Serenity

Mikhail admired the landscape with a clear pleasure on his face. From the spacious platform in the backyard, paved with hexagonal tiles, there was truly a picturesque view. A long, gentle slope descended downward, covered with even, low grass as if recently mown. Beyond it rose similar green hills framed by sparse coniferous groves, between which ran a narrow path. It became almost invisible, disappearing into the haze near dark rocks and a beach of black volcanic sand, beyond which the sea splashed. However, from here it was barely visible.
On the opposite side, everything was already densely overgrown with forest. And the house, located right on this sharp boundary, seemed to peek out from behind the trunks of tall pine trees.
“Awesome, right?” Chris asked with a satisfied smile, clearly expecting a compliment. Mikhail nodded. Satisfied with this answer, the host—a tall man around forty with a slight stubble—returned to the barbecue grill where meat was roasting, and fragrant smoke drifted upward into the cold air.
“What a freezer you have here!” Neil, a slender man, emerged from the house, immediately buttoning up his sports jacket. “But really… What a stunning view!”
The guy stood next to Mikhail, who was lost in thought, and surveyed the expanse.
“Look at this! Look! Did you see that?” He nudged his friend and pointed to one of the green slopes. “It’s just like wallpaper. And the shadows from the clouds are running across the hills… Cool ‘ray tracing’.”
“Yeah,” Mikhail replied reluctantly.
“It’s a pity I didn’t bring my native camera… Oh well. I’ll take a screenshot. I need to show this to Gracie,” Neil touched his left temple with his fingers. “Done!”
“Remember our agreement,” Mikhail said unhappily. “Don’t ruin the atmosphere.”
“Yeah, exactly!” Chris chimed in. “Let’s not forget! We’re strictly a men’s group here. Wilderness, meat on the fire, and no women.”
“All right. All right,” the guy agreed and settled into one of the wicker chairs arranged around a massive table made of black wood, looking amused.
Looking once more at the hills, the path, and the whimsical play of sunlight in the clouds, Mikhail turned away. His mood was indeed spoiled. But could it have been otherwise? If not Neil, then someone else would inevitably start talking about work or games, beginning with ordinary chatter about digital technology and ending with endless geeky boasting. After that, try arguing that numbers don’t rule the world. They do. Absolutely! But haven’t we ourselves given them that power? It seems that at some point everyone went off in the wrong direction…
Having completely ruined his mood, Mikhail returned to his friends, where shashlik was already steaming on a wide dish with an emerald pattern on the table.
“It seems we’ve gone off in the wrong direction…” Mikhail repeated aloud.
“What are you talking about?” Chris didn’t understand. As the hospitable host and chef, he handed his friend a skewer. “Here!”
“When did we become so… digitized?”
“Of course. When ‘GA’ came up with combining a processor and a non-volatile memory cell,” Neil enthusiastically joined the conversation.
“No,” Chris objected with a smile. “I think it happened much earlier. When Uncle Sinclair equipped every household in the country with a Z80 processor. Even we had one…”
“What’s that? ‘Spectrum’?” Neil was taken aback. “How old are you?”
“I was eighty-three… Until I ended up here.”
Mikhail looked critically at the welcoming host, whom, even considering the gray hair at his temples, couldn’t possibly be older than forty-five.
“Great skin,” Neil expressed the general opinion. “But it probably wouldn’t look as good on a 256-by-192-pixel screen with sixteen colors…”
— Fifteen. There were two identical black ones,— Mikhail corrected.— And in one place you couldn’t put more than two colors at once. “Color clash” to save memory…
— Even more so.
— You don’t understand anything,— Chris waved his hand dismissively, pouring beer into tall, busty glasses.— The point is that the computer began to influence the real world for the first time, entering the everyday life of ordinary people: their own communities formed, their own philosophy, their own aesthetics.
— These communities lacked communication. Like us, right? In my opinion, it wasn’t computers that changed everything, but the Internet. Cheers!— Neil raised his beer.— Slainte!
— We say “Skol!”— Chris joined in.
— Let’s be…— Mikhail clinked glasses with his friends.
All three took a sip of the frothy drink, which each of them found to be exactly the same “excellent beer” that “used to be.” Mikhail chewed juicy, tender meat, cooked just right, marinated to the necessary acidity and seasoned with the required blend of spices, necessarily including coriander and basil, gazing at the beauty of the surrounding nature and practically detaching himself from philosophical computer problems… But his friends pulled him back.
— Before the Internet there was FidoNet,— Chris remarked.
— Not “before,” but parallel… You can’t catch me on this one, old man!— Neil laughed.— Global networks existed long before that. The difference is that enthusiasts wanted to create accessible and inexpensive communication directly in their homes.
— That’s exactly what I’m talking about, kid. About accessibility,— the host replied with the same teasing tone.— People wanted to expand their ego through an electronic machine. And networks are the environment where you broadcast yourself. Conferences, forums, chats—all these are opportunities to share your thoughts and words with those who would otherwise remain unreachable. That’s the real reason.
— So again, selfishness and vanity? Was the older generation always such cynical materialists, or is it just a topic for physics teachers?
— Driving forces, son… Physics teachers everywhere consider forces. You can’t escape them. And also fear. In the real world, you might get punched in the face for your opinion; computers have made the world safer.
— But during the time of your FidoNet, offline meetings were practiced, right?
— Point-to-point connections, yes. But even after that… Chat rooms, forum discussions… But do you understand why all this ended?
