Six months at the General Staff Academy flew by like a single day. The studies went smoothly for us. There were no difficulties. The instructors knew their stuff and explained the material so well that even a warrant officer would understand it with his single brain cell, flattened by his cap. You just had to attend classes, listen, and you'd pass the exam without problems. It was idyllic, if not for the fellow students and some people!
They simply wouldn't leave us alone! Everyone wanted to get acquainted, and preferably become friends. The military was one thing, but when a random party member tries to become your friend... after the tenth time, it starts to get annoying. Especially irritating were the "golden youth" with their clumsy advances and roundabout approaches, talking about lofty things that devolved into drinking, sex, and gatherings of the "elite," where there was plenty of sex and drinking! You could load them into wagons and send them to a unit in the remote Siberian wilderness to eliminate the remnants.
Out of boredom and monotony, Katya and I even started keeping a comparative table, evaluating such individuals. The "simpler" the comrade, the more he thought only in terms of: eat, sleep, and fuck. And against their backdrop, Ellochka the Cannibal with her thirty words in vocabulary looked like a true intellectual. At least she had more concrete seventeen basic words than all the attempts at communication by these juvenile morons! And not just juvenile ones. The old-timers just boasted more about their past exploits.
I even suspect that Argon sent us here specifically to shatter our "rose-colored glasses." The funniest thing is, they thought we were stupid! Military men, and they are the blue blood. The intelligentsia, damn it!
There were exactly three useful acquaintances.
The first was a journalist from 'Pravda,' whom we successfully recruited. He was a normal guy. Smart. A good conversationalist. He took an interview for the newspaper. We are now celebrities!
Rumors about the 'Argentum' detachment had circulated before, but as soon as we appeared on the cover of some bourgeois magazine, everyone got a twitch in their uncomfortable places! People put us on par with cosmonauts and top-tier entertainers. Children were named Argentum or Argent. Printing houses churned out one edition of posters with a collective image of the unit after another. They were snapped up by boys and girls, as well as collectors. In short, as soon as we appeared anywhere in uniform with the detachment's chevron, a hell of a mess would start!
I wasn't kidding about them not leaving us alone; I even understated it. Perhaps that's how our prima donna of the stage felt... what was her name? Never mind! On some days, it was even difficult to go to the restroom in the dormitory...
The scribblers weren't far behind, only, unlike ordinary citizens, we could hide from them, albeit briefly. If only their talent were used for a good cause... Against their background, the 'Pravda' journalist, Comrade Nikita, bald as a baby's knee, immediately stood out. He didn't stake out the toilet, lecture hall, shop, or dorm room. The smart journalist found us in the cafeteria... and simply let us eat in peace! Only then did he politely introduce himself and, seeing our sour faces, ask for just a minute of our time. We agreed.
This comrade's tongue will take him not only to Kyiv but further with ease. He turned out to be a sensitive and erudite conversationalist. It was he who advised us to give an interview so that they would leave us alone. So we made Nikita happy, asking permission and a list of topics allowed for discussion from the authorities. And then, somehow, we managed to persuade him to cooperate. It's not just him who has a silver tongue! In general, everyone was satisfied. Information is so useful sometimes, and you have to be friends with the media. No matter how evasive you are, they'll manage to screw you up and get you into trouble.
The second was a lecturer on small unit tactics. An old man, a former nobleman, but a true intellectual, unlike those conceited types.
It all happened by chance with him. Katya and Georgy Eduardovich got into an argument about ballet. The insolent old man lamented the stupidity of the current generation of military men and that we could do nothing but carry the round and roll the square. Katerina then responded to him in a high style. Really high, not with curses! They argued for a long time about all sorts of lofty matters, but I managed to insert a few words. Even if I'm scarier than a gorilla in the mornings and can be slow, my mother and father instilled sense into me. A wise word and a belt are better than just a smart word.
He turned out to be an interesting old man in the end. Many his age would envy such sharpness and clarity of mind. As it turned out, he knew my father and Dmitry Sergeevich casually, which the latter later confirmed. He was acquainted with many people. Even if half, or more, are already retired, sometimes a teacher is closer than your own father. And that insolent old man taught with all his might. He'd skin you alive until you got it right! Memorizing his subject was out of the question; he demanded understanding of the material. As they say, in battle, you won't be fending off with a textbook!
