Ирина Пименова – No Names, No Signs. Technology I Virus I Life (страница 2)

When he reached the station, he was sent to the youngest group in school. He lived in boarding school.

Meanwhile, the lesson was easy and even boring.

The space station school was combined with a kindergarten. It occupied one of the compartments, which is closer to the orangery and dining room, and far away from the control center, the arrival areas with its bustle, transport shuttles and medical flyers.

The school was organized hastily, and volunteers from those who had the necessary profile worked as teachers. A long time ago, programmers assembled assistant robots, and now they scurried between the rows of utterly serious students, who were looking at puzzles on screens, which shaved in front of them in the air. The robots checked the tests, looked at kids who could do it faster, whose marks would be higher, and this greatly helped the teachers.

The teachers remained; no digital technologies have completely replaced them. There were such attempts, but it immediately became clear that if there was no a person in front of you, there would no interest or understanding. Robots, checking homework and holding tests, made individual training plans, and the teacher allocated more time for the student, assessed the need for additional material.

Artificial intelligence has made great progress! These scurrying between the rows robots not only checked the work instantly, but also prompted their pets. One of the programmers tweaked something in the head of an assistant robot, just for fun, and now some of them had the ability to empathize and facilitate the curriculum. Right now, Yara was looking at one of the robots who obviously stuck with one of the students for too long, and he was feverishly showing something on the screen, quite humanly.

– Philly, what are you doing there? – She asked him with a suspicious smile; – I will apply to the commission on the ethics of artificial intelligence! – Knowing that these threats were not destined to come true, everyone laughed, and Philly, as if scalded, jumped to the side, almost knocking down a nearby chair.

When the test was over, her screen showed grades, individual programs, and topics that would have to be repeated.

Yara taught unusual lessons. She was a mind-fitness trainer. After such classes, children read better, looked for solutions to non-standard problems better, which is necessary in any profession. While working with adults, tasks for logic and imagination, critical thinking helped to restore cognitive functions, to get used to the new reality. Especially here, and after the illness.

Now, while working with kids, she thought that she loved it when everyone developed relatively evenly in her group and Andrey had to be sent to the elders.

…Kate, seizing free 15 minutes, was drinking coffee. She needed to regain her composure. Difficult patients came often. They were among those who lost their loved ones. They felt helpless and unnecessary.

– A pie? Yara asked cheerfully. As a sensitive person, she immediately saw that Kate was resting and she decided to bring in a little joy. Yara knew that Kate did not want to be questioned. If she wants to, she will tell, maybe she will just let it slip… Later. Psychologists knew how not to accept someone else’s pain as their own. Work is like work. However, they also need rest.

Looking at a piece of a chocolate cake and a cup of mind-blowing space coffee, Yara thought about going to the orangery.

The coffee here, of course, is not real, but they are used to it, calling this mixture cosmocoffee derisively.

– I have schoolchildren only in an hour. Shall we go to the orangery? – She suggested.

– Let’s go! – Kate responded, coming out of the twilight of thoughts.

The orangery was big, with large portholes, like a library. However, the library is darker, but here the greenery gave freshness to the walls. Against the backdrop of the black «sky», the brightly lit orangery with real earthly trees, bushes and flowers was mesmerizing. When the glow of distant stars appeared in cosmic infinity the garden was especially beautiful. Usually this happened when the station was «hidden» behind the planet, and found itself in the shadows.

Looking at the flowers, Yara leaned back on the bench. «Just like at home in the park, by God,» she thought.

Kate suddenly said:

– You know, he dragged his smartphone again and tried to figure out why he couldn’t call home.

She said it quietly, but so clearly that Yara opened her eyes abruptly and straightened her back. She didn’t want to answer. Kate did not wait for the answer. People got used to the space station hard, especially adults. That one not old man, quite stubborn, regularly came to her not to a consultation but just to talk. His consultations finished some time ago but weren’t successful. Clearly, he needed more attention. He was suffering from sorrow.

They returned to the cafe, left the cups and Kate went to the next session. Yara walked in the orangery a bit more and decided to visit Sasha. The sector of scientific laboratories, engineering and medical research was located on the second radius of the station. So that it was necessary to take the elevator and go past the hospital block.

Sasha has been fighting with a bionic prosthetic arm for the third day already. It was very hard to program it so that the fingers felt the temperature of objects. At first it was difficult to find a child’s prosthesis, now – problems with the computer interface. Sensors implanted in the brain have not yet transmitted signals to the «hand» as expected. Sasha hasn’t yet found a breakdown yet. Being displeased and disheveled, he gave her a sharp, short glance.

– Well? Have you talked to Kate?

– Hello! – Yara pulled away dumbfounded, – not yet. She has enough patients.

The laboratory was equipped with the latest technology and more like a computer center. Sasha gave the impression of a half-surgeon – half-crazy programmer, conjuring something at the monitors and adjusting it in such a way as to return the lost functions to the body. Now in his left hand he held a semi-working prosthesis, which was repeating the movements of his right hand.

Chapter 4

She returned home from the dacha, opened the door and entered an empty apartment. Nobody was supposed to be at home. Everyone stayed at the cottage. It was summer. It was very sunny and hot. Suddenly in the room, she saw her father, or rather a person who was very similar to her father. He was sitting at the table in the living room waiting for her. He calmly looked at her and smiled, like father. He was waiting for her. She was frightened. She knew for sure that this could not be, because her father was in the countryside. They were all there when she left.

«What do you want here?» – flashed through her head. She never doubted it was not him. Despite, she stepped away in fear and cried out:

– This cannot be! It cannot be! That’s not you! – She tried to run into the kitchen.

But there was another person sitting there who looked exactly like her father! Or the same one?

A chilling terror washed over her. These copies faced each other, and, it seemed they were even surprised to meet each other.

She tried to seize the moment and lock them up somewhere. The washroom door handle came her way. She even managed to push them in and slam the door. She was very surprised how all that happened. They both were very tall and wiry. Maybe it was the effect of unexpectedness. They didn’t expect her to be so fast. Yara wasn’t a very trained but she was sporty. Of course, she could not resist their pressure against the door for a long time, and, slamming the door back and forth several times, they jumped out.

Next was darkness. Then she realized that it was a kidnapping. She was being held in her own apartment. It was very scary and weird. It seemed that everything was as always; things were in their places, no one stole anything and run, she was not constrained in her movements, it was sunny outside the window, but some man posing as her father explained to her, very politely, that tomorrow they would go on a long trip together. And if she wouldn’t agree voluntarily her closed people would suffer.

His voice was calm and quiet and very distinct. It went straight into the heart; his yellowish eyes looked just at to her. He had a very unpleasant cold piercing look as if he was a robot, without emotions.

They spent the whole day at home. The real summer weather worsened the depressing mood. It became clear that she could not escape.

It was so quiet all around. There was nothing in this ringing silence. No talking, no threats. She thought someone must have been looking for her. At least to find out how she arrived from the dacha. She kept thinking how to convey a cry for help, how to say that she was being held and they were going to take her somewhere.

She tried to talk to him cautiously.

– Where are we going?

– To Kineshma.

She was very surprised. Nothing ever connected her with this town.

Her braked state longed till evening, her head and feet got heavy. She thought they hit her with something and she didn’t remember it. Suddenly Yara thought: