Vasya! There is no God on Earth. Maybe it once existed, but it left us long ago. Or it never existed.
– Tolya, where did you get the idea?
– Look around! Hundreds of infomaniacs are snooping here and there. They don’t work anywhere, and spend everything they steal on virtual entertainment. But the most worthy among us get cancer. They go to work. They spend everything they earn only on their family. Yes, maybe the church blog is not visited every Sunday, but is the essence of faith in a couple of likes? And then one day they are diagnosed with an incurable disease. And infomaniacs, just as they lived in a world of illusions, will continue to live without doing anything useful to the world. Either this god is a villain, or he doesn’t care about us, and he has derailed our lives. Or it doesn’t exist.
There is a philosopher dormant in each of us. And he wakes up when our main personality is on the verge of shutting down, for example, after a hefty dose of alcohol.
– You’re wrong. Let’s look at this from a different perspective. What happens to a small particle that no one is watching? It is located in several places at the same time with a certain degree of probability, until an outside observer appears. I would not want to live in a world without God: it would be a probabilistic hell. Objects would exist and not exist at the same time, they would be in different places. Until you deign to look at them. But our Universe is ideal, finely tuned: the atoms are just such a size that the world does not crumble into a handful of scattered ashes of small particles.
***
The midday sun seemed to burn to the bones. Although there were moments when the light suddenly disappeared, and pitch darkness set in, only a scattering of distant stars flickered in the distance. Sometimes the light of the stars obscured the entire sky, and then without glasses it was impossible to open the eyelids. Tamara gazed at the skyscraper, endlessly stretching upward. If it ended somewhere, then the human eye could not see its edges.
– Seryozha, where are you?!
– Tamara, turn around.
She turned around. The man’s hands had already partially turned into fog, but as soon as he looked at him, they immediately took on their normal form. She turned her head back, but the skyscraper was no longer there.
– You’re like a newbie! We agreed: you look at the Directory when I look at you. Then we change. Otherwise, without an observer, the building could end up anywhere on the planet. Just like you and me.
– Sorry. Near the Directory, the probabilistic blur is stronger than usual.
– And no one promised a simple operation. It’s good that the Directory stands out even compared to other skyscrapers in size. Look, she’s there. In the east. Be attentive!
Tamara waved her hand in the air, and a pass to the Directory appeared in it. For a statistician of her rank, creating a hiding place in the depths of probability was not difficult. They went inside.
Endless whiteness and sterility. Thousands of people waited in line at the turnstiles. They stood in even rows. Such an island of absolute order in a world drowning in uncontrollable chaos.
A gray-haired man approached the registration point.
– Mister Chizhikov! – asked the red-haired woman.
– Yes. He is.
– Ilya Petrovich? – the red-haired girl looked at the passport, but at the visitor’s face.
«He’s the one,» the man was noticeably nervous. – Can you do it faster?
– I act in accordance with the instructions. Birth year two thousand one hundred and fifteen.
– Absolutely, right.
– Purpose of the visit?
The man boiled:
– A girl, really! Everything is indicated on my registration card! Read more carefully! It indicates not only the purpose of the visit, but also the time during which I will be in the center building, my academic degree, the university I graduated from, my place of work and everything you need to know!
– Man, don’t be so nervous. I didn’t come up with the registration system!
– But you are doing an excellent job. I think you’ll do even better if you don’t ask tons of questions, the answers to which can be read on the registration card.
The girl, wrinkling a dissatisfied face that grew into a too obviously feigned «polite» smile, handed over the registration sheet:
– Please, Mr. Chizhikov, come in. Welcome to the Directory.
«Thank you, girl,» the man smiled no less «politely,» pulling out a small plastic card from his thin fingers.
– Look, Mr. Chizhikov, don’t stay longer than the allotted time!
– Will try!
– Next! – it’s hard to expect such a loud and powerful voice in a fragile girl.
Two people approached the registration point – a black-haired girl and a fair-haired guy. Both are wearing motorcycle suits.
– One by one! – the redhead screamed.
– We are a married couple. Make an exception for us,» the guy smiled, showing white teeth.
The girl carefully studied the registration cards that the guy handed her through the window.
– So-so. Sergeev Sergey Sergeevich and Ulmanovskaya Tamara Ivanovna. Somehow your last names are different.
– I decided to leave my father’s surname.
– Purpose of the visit?
«Girl, everything is indicated there,» Tamara said calmly. – Scientific research.
– Come on in…
«Thank you, girl,» Sergei smiled.
–…to the metal detector! – The red-haired woman grinned.
Two pumped up guys in uniform approached them and pointed towards the steel arch.
– Please place your bags on the scanning belt.
Tamara was the first to go through the scanner, followed by Sergei.
«It’s clear,» said the guard. – It’s not them.
«Welcome to the Directory,» the red-haired woman smiled, handing passports and registration cards to the owners. – Have a good day!
But they did not rise to the minus thirtieth floor, where advanced scientific developments were carried out, but headed upstairs.
They were already waiting for them behind the elevator doors.
– Eh, I’m thinking that somehow everything is going too smoothly. «We take out weapons,» Tamara said. – You cover me with a shield, and I will attack.
Metal staves appeared in the hands of the conspirators. More precisely, another extra would have seen that the weapon was with them all this time, but hidden in the probabilistic fog.
What is the probability in a normal world that you will put your smartphone on a shelf and turn away and not find it there a couple of minutes later? Sometimes this happens. Those who are especially superstitious at such moments turn the cup over and ask the brownie to return the lost item. Who knows, maybe the brownie also has the statistic gene? One day the world changed, and objects began to disappear more and more often. At first, scientists who decided to raise this issue at serious scientific conferences were ridiculed by their colleagues. But then came the Age of Chaos. A person could go out shopping and, blinking, find himself somewhere at the South Pole, or fall asleep and wake up flying towards the Earth from somewhere on top. Soon the first people with a special talent appeared: they could change the statistical probabilities of various