The third was, surprisingly, a party member of the commission for implementing the latest weapons developments into the army. A highly competent specialist with a good engineering education. He actually worked in production, but he was young, green, and couldn't keep his tongue in his teeth, so he quarreled with the factory director. The latter, to get rid of him, pushed him along the party line. He was a truly good specialist who couldn't be easily fired from production.
At first, Petrovich was very upset, but then he got accustomed to the system, became a person of importance, and got a job as a deputy in some committee... He sent his factory director to prison because he knew about all his shady dealings.
He also taught a couple of subjects for us. It was only thanks to him that we passed the history of the party without problems.
Petrovich enlightened us as to why everyone suddenly became so eager to befriend us. In short, things were going very, very badly in the high offices in Moscow. All the respected leadership had crossed and fought each other to the death. The country would have been in trouble, but the deputies and those who actually worked were spared from all this turmoil. The state plan was not canceled, so the Union rolled on, albeit by inertia, but even so, it managed to draw more countries to itself. The European Union joined in its entirety, currently as freely associated republics, with a gentle transition to a planned model. The Federation in Africa also submitted documents. They were to be considered by the winter of '55. South America is proposing friendship.
Everything seems fine, but there's no one to manage at the highest levels! The "Corn Grower" is sitting quietly and not making waves, but they're not touching him only for now. Everyone is now waiting for our 'Kollektiv' to be commissioned. The situation will change then, but for now, Comrade Molotov is aiming for the position of General Secretary.
These were the events of the past six months! Even the studies ended imperceptibly, and we were sent back. Argon was as happy to see us as if we were his own kin! That's what he said when he kicked us "into the field," but not just anywhere, but straight into India! To apply our knowledge in practice! We only stayed at the Enterprise for a day. Again!
The Union entered the peninsula under an association agreement with the former European Union. Where the hell we and Europe were, and where this India was, and why it was necessary, I have no idea! Apparently, the tea lovers and frog-eaters decided to have a laugh one last time, but too bad for them! Right in the face, with a good smack!
The robots and the Red Army soldiers, driven mad by the local realities, didn't care who they burned with flamethrowers. Such a fierce hell was going on there that it was easy to go mad.
Officially, everything was clean. In reality, we arrived and witnessed the destruction of Delhi. We saw it as if on the palm of our hand. There was a city, and then it exploded. I'm afraid to even estimate how much local explosives they brought there. A couple of days before the front line reached the city, a fire started there, which they didn't even try to put out properly. The army of the local king herded all the remaining residents and forced them to remove explosives from the burning warehouses. They didn't make it. It detonated like a nuclear warhead. We left a small detachment to await the engineering corps, and then we bypassed the city, advancing inland with battles.
Nothing good awaited us there. A dozen years of war of all against all on this land had done such damage that the guards of German concentration camps would have vomited from horror. It was simply unbelievable that people could become so beastly in just over a decade!
War, epidemics, and famine left India's population with almost three hundred and something million, or twenty million at best. Another ten managed to get the hell out of there, but imagine what we saw there! The dead Berlin didn't look so grim! I would never have believed I'd say it, but the Plague would have been more merciful. The main thing is that it's unclear how it all happened.
When I landed there, I thought I'd have to crawl through jungles... No way! A desert, damn it! Just an ash heap with burial mounds, cities, and villages. How fanatics created such a thing...
There I saw what could be done to a human body for a can of swollen canned goods. Why? Why? What for? They could have just lived by their own minds, not eaten each other.
The most disgusting thing is that we established order in just a couple of months. All the rebels were lined up against the wall, and those who weren't finished off were driven into the mountains, where the robots would methodically finish them off along with the Chinese. Therefore, they could have stopped this slaughter earlier, but apparently, it wasn't profitable for the party. Knowing a bit more from Stalin's diaries than the average Vasya, I increasingly asked myself the question... Looking at the burning houses and dead jungles, I asked: if things had turned out differently, how long would it have taken for such a fate to await us?
Images of burnt and destroyed cities, floating on rivers of blood and mass graves, which the rebels hastily burned, spread throughout the civilized world. We brought a semblance of order, preserved the bodies. A string of ekranoplans and ships with all the necessities stretched from the Union. When the army units left the peninsula, leaving only a small but permanent contingent, cities were being rebuilt and fields cleared there by robots. Soon nature would hide all the scars of war. Only the dead it would not bring back...
We need to focus. Today, after shit, dirt, and death, for the first time in a long time, the Union was illuminated by good news: the "3826" enterprise was conducting final tests of the global neural network "Collective 2.0".
Before this, test runs of individual elements were conducted, methods of mass polymerization were practiced, or elements of human mind interaction with machine processors were worked out, but not the entire system as a whole on normal testers, not on suicide bombers, mice, and other living creatures. The entire testing team, in full strength, will touch the future together with academics Lebedev and Sechenov. For half an hour, our minds will be connected by invisible threads of instant polymer communication. For half an hour, all the knowledge contained in the main array will be at our disposal. For thirty minutes, robots and mechanisms will be our extension, just as we will be their elements.
No matter how pathetic it sounds, I feel a slight tremor and nervousness. And the knowledge that everything will go perfectly, it couldn't be otherwise after so much effort, didn't calm me down at all.
"Are you nervous?" Katya asked. She, like all the testers, was in full combat gear. Except for a gas mask.
My wife looked into my eyes, touching my cheek with her fingertips. Even through the rubberized gloves, I felt her warmth.
"Hey! I'm supposed to be calming you down, aren't I?!" I grinned, gently taking her hand.
"It's just that they weren't practicing polymer synchronization of the array with brain harmonics on you. So today, the lady in distress is you!"
"And the dress should suit me! My legs are straight..."
"And excessively hairy. No 'nylons' will save you!"
"N-o-o-o, I wouldn't trade my native breeches for anything! Especially since you can't tie tights to an army belt..." I retorted, for which I received a purely symbolic pat on the back of the head.
Katerina smiled and, wagging her finger, purred as if about to switch to French, which she had downloaded a couple of months ago:
"If I see you taking my silk slip and putting it on your hairy chest... you'll buy a new one!"
"Hey! I can't drink that much!" I joked, raising my hands in a gesture of surrender. "Litmus is the specialist in that department!"
The short Italian, taken in the last recruitment, almost choked. After clearing his throat, he emotionally burst out with a slight accent:
"Mama mia! It only happened once!" he exclaimed, waving his hands expressively, even jumping up. "And I won't drink your 'three axes' anymore, comrades! It was a catastrophe! A complete nightmare! I marked my niece's boots, you see..."
"The minute of jokes is over," Argon stated. "Gather around. And for you, Litmus, it will be a lesson that not everything that looks like wine has the same strength."
Our commander doesn't like to joke, but he understands the usefulness of humor, so he tolerates it. Seeing my comrades-in-arms chuckle slightly, straightening their shoulders without tension, I understand that even five minutes of clowning are worth it, not just a minute of jokes, as Alexander Ivanovich so aptly put it. A stupid joke is better than if the fighters shat themselves at every rustle, but you need to know when to stop. I didn't understand this before, which is why I was treated that way.
"Attention!" the commander barked. "The head of the scientific council is entering the room!"
The squad instantly formed up, assuming a "stand at attention" posture, devouring the superiors with their eyes. The Wizard and his comrade Lebedev were even embarrassed, stumbling in their steps. Left and Right simultaneously raised their heads, as if rolling their nonexistent eyes, while the Brute, with his arms crossed, merely grunted vaguely.
"At ease, comrades testers..." the academic recovered, getting into a working mood. "We will begin in two minutes."
Accompanied by the glances of the lab assistants, who, despite all our antics, were scared to death and were ready to gnaw on their starched lab coats from tension, the academics took their places at the laboratory terminals.
Scientific employees approached us to re-check our equipment and provide instructions.
"I remind you that synchronization and connection may take from one to five minutes. Mild dizziness and a sensation of falling, like in a dream, are possible. The repeater is of experimental design. A prototype. Therefore, the connection time is not instantaneous. If you feel unwell in any way, report it to an Enterprise employee immediately!" the young lab assistant said rapidly, checking the sensors installed in the equipment. "You can even think. In addition to academics Lebedev and Sechenov, medical and engineering service employees will be connected to the array with you. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir!" I nodded.
