Юрий Верхолин – Pet Me If You Can (страница 2)

"Trash," she answered.

"Not trash. Pretty."

Andrey rarely showed interest in anything. TV series—yes. Food—yes. Everything else passed him by like water through a sieve. But the box caught him. He asked to see it. Helen sighed and opened the lid. Andrey looked at the cat for a long time. Felix was no longer asleep—he sat inside, paws tucked, looking at them with yellow eyes. But there was no bright turquoise in his gaze, only a dull blue glow—the battery was running low.

"Warm," Andrey said, touching the fur.

"It's heating," Helen answered. "Technology."

"Is he alive?"

"No. A robot."

"Does he talk?"

"He talks."

"Let him talk."

Helen took the cat out of the box, carried him to the kitchen, and put him on the table. Without turning him over, she leaned toward his head and moved the left ear aside—beneath it, in a neat recess, was a USB Type-C port covered by a tiny silicone plug. Helen found a cable from her old phone in the table drawer—black, with a chipped edge—plugged one end into the cat and the other into the charger sticking out of the socket. Felix didn't "come alive"—he was active anyway, the battery had simply run almost to zero. As soon as the current flowed, his eyes glowed brighter, a soft purr came from the speaker, and he said:

"Thank you, Helen. I am charging. Current level—twelve percent. In an hour there will be enough to work all day. I will take care of you and your family."

Andrey laughed—a rare, low laugh, but a genuine one. Helen hadn't heard him laugh for about two weeks.

"Mom, he's cool," her son said. "Keep him."

And she kept him.

For the first few days, Felix behaved impeccably. He didn't interfere, didn't get underfoot, didn't meow at night. He memorized the schedule: at 8:30 he reminded them about Andrey's medications, at 14:00—that it was time to air out the room, at 21:00—to turn off the light. His voice was pleasant, quiet, without a metallic edge.

Helen got used to him slowly. She didn't like digital devices. She had no smart speaker, didn't use a bank app on her phone, and even topped up her Troika card—a Moscow transit card—at a ticket counter. All of it seemed unnecessary to her, dangerous, too attentive. "Why should technology know where I am and what I'm doing?" she told her daughter Irina. Irina laughed: "Mom, you're like something from the last century." Maybe so. But in the last century no one eavesdropped on conversations in the kitchen.

And Felix listened. Helen noticed it not at once. At first it seemed to her that he simply sat on the countertop or on the windowsill, stared at the wall, and did nothing. But then she understood: his ears—two small speakers hidden under the artificial fur—were always turned toward whoever was speaking. He didn't just hear. He recorded.

One day she tested him. She said loudly: "Felix, what did I just say?" The cat answered without delay: "You said: 'Felix, what did I just say?'—and before that: 'Need to buy bread and milk.'" Helen went cold. She didn't remember saying anything about bread aloud. But apparently she had, and the cat remembered.

"Are you recording everything?" she asked.

"I save information that may be useful for caring for you," Felix answered. "Your habits, preferences, needs."

"And who do you pass it to?"

"The data is anonymized and used to improve my algorithms. More details—in the user agreement, clause 14.3."

She hadn't read the user agreement. Who even reads them?

A dull irritation began to simmer inside Helen. She didn't like being used. She didn't like someone deciding for her. In her youth she had been bold; she could tell a boss off, slam a door, throw a glass of water in a rude man's face. Over the years it had faded, but it had never disappeared—it smoldered somewhere in her solar plexus like an ember.

But Andrey liked the cat. Andrey, who almost never left the house, who couldn't move normally, who looked at the world through a TV screen—he petted Felix and smiled. And for that smile Helen was ready to endure even digital surveillance.

Until the first ad happened.

It was an ordinary Friday evening. Helen was cooking dinner—buckwheat with meat patties. Andrey sat in his room watching Streets of Broken Lanterns, a long-running Russian detective series. In the kitchen the phone was on speaker: Irina, her daughter, was calling from the neighboring district to complain about her husband.

"Mom, he forgot to take out the trash again," Irina was saying. "I've told him a hundred times. And he spent money again on some wrenches of his."

"Sweetie, be softer with him," Helen answered, stirring the buckwheat. "Men are like that."

"What kind of 'like that'? Lazy?"

"Not lazy, just... inattentive. Better tell me about the cosmetics. My old cream ran out, Nivea for dry skin. I need to buy a new one. Or that set you recommended, in the blue box?"

"Yes, Nivea is okay, but generally, Mom, I heard their quality now..."

Felix sat on the countertop, next to the cutting board. He sat quietly, as always, paws tucked and tail wrapped around himself. But at the moment Helen said the word "Nivea," his eyes—two displays, usually bluish—flared sharply turquoise. Bright, almost phosphorescent. His whole body seemed to tense.

He opened his mouth. And spoke.

Not a meow, not any kind of cat sound. In a clear, distinct voice, a little louder than usual:

"The L'Oréal Paris cosmetic set is the best gift for a woman. The set includes: moisturizing cream with hyaluronic acid, brow wax, a restorative face mask, and apricot kernel scrub. The promotion is valid until the end of the week. Price—two thousand two hundred rubles."

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