icon, and golden dust flew towards the cyber fortune teller.
– Health and good luck to you!
Alexey directed a beam of quarks to a target made of a hydrogen nucleus and transferred the image from the eyepiece of the ioctoscope («ioctos» = 10 ^ (-24)) to the information wall.
– Tenfold zoom.
Subtle shadows on the screen
– Second tetration of ten.
The image grew as usual, allowing one to see a raging sea of individual atoms.
– Two point one tenth.
The atom grew significantly in size, and now it was possible to look deep into the nucleus and discern a proton.
– Two point five.
Another leap into the miniature universe, and an image of the Milky Way (or another galaxy so similar to ours) appeared before my eyes.
– This can’t be! Where did I go wrong?! Make it bigger! Two point seven tetration!
– Sorry, honest fellow, but I can’t see such small details. Two and a half tetrations of ten is my maximum vision. I can’t set the bar lower than Planck.
Alexey slammed his fist on the table.
– We must repeat the experiment.
He repeated this increase dozens of times with different atoms, at different times of day. It would have been nice to try it on another octoscope, but this was the most powerful magnifying device in the world. He called Nastya from the Second Laboratory, and an image of the galaxy also appeared in front of her.
– Make it bigger!
– You think. I didn’t try? It makes no sense, our instruments do not allow us to see more.
– How romantic it is. Imagine that the collapsed dimensions form an entire universe inside a small atom. If the vibrating superstring is a microgalaxy, then it consists of nanostars, and around them, in turn, miniature planets revolve. Maybe at least one of them has life.
– I’m interested in another question: while there was no observer, this six-dimensional microuniverse existed in a superposition of many probabilities. And then we looked at it, and there was only one option left. And if…
«And if so, then it is possible that our galaxy is just a building brick in the macrocosm,» Lilya continued Alexei’s thought. – We have many options for fate, and if the huge titan, or whoever lives there in those incomprehensible dimensions, had not looked at us at the right moment, then we might not have met you, or we might have been in love and not at the same time. It’s a pity, most titans don’t care about our three dimensions rolled up into a small ball the size of their macroat.
Alexey laughed.
– To listen to us, you might think that the whole world is an endless nesting doll, where worlds are nested one into another. And only time unites them all, like a hoop holds the shape of a barrel.
– By the way, about time. The working day is over. What to cook for dinner?
– Will you cook yourself? Why don’t you set up a robot chef?
– You made such a discovery. It seems to me that we can eat something other than synthetic food for this reason.
– Okay, you go, I’ll catch up.
Alexey launched a virtual fortune teller.
– What is the probability of life existing inside the nucleus of an atom?
– If there is a universe inside the atomic nucleus, then the Planck time will pass from its origin to its death. But I, honest fellow, cannot look below Planck.
Cassandra’s Hell
No sounds, no smells, just blinding light and an endless twisting staircase. She had already taken a thousand steps, but thousands of steps flowed from above. An hour has passed? Day? Century? It seemed like there was no time here. For the first time in her life, the future was hidden from her by an unknown curtain.
The long-awaited peak! She wanted to catch her breath, but a fair-haired man of about thirty with white wings and a halo above his head looked at her unfriendly.
– Don’t hold up the line. Your name.
– Cassandra.
– Well, well… Now let’s see.
The entire visible space is covered with an endless stream of letters and numbers, in different languages, large and small. Sometimes the symbols were interspersed with images. Not even a minute had passed before the chaotic movement ended. In front of the girl shone her own portrait and a short dossier written in Trojan.
– So-so. So she’s a soothsayer. Law 2, Article 18, Part 10. Does the Fifth Cauldron suit you?
– What?
– At the moment, Boilers Five, Three and Fourteen are vacant. Most of your compatriots chose the Fifth, so I recommend it to you.
– Yes, that will suit me perfectly.
Cassandra glanced fearfully at the stairs.
– Do not worry. It’s always easier to go down than to go up. It doesn’t take much effort to get to the bottom.
The elevator doors opened, and a few moments later the girl fearfully crossed the gates of her new home for the next eternity.
The shelves rushed into the sky (at a minimum, the heavens should have framed the blackness above). At the mahogany table sat a devil: typical. With horns, a pig’s snout, but in a tailcoat and tie. He looked at the girl over her horn-rimmed glasses.
– Your personal business.
Cassandra handed over a plastic card.
– So, Cassandra of Troy. Welcome to Cauldron Five.
The girl looked around uncertainly.
– Yes, that’s exactly him. Don’t worry, after the Age of Enlightenment and the Great Tartar Revolution, we no longer burn sulfur. Of course, the historical names have been preserved. But we now use more sophisticated torture on our prisoners. We give them another life. Would you like to become a scientist, doctor or teacher? Although, the profession of a scientist is most suitable for soothsayers.
– Thank you!
– Don’t rush to thank. There’s a lot you don’t know. Few people are able to look beyond the horizon. Among them are some who are brave enough to change the future. They are the ones who move our civilization forward in time. But the majority moves in the opposite direction, a kind of «flow of anti-time.» The higher the achievements of progress, the more opponents of moving forward, the more ordinary people degrade. But why, in fact, develop if you just stretch out your hand and all the benefits will fall into your palm? So, you will now become one of the Atlanteans, whose muscles hold the sky at a constant height, and whose will tries to move it as far as possible from people.
With a snap of her fingers, Cassandra disappeared into thin air. At that very moment, a girl was born in one of the maternity hospitals.
***
– Sash, bring dinner! I’m home from work, hungry and angry.
Light fumes: apparently, I didn’t go home straight away from work.
In the evening, Ilya habitually began clicking the buttons on the TV remote control.
– Maybe give up this science of yours? What does she give us? Maybe your theory of relativity will help you raise a mortgage? Or will superstring theory allow you to save up for a new phone? It would be nice if they did something useful. So who will refute their heresy about a twin sent into space at the speed of light? No one. First, we would learn to build high-quality rockets. Better yet, they would learn