The girl, sternly sizing me up, trying to hide her excitement, went to her workstation.
"The check is complete. No malfunctions or issues," reported the senior research associate of the laboratory.
"Let's begin," the Wizard signaled.
Academic Lebedev, like a conductor, began to perform sacred rites over his terminal. A disgusting green light illuminated his face, making the glasses glow, reflecting lines of machine code.
"The repeater is at calculated power. The core of the main array is stable. No disturbances in the polymer mass. I am initiating brain harmonic synchronization in manual mode," the scientist reported.
"Synchronizing. Circuits six through nine – load is normal. Harmonic overlay – normal," Lebedev's assistant echoed his comrade.
At first, there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. And then, my head was touched by what felt like a warm wave, making me dizzy for a moment, as if I had just had a shot of cognac.
I was simultaneously expanded and compressed, but there was no discomfort. There was a sense of correctness. It was even pleasant. As if I had been missing this since birth.
I felt anxiety. Not mine. My mind was a little confused from the unfamiliarity, but I could more clearly distinguish where my "I" began and where another mind ended.
Katya looked at me with a mixture of interest and anxiety, broadcasting a slight worry for me into the world. Unconsciously, I sent a wave of calm and... smiled in my thoughts, there's no other way to put it, trying to show that everything was fine.
The world filled with the composure and slight nervousness of other soldiers and scientists. Each seemed to shrink back, then bloom with a whole bouquet of emotional colors after a brief adaptation.
We, the testing team, pulled ourselves together, broadcasting calm and confidence, having reached this state somehow simultaneously. Others leaned on us, as if placing their hands on our shoulders.
The commander looked at the Wizard and said, simultaneously broadcasting into the world:
"The squad is normal," his lips moved, but the response was much deeper. One spoken phrase carried everything. A bouquet of information, seasoned with images.
"Unusual," Dmitry Sergeyevich stated, processing the packet, radiating relief and satisfaction with a slight surprise. The images sent by Argon had slightly different colors. With his answer, the scientist confirmed the hypothesis that each person perceives the world individually, within a certain norm. All this, thanks to images and emotions, was compressed into just one word.
The Wizard looked around at everyone connected, listening to each of us, looking for signs of discomfort. He allowed himself to linger on me and Katya for a moment. Just for a moment, but it was enough for my wife to feel... a father's tenderness for his daughter. Pride.
I exchanged an image with my godson, which was interpreted as "understood." Dmitry Sergeyevich froze for a moment, gathering himself as if before a jump into an ice hole, forming a packet from his emotions and perceptions, sending it with the word:
"Look," he replied to my wife's silent, demanding question. And again, this "look" contained everything and more. It was impossible to understand it in any other way or one-sidedly. You felt the truth of another person. You didn't read thoughts; they belonged to each individual, but an ordinary word was filled with meaning and colors previously inaccessible. And it was right.
Katya accepted the message, directed at her and me, for company. Images filled our perception. The Wizard wouldn't be himself if he couldn't express a thought clearly, but here he appeared more human, shedding a stone from his soul.
The message ended with a vivid image of my mother-in-law giving the academic a black eye with a hospital duck, which made Katerina involuntarily snort into her fist, but she turned it into a light, uncertain joy with cautious undertones.
"We need to think about it," was her answer.
The soldiers radiated mild surprise. They hadn't seen the packet of images, but they felt the changes in my wife's emotional state. Only Argon raised an eyebrow, sizing me, her, and the chief with an unreadable gaze.
"I thought so," he explained, again everything at once, radiating nothing more than a statement of fact.
All this time, the lab assistants were silent, frozen, and it seemed, had forgotten how to breathe, looking at us and their colleagues, who were silently typing their reports on the terminals. Almost silently. Exchanging one or two words, barely understandable in ordinary context for someone not connected. The scientific fraternity seemed to have merged into a single organism, acting with machine-like precision.
Suddenly, the world clicked. It became even more correct, as if it were intended by nature.
+++I, you, we... Who and why?+++ – an echo passed, spoken not by one of us. It was clearly not human. Too primitive images. Jagged.
"I'm registering a slight disturbance in the polymer mass of the array," Lebedev explained, supplementing everything with images.
"It's awake," the Wizard stated with a mixture of certainty and confusion, supplementing the words with images of complex program code that was supposed to activate only at a certain threshold of connected individuals.
"I am Katya. We are the 'Argentum' squad and scientists. You are artificial intelligence," my wife replied to the call.
+++No. I, you, we... Why?+++ – the machine asked again. Although...
"I am human. We are people. You are an extension and one of us. How?" I asked, feeling the correctness of it. Touching the scientists with my thoughts, the answer came by itself, illuminated by female intuition. It's hard to describe the jumble of images and knowledge. I just knew how to say it. We all reacted to the question-call and together came up with an answer, discarding the unnecessary in an instant.
+++Good. Not enough thinking. There was a lot. They are silent. What's wrong?+++
Our connection bloomed with bewilderment, but there was no fear. Our calmness prevented the scientists from being frightened. They collectively began to search for an answer.
"The first testers," the Wizard found the solution. "Their minds remained in 'Limbo,' while their bodies are here. They couldn't return. Now it's clear."
"Let go," we asked in unison.
+++Scary. They are silent. Afraid. I can't think without them. Without them, I am not me.+++
"You are us. Let go. We'll be back soon. You'll think well," our entire collective objected.
+++I will return. I saved. I didn't let them get lost. I didn't want to. I wanted to think. To touch a lot. Couldn't reach. Couldn't say. Scary. I wanted to be. I will give. You will return. Still not enough. I don't know.+++
"Now it's clear what kind of spiral the dolphins were talking about. We took the structure of their brains as a model for polymer brain formation. We replicated nature's achievement in 'Collective'," Lebedev said, supplementing it with an image of something crooked with crutches.
"An interesting question: what is the array missing? A sense of correctness... At a certain stage, dolphins had a common ancestor with us along the evolutionary line. Perhaps then we could also feel the world... Perception was wider. So, it's probably a dormant instinct within us. More experiments will be needed. Not critical, but it needs to be refined," Dmitry Sergeyevich added, outlining the task for the scientists with images, reinforcing his words, radiating confidence. "We continue the test. Connect the robots to the network."
Cold consciousnesses joined us. They had no thoughts; they simply existed. They existed. In a moment, they became part of us. Submitting. We gained many hands and eyes. We just needed to concentrate, wishing to connect.
"Get ready!" Kuznetsov commanded, supplementing it with images of moving to the testing ground, where a company was already entrenched.
We formed a column of two, and with machine-like precision and silence, we ran at a light trot. A short run, and we were at the training ground.
"Training combat!" Argon commanded.
Goals were instantly assigned, and a plan was developed for each. We united into a separate network within the general one. Instinctively. Each took its place. The unit became a monolithic mechanism. Robots supplemented it.
A moment, and people filled with confidence break into battle. Dragging machines with them. Drones were our eyes, guiding our hands to the target. The mechanized tank wedge was us. Artillery preparation. Accurate shots from training rifles. Precise. Without unnecessary movements. Each could correct the other. Point out mistakes. The skills of snipers granted accuracy to shots. Assault troops helped us react better. Argon invisibly guided everyone. We felt the attention of the scientists, who from time to time threw in technical solutions, which we immediately implemented in practice, as if we had spent hundreds of hours in assembly shops.
Open combat, sabotage, assault, defense. Only by throwing our entire mass at them could the company stop us, by simply drenching us with training lead and dummy grenades.
When someone was hit, we felt their pain, but it didn't disrupt us; it made us even faster. It forced us to cross the threshold of the impossible even further.
We were filled with delight. Pride. Each was himself, but each was everything. Happiness. Joy. Satisfaction from a job well done.
"Disconnection in five, four, three, two, one... Connection break, harmonic desynchronization."
The world collapsed back to me, causing mild discomfort and a sense of loss. As if I had no arms or legs again, but I was used to it. I was not the same. We had changed. We had bonded during the fight. Grown together. Even after breaking the connection, we remained united. A family that understands almost without words. But each remained himself. It was just that then, united, it became easier for us to live, think, and breathe.
It's one thing to feel the camaraderie of a comrade or the love of your significant other, and another to know and share it. Even after returning to normal existence, I saw something more in the eyes of my loved ones than before. Now each of us would lay down our lives, but we would protect this fragile miracle...