanalysis and questionnaires.
So the program proposed by the scientist seemed to Rutra to be a routine test, but at the same time, a doubt crept into him intuitively. Very often his delusional ideas and suggestions were miraculously realized. Just in case, he agreed to the experiment with the additional settings and recommendations given to Irene.
The Sphere Center's secret laboratory was located in the left wing of the underground city behind the main command shelter. It was not a military facility, it was not a civilian facility, or rather, it was "out of this world". 99% of the people of Earth, or even more, do not know who or what is controlling them. This system of "who and what" was referred to in documents and in the everyday conversation of those who knew and constituted it as "The Sphere". Ruthra, although he was already the head of the control board, could not always understand the idea of the creators of this and similar objects, whose life he had been breathing for the past five years. Why a shelter was needed at a depth of 500 meters, he could not understand. Was it just in case? Anyway, that was not the main reasoning for Rutra. Scientists, the best of the best, who for the most part could not be called scientists because of their age, were the wizards who had done wonders for the world living in the "past," relative to the level of development of the system in which these "bright minds" were. Many things that seemed magical and unbelievable to ordinary people were commonplace here. This is how that world, the world of ordinary people, was run.
Even the great minds of the facility themselves were unusual. All of them had chips implanted in their brains, which in turn were reinforced by wave stimulation of connections and had direct access to a common network both internal (to the data provided by the supercomputer) and external (to the worldwide networks, to the Internet). So they were not so much thinking and reasoning as they were generating new ideas and then combining them to create new things. Many results were tested in VR settings, i.e. not on the computer screen, but directly in the virtual world. VR this is the professional jargon of the center's employees, members of the system, called the settings and the state of virtual reality itself.
Are you saying I should go down into that hellhole? I see what you were doing down there. And the way you sang, the way you sang upgrading the VR facilities. But in reality, you were digging a subterranean hole.