Smiling, he hurried up and almost ran. The rector built his apartments on the sixth floor, well, at least, that was not on the thirteenth. He opened the door and entered the waiting room, greeted a very young secretary, and then went into the office with the golden plate “Kolker Iosif Grigorevich’.
“Called for me, Iosif Grigorevich?”
“Ah, Sasha! Hello, hello! Well, I did not call, but invited, please, come in and take a sit,” the rector was fat, gray; his little fat fingers were clenched on his belly almost all the time.
Aleksandr went and sat on the nearest chair. The rector pursed his lips. “This young upstart thinks he is a rising star. Everyone must jump in front of him. Well, I bet you will change your tune when the money runs out, and our Indian bankers stop the green flow of money!”
He got up, walked along the long table and sat down next to the Head of the laboratory.
“Sasha, you do not think I am pushing your guys or you. But you understand that there are no results. What you write in the reports is not enough. You have a week – if there is no progress, I will have to shut down the laboratory and give the entire group an unpaid leave. I hope you understand that it’s not my choice to do so. They are pushing me too.”
“And remaining money will disappear in your pocket in three weeks! Huge hog beast! I wish you burst! Stupid, bald ugly mug!” Aleksandr sighed and remembered about the dinner.
“I understand everything. I think this decision is fair. One of these days I will invite you together with the university council for showing the results.”
Aleksandr understood that if the council decides to continue research, one rector will not be able to do anything. Iosif Grigorevich also knew that but hoped that he would be the main winner in this fight. Especially since he had the ace up in his sleeve.
“So good. Then you may go, I still have a lot of work.”
When Aleksandr closed the door, the rector dialled the number and, without greeting, reported:
“There is a strict time-frame. I have to admit that productivity has been increasing over the past three months. The result will be in a week.”
He put the mobile phone in his pocket and wiped the sweat from his forehead with a white handkerchief.
“Svetochka, bring me lunch from the restaurant, you know what I need.”
“Yes, Iosif Grigorevich, of course, I already called and placed the order in advance.
Thousands of scientists around the world have conducted hundreds of experiments trying to create an artificial intelligence and sympathetic internet web 3, that is, the newest series of data transmission and reception.
For more than fifty years, this life-and-death race has been going on among the countries of the world. And even there are the results of this war appeared, for instance, developed robotic programs in agricultural machinery, nurses and blood nanocleaners and dialysis preparations in medicine. In the household sphere, there are quad-copters, messengers, carrying up to fifty kilos of cargo to the destination place, batteries that allow accumulation of up to one million MACH-energy, synthetic fuel or lenses on space vehicles with five thousand in a cube zoom and so on.
Perfect artificial intelligence was the goal of many thousands of scientists and programmers. And today this goal has revealed itself to the world.
“Aleksandr Nikolaevich, I cannot explain this, all the data were documented, I started checking since this morning, nothing changed in the course of our tests, I have no explanation for this.” Lena tried to be calm, but her mouth was traitorously dry and her voice became hoarse.
“Who else is aware?”
“Only you!”
The scientists put on their overalls, as required by the safety instructions, but they did not feel this way. Before them, on the table in flasks with inactive “dry’ nanorobots, was a spectacle, which was beyond any description. It was a capture. Nanorobots from one flask took the shape of a gray cube. The cube, which was on the corner and at the same time was rotating very slowly and pulsing. The finest tendrils stretched into the neighboring flasks were attracting other robots. All this action was so unexpected and fascinating that for a while Aleksandr lost any possible plan of action.
“How long has this been going on?”
“I think since yesterday. This is an approximate time, but judging by the speed of rotation and…”
“I got it.”
They left the “kitchen’ and sat down at the computers trying to collect their thoughts.
“What could become such a huge catalyst? And what triggered the effect of ‘compliance with the shape of the cube’? We must once again analyze all the data, what and how we did for the last time.”
He was knocked off feet. He jumped up and began to walk in a circle.
Lena understood that this was a rare phenomenon called “the visit of the muse’ and it was better not to disturb him: He was in another dimension and his amazing brain found the solution of the problem.
Then she witnessed how Aleksandr Nikolaevich grabbed the doors of the tool cabinet, snatched out a scalpel, like an inequable one (most likely, he was), and opened a vein on his wrist.
“Aw, hell, Lena, give me a cup.”
She took a metal cup from the next table and held it to the wild scientist.
When there was enough of blood drip, Aleksandr felt a slight dizziness, he asked the assistant to tourniquet and wrap it up.
Then without a protection suit, he went into the “kitchen’, put the cup next to the cube and went out.
Three minutes later the cube stopped, and from behind the door, there was a sound of the beating dishes. Scientists could see the whole action only by the soundless video camera in the laboratory.
Their technician Zhenya has long been connected to it by passing the antediluvian defences of the Security Institute.
On the screen they watched the cube pulling all the tendrils into it and becoming larger, then stretching out, changing its shape to a long tourniquet, slowly bending towards the bowl and completely immersing into it. Then the contents of the cup were scattering by hundreds of the thinnest tendrils over all the flasks breaking them. The flask with distilled water also fell. At this point, the cube “dissolved’ in the water and on the table was only a puddle left.
“What the bloody hell is going on here?”
“I do not know.”
“Now we will go, you hold on to me, ok?”
“I’ve got it.”
They went into the closed part of the laboratory, which because of its small size it was called “kitchen’. The mess, of course, amazed with its ruthlessness. On the table, all vessels were broken.
The transparent substance spread over the table. Aleksandr came closer, looked down at the table and saw his own reflection.
This was no longer a fluid that we used to perceive as water. It was rather a liquid sublimate, if I may say so, liquid crystals.
Aleksandr has already realized that all these eight months they had been only collecting data, but now experiments would really begin.
NOVOSIBIRSK, JANUARY 2037 THE RESEARCH INSTITUTE OF ELECTRONIC INSTRUMENTS PISAREV STR, 53
The new invention received its name from the first DNA donor and its first cubic form – AOUA TER: Aleksandr Ouadrate Unique Alive TER. (This referred to the unit of price in construction. A new formula of the object was to be replenished