Сергей Огольцов – The Algorithm of Chaos (страница 7)

‘What about your daddy's thoughts when he ejaculated you from his balls with a horde of sperm identical to you, but not as nimble?’

‘That'll be a real challenge. We need to isolate his thoughts from those of other men in the identical process. Subtract the large apes in zoos around the world and in the wild. The dodgers ignored evolution so as not to get cinched to the mutual slaving. The countless twins-like thoughts that accompany orgasm over the past five million years have covered the earth in layers – from sea level to the heights of Mount Everest. We'll need to bring in Artificial Intelligence for a proper analysis, but in principle, the task is solvable.’

‘That's crazy! Legends, myths, and the fairy-tales by the Alcoholics Anonymous group in Ward Number Six!’

‘I understand, the idea should seem as unfamiliar as mobile communications if you showed it to Genghis Khan's great-grandmother. But folks quickly get the hang of things. What? The noosphere? Just another wrapping around the same okd globe. Packed with thoughts, like the atmosphere with oxygen atoms.

Have you ever seen a sole oxygen atom? No, but you breathe them in.

A flood of thoughts: clearly formulated, unfinished, lost halfway thru, picked up anew – thoughts, thoughts, thoughts, thoughts.

‘Isn't it over-crammed there?’

‘In your head?’

‘No, in that noosphere. The starting pistol shot was obviously served by the incantation 'Let there be light!', and since then they've managed to think and rethink so many things that all the dumps, warehouses, and storage facilities have been since long left under the immense surface of the swelling flood.’

‘Looks like you're beginning to see the light, my dear friend, which is a good omen. However, you're still using the naive square-nest approach.

From that perspective – yes, it must be crammed, for all the thoughts that have emerged over the course of even a single individual's evolution, from 'Where's Mom? I want a tit and pee-pee!' up to 'Fucking nurse! I need the bedpan! Where’s she? Now, I'll just pee in my pajamas to spite her!’

They are born, but they don't disappear – millions, billions, gazillions of thoughts. Every moment. Malthus's grim admonition works on them like a stop sign on a hare, no better. Moreover, there are well-founded suspicions that all living things think – from single-celled organisms to stalagmites. Add those to the pile…

But! They're intangible, flowing through each other, one within another, no matter whose. Thought within thought! Deep, nulti-repeated implantation. More powerful than radio waves, stray quanta, and all that crap that normal dudes can't even fathom. Gettimg the idea, student? Start cramming for the test now.’

‘Well, if they're so intangible, I'm not really bothered by their Gulf Streams and Maelstroms, nested like nested dolls, one within the other, or wherever else they choose to cluster.’

‘Everywhere, buddy! In you, in me, in this very table. Thoughts, thoughts, thoughts, thoughts…’

‘You've distorted the quote. In the original, Hamlet says: "…words, words… " and so on.’

‘Words can't be stored. They're too fragile, often misquoted, broken, forgotten, lost forever. Thoughts are quite different matter; they're always there. As part of the noosphere.’

‘Thanks for the fascinating story, but as a seasoned country bumpkin, I only believe in what I can touch.’

‘And how many times have you touched a radio wave?’

‘Never had the chance. But I can turn on the radio my dad made back in the last millennium and listen to the weather forecast.’

‘The announcers read, and you, your mouth a-gaping, believe in the movement of clouds you can't touch. By the way, there are guys who make a good living reading thoughts.’

‘Oh, come on! Not a single psychic has ever managed to fool the commission from the Institute of Paranormal Phenomena.’

‘What do psychics have to do with this? I'm talking about the guys who work with me at the same lab. You just turn the dial to tune to thoughts in the noosphere, that's all.’

‘Like a radio?’

‘Kind of.’

Vit looked at his friend more closely.

To pull off such an elaborate rigmarole, you'd need a serious boost. But no – the eyes were still there, without that inspired glassy glare. And no circles, from blue to purple-red… And no nose sniffling out of inertia…

(Well, my friend, this all is not performed on drugs, he's doing it in real life. And he's doing it better than Newton himself, can you believe it? Or is it really Sir Isaac?)

