Читать книгу Time Jumps. The Paradigm of Immortality - Владимир Баранчиков - Страница 13

First of all, Kalinkin changed the batteries in the barrel, opening the cherished door. A time machine is a combat vehicle, a super – weapon in its purest form, knight’s armor, and a striking sword, and a faithful horse, and a war chariot, it is a rocket that easily pierces time and space through other dimensions. Peter has firmly learned: constantly keep her in a state of combat readiness, just like gunpowder that is kept dry. After lighting a cigarette, he leisurely walked around the house and suddenly felt a needle in his heart. Remembering the hot days spent here with Daria, those wonderful moments of harmony and love, Peter imagined the Countess de Burlemont, shining in the highest society, there in Paris… What does he dream about, who does he spend time with? Will there be enough strength for her – physical and spiritual – to overcome all the trials, all the temptations of youth and beauty? Will she find happiness among the tinsel and intrigues of the royal court? The soul groaned from these thoughts, and Peter clenched his teeth so hard that he felt the taste of blood in his mouth.

Here, in the present, nothing held him anymore. Ordinary and boring. Natalia generously agreed to look after the birds (“ten days before Daria’s arrival” – Peter lied before parting), there were no other moral anchors. Another thing is where to cast your gaze? The future for about ten years ahead no longer seemed so attractive after a visit to his apartment, and in the past centuries there were no significant events exciting his young imagination. He is also was so far from the naive desires of Pyotr Mikhailovich about Gioconda with Aristotle, and delving into the past is a regression by definition. The time machine provides a fabulous opportunity to possess new knowledge, hidden truths and the secret of an exemplary world order, which no one knows about today. It is possible that they will never know. You can realize any dream: to become an oracle, a famous scientist, or a fabulously rich nouveau riche, knowing in advance significant political and financial events. Therefore, only to the future. But how far, how many centuries ahead?

– Should I point my finger at the sky? – Peter asked himself, took mineral water out of the refrigerator and sat down at Daria’s computer. Delving into the Internet, he found information to analyze the situation.

The solar system is four and a half billion years old. However, nothing lasts forever, not only under the Moon, but in the universe in general. The sun gradually increases its brightness, and in a billion years our planet will become too hot for life. And around the fifth billion year of our era, the luminary will turn into a red giant. It will swell greatly, literally swallowing Mercury, Venus and the Earth. As a red giant, the Sun will last for about a billion more years. All this time, the outer layers of the star will gradually evaporate into space. Thus, it will lose about half of its current mass. By this time, the thermonuclear fuel will completely run out, and the Sun will become a white dwarf. There will no longer be any thermonuclear reactions in it, so the luminary will gradually cool down. Ten billion years after the transformation of our star into a white dwarf, it will cool down so much that it will stop emitting light, although it will emit infrared radiation for a long time. Such is the future of the Sun, a certain oracle claimed.

– What a prospect, – thought Peter, digesting what he had read. – I’ve come a long way. Let’s see what will happen in millions of years.

– Of course, humanity is unlikely to find such sad events, – another seer reassured. – After all, the typical life span of a biological species is from one to ten million years. During this time, the species either dies out or evolves so much that it has to be considered a different species.

– In other words, if I want to join some quasi-people, then a million years is just right. Something like that, – Kalinkin summed up.

No matter what hemisphere of the brain he thought, the concept of a purposeful, meaningful jump through time has not yet developed. But soon his perseverance was rewarded: not having had time to be born inside his skull, the idea did not pull the rubber and manifested itself from the outside. Kalinkin’s thoughts were interrupted by the doorbell. Peter was wary – who did it bring? He got up from the table and sauntered over to the latched door:

– Natalia, are you?

– What the fuck is Natalia, come on, open up! – A hoarse male baritone sounded from the porch. – Open it, or I’ll kick the door down!

From the unexpected, boorish shout, Peter was thrown into a sweat, he instantly appreciated the danger and feverishly searched for an answer: who could it be? When several strong kicks followed a couple of seconds later, he realized:

– Darya’s husband, he’s back from prison! So let’s get acquainted…

The prospect did not fit into Kalinkin’s plans in any way, he had a hundred reasons not to communicate with an angry cuckold, and above all – for highly ethical reasons. It was all so disgusting, as if he had been caught doing something unworthy. Fate presented him with an unpaid bill for a happy adventure with Daria, and it seems that deferral of payment was not considered in principle: the deadline crept up unnoticed. In addition, Peter organically could not stand fights, bare fists and fencing on stakes.

– Don’t knock, I’ll open it now, – he shouted peaceably, trying to gain time. The blows stopped. Grabbing a chair that turned up, Peter put it on the floor and rested its legs against the front door, and the back against the wall of the corridor. Then he rushed to the barrel, pressed the red button and feverishly began to melt the necessary icons and execute commands:

– “Russian”, “Sit in a chair”, “Put on a hat”, “Choose the time”, “The future”.

The seconds seemed like years, his heart was pounding wildly. Powerful blows from outside resumed, but the door resisted thanks to the chair.

– Open! The bitch, I’ll kill you, – peaceful initiatives were heard outside. Kalinkin had no doubt: if the door opens, then so it will be.

– “Time” – Peter quickly typed the numbers at random: 12345, without even realizing how much it was…

At that moment, the sound of broken glass rang out, and a drunk man stumbled into the room through the window with strong curses. Looking around and not seeing his opponent, he quickly rushed into the corridor like an angry rhinoceros, sweeping away everything in his path.

– “Place” – Peter’s hand trembled, intuitively typing the familiar word “Paris”, as if there was his salvation in it. Perhaps, typing a word one letter more, he would have signed his death sentence, because the executioner was already standing next to him, and his glass-cut fingers, stained with blood, were already reaching for his throat. But at that moment something incomprehensible happened for the attacker: the victim suddenly disappeared…

– What the fuck… – the astonished opponent only managed to utter when the device, together with Peter, disappeared into another dimension, heading, fortunately, not to the address indicated by the former prisoner, who had already embarked on the right path according to the FSIN opinion. Having missed the lamb to the slaughter from under his nose, the jealous man did not philosophize for a long time, but, left alone, directed his emotions to practical rails: he tried a little, dropped a couple of chairs, threw the monitor to the floor, stamped his feet and launched a can of horseradish into the mirror… Then, satisfied with the result, he calmed down and found his little consolation in a bottle of Stolichnaya, thoughtfully bought by Kalinkin. Fiercely hating this bastard, he still did not disdain alcohol, because vodka is sacred, above human antipathies and prejudices. Subsequently, he often recalled this case in the company of loyal friends, when asked or when not asked, and certainly ended the narration with words, meaningfully looking at the puzzled faces of drunks:

– That’s the stuff in the tomato…

This colorful story did not pass by Natalia, unfairly deprived of fate from a local beauty salon. To begin with, as expected, she received bribes from Darya’s husband for involuntary complicity in this murky story, but then, as usual in decent companies, the pendulum of relations swung towards relaxation, good neighborliness and mutual attraction of the sexes under the influence of a fiery drink. So these two unwittingly helped each other and received both physical and moral compensation for the suffering and humiliation suffered from the unrighteous union of the insidious Peter and Daria, which once again confirms the well-known truth: virtue is always rewarded, vice is pleasant in itself.