— After a couple hundred broken faces, right?— the guy laughed again.
— After a hundred-megabit twisted pair. When streaming video allowed you to watch another person’s eyes without leaving home.
— Hold on! You’re talking about the times of cable and fiber optics. Agreed! Geeks were immersed in online games, hikikomori didn’t leave their rooms. But the era of seclusion ended when everyone had something like…— trying to find something, Neil reached into one pocket, then another, and only then realized his mistake.— Damn! We agreed not to bring it with us… Never mind. You got it.
— Yes. Palm-sized devices, smartphones, tablets, and other mobile gadgets connecting to the World Wide Web via wireless networks.
— I liked smartwatches better. Still wear them occasionally…
— Same thing… But did you understand the mistake? They didn’t free those who sat in rooms. They enslaved those who were outside. Since then, everyone has had their own “room” in their pocket,— Chris took a sip of beer and looked meaningfully at his guests.— Don’t you get it? What’s the point of eating and sleeping in the real world? Or taking a walk? Or even exercising? All the rest of human life is there. Work, entertainment, hobbies, communication… Everything and everyone is there.
— That is, here,— Mikhail suddenly said.— So this is how the turning point happened. When all social life finally moved into the Network? Remote work due to the pandemic?
— Among other things,— Chris nodded.— And various armed conflicts. The outside world as a whole became too dangerous. And here…
— Serenity,— Neil leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.
— And a sudden power outage doesn’t bother you?— asked the host, but his friend didn’t react to the provocation.
— Not at all,— Mikhail answered for his friend.— I know how the system is set up. Power is triple-redundant. In the worst-case scenario, the operating system will restore a backup within the blink of an eye, he’ll open his eyes again and won’t even notice anything. The servers are buried twenty meters underground, covered by a two-meter layer of concrete.
— Did you hear that, old man?— the guy said without opening his eyes.— Everything will be fine. Finally, everyone can relax. Including you.
— I relaxed so long ago… That you two together haven’t lived that long. I just sometimes wonder about the meaninglessness.
— Is digitizing consciousness and using a ready-made neural network from your head a meaningless idea?!— Neil exclaimed indignantly, jumping up in his chair. Apparently, the teacher’s words struck a nerve.
— It’s a great idea, like making you work even after death,— Chris smirked.— Hidden exploitation.
— It’s not a big price for eternal life. They didn’t turn you into a battery, after all. For example, I catalog images, assigning them hashtags. Every day I transform my life experience into expertise in image recognition systems. And Mischa…
— Misha,— Mikhail corrected.
— Alright, Michael…
— Yes, Mike! Yes, I know your language poorly…
— Fine. Let’s go with “Michael.”
— I just wanted to say that Michael, for example, is really good at diagnosing and working with system services. And you, man, probably deal with some kind of wiki reference materials.
— Mostly general education ones,— Chris nodded.
— Well, there you go! We’re all busy here. We’re needed.
— I work with a thirst for knowledge. With an interest in science. Shouldn’t I be interested myself in what’s out there—outside?
— There’s nothing interesting out there,— Neil said confidently, but seeing the firm looks of his friends, he immediately gave up.— Alright! But you yourself didn’t want to ruin the atmosphere. Since we’re on the subject, we’d better watch a good movie instead…
Chris took a sip, put his beer glass down on the table, and made a smooth hand gesture. A translucent rectangular interface appeared in the air in front of him. A few more movements through the nested menus, and the rectangle, increasing in size, turned into a wide screen, blocking the green hills, pine trees, narrow path, and distant sea with a beach of black volcanic sand. The screen displayed a completely different landscape. The camera looking at it was apparently mounted on one of the telecommunications towers. Similar towers, arranged at the nodes of a hexagonal grid, stretched away into the distance in even rows. Beneath them, the entire space, like a lined notebook divided into squares, was filled with identical cubes of gray concrete with barely noticeable ventilation grilles, but without any windows. In the dark passages between these boxes, smaller cells could be seen—narrow paths paved with square tiles and clearly not intended for people.
— This is the triumph of minimalism and rationalism,— Neil sincerely admired.— Wonderful!
— You think so?— asked Chris, then continued.— Do you think why I didn’t want to look at this alone? I could have… At any moment. But I was afraid to see exactly this.
— Come on, man! I’m seeing this for the first time too. But I can see that it’s good. Each building contains hundreds of servers, thousands of minds, tens of thousands of worlds. Never before has the world been so unified and diverse at the same time. So vast and yet so close. When you can be anywhere. Communicate with people from all over the planet. Could the three of us ever meet here and now in any other way? Only global digital communication made this possible!— pondering something, the guy looked at Mikhail.— Are there cameras inside as well?
— Yes, host visual monitoring service,— he nodded.— There’s a separate entrance for each of your accounts.
— Will you show me?
Mikhail sighed. Today, he least of all wanted to delve into the administrative console.
— Want to see where your “brains” are stored? Please… Here. Here. And here.
The screen split into four parts. The landscape shrank into the upper right corner. The remaining three parts were occupied by images from numbered surveillance cameras, on which server racks blinked faintly under dim light.
The friends began to stare intently, shifting their gaze from one image to another, but they couldn’t make out any difference.
— It seems to me…— Krys mumbled uncertainly,— that this is actually the same cabinet.
— Indeed. Looks like it’s…— Neil admitted sheepishly.
The synchronous blinking of the LEDs finally dispelled all doubts. Mikhail was the first to break the general silence:
— Well, then, what’s the point of all this?