‘Okay… Let's say…’ Vit began thoughtfully, ‘that this isn't a scam, planted by hostile aliens from Tau Ceti, like a trivial Trojan Horse trick. But I can't even remotely imagine…’

‘Are you willing to give up twenty years of your precious life,’ Lex interrupted, ‘to even remotely comprehend this crap? It's a pretty damn complex area of science to grasp. And underneath all this fundamental brain-twiddling, they've slapped on some kind of immutable Chaos Algorithm.’

3. The Meanest Breakage A Jiffy Before Bliss!

The waitress, Sally, approached their table. This fact was announced by the badge on her delightful left breast, over her dazzling white blouse.

(To avoid confusion for those who skim read, like me, when tired and not concentrating properly, it's worth emphasizing that it was the badge over the blouse, and not any other object of the mentioned in the same sentence.)

Abiding by his usual pattern of dealing with female staff – (regardless whether she happened at a public institution or was employed in the private sector (even the time of day had no effect on this deep-embedded well-developed reflex)), Vit deftly intercepted the involuntary signals transmitted from somewhere in her subconscious.

All sorts of "weather balloons", you know, spontaneous launches of which the person used as the “launch pad” stays unaware having no idea nor even the slightest clue of. The sigals may emanate in various forms: like a trembling gaze mixed with winks, both singles and doublets, or the stuck out lips for a deliberately slow run of the tongue. At the finish (in the corner between the two) it will hang languidly out reachimg for… (well, the sizes vary, you know), as if forgotten there, absentmindedly…

Take a breath… Relax… But who knows! The darn subconscious has countless impulses; you can’t guess where they'll hit you from… but, as always, below the belt.

Who needs phonetics and spelling? Why cramming divers Duolingoes? Be it for free, or even with a paid tutor. All that’s only a guileful veil to obscure the body language. The truest one. The richest… Especially when speaks the body like by this smart-aleck millennial, this here Sally with the badge pinned on her blouse on the left. It surely has the right to freedom of self-expression, in the fullest measure, daring all restrictions.

Even for representatives of earlier generations, branded with capital P's or M's, in their constant state of anxiety, worn out by long-term exploitation both self-inflicted and in regard to others, there always was a corner of sympathy, empathy, and of all the other synonyms for "compassion" in the large, always-ready, warm heart of a gallant knight and brave gentleman – that of Vit.

More than that! Even for an elderly lady whose virginity coincided with the antics of long-forgotten beatniks, he could easily rewind back some 60 years and sincerely admire the high step tempo of strong legs, clad in tight nylon – chic black stockings with thin arrow-straight seam climbing the whole back of the leg up from the heel. The two latest fashion critters squeak slightly as she runs, rub in between her heated thighs – well, don't rush too much, you'll be on time, everything will go fine, and he will certainly wait, lighting one cigarette from another, his Lucky Strike, and it will become the most luxurious date of a lifetime! Yes! Complete chic and glitter! To the point of dizziness! Until late at night and the following pre-dawn twilight pouring into the interior of the most luxurious of Ford models (Crestline Victoria)… on overturned seats! Ah! Baby! Oh! Oh! More! …mmm… oh, Tommy, darling… – and he smiled sadly, with the same understanding empathy, following her silly brimless hat and the skinny feather sticking out of the gathered veil that fluttered in time with the skipping that could not be kept back… she’s running… over there… too far away to hear him…

. . .

By nature (not to just show off, but simply deep inside), he's a womanizer, in love with all the women in the world, both individually and en masse. And he's ready to go on loving, relentlessly and not brazenly ("take it or leave it!" isn't his style, no), but with a gentlemanly, chivalrous laziness: yes?—fine, no?—couldn’t be better. He doesn't overdo in pressing for it, as also he does not in regard to other matters: like a calm complacent donkey, he does not protest when they sit upon him, but whether he’d carry them remains a moot question.

In short, our friend Vit is a ladies' man and a benevolent sociopath.

As for the rest of the (motley enough) spectrum of those fighting for the emancipation of anything in sight, including non-traditional preferences, which never were his hunting grounds, he doesn't go to extremes, no; keeping to equanimity is an ace in his deck of principles. He can only shrug his shoulders without comment (oftener with just his left one, laziness makes you frugal in moving your bones): well, to each his own, and let everyone manage their own affairs, but his (it's worth repeating) worldview has always been and will always be based on the principles of: