# Devs 8-episode Tv series, 20 minutes eac

Святослав Александрович Усков

Перевод сериала Разрабы на английский язык


Devs

(8-episode TV series, 20 minutes each)

about the everyday life of developers in a big corporation

and strange projects tangled across space and time.


Episode 1: Meeting


Winter. Early '90s, a poor apartment in a 9-story building in Vykhino. A young man (Danila), 18-20 years old, sits at a computer. On the walls are posters cut from magazines of that era; the furniture is just an old sofa and a desk. On the desk is a desktop computer, the case is open, with a 14" EGA monitor (16 colors). An Epson dot-matrix printer is sadly crunching away. A 5.25" floppy is inserted into the disk drive, getting chewed up with a snorting sound. In the MS-DOS console, a command is typed:

c:

cd vc

vc.com...

The screen goes dark, for a moment the message appears: chernobyl virus, after which the system shows no signs of life, for which it gets a hearty punch in the side.

Danila is talking on the phone.

"I warned you - there's an epidemic right now," says an unidentified voice. "Half the university is sitting without computers already, this thing wipes out BIOS. You should have put a write-protect tab on, or at least run an antivirus occasionally, but the tab is mandatory anyway..."

Danila: "Well, it's dead and dead, I'll pull out the memory and the CPU, we'll go to Mitino..."

Danila and his peer are riding in a trolleybus.

"I just installed Windows 3.0, it's amazing..." says Danila's friend.

"Yeah right, Minesweeper there is cool, but otherwise it just eats memory, Volkov Commander is better."

"Don't say that, my uncle works at a research institute, says they got something installed under Windows... I think it's called Office, you can do layout and tables with formulas, the interface is graphical, not like your crappy Lexicon with FoxPro. My uncle's already written half of his dissertation with it..."

"Uh-huh... and last time you said their computers were connected in a network... what's that? Sounds like BS to me..."

"Cutting-edge American technology, star topology, on thick 50-ohm coaxial cable, with a vampire tap, I swear... but shh... the institute is classified..."

"Young men, your tickets!" - three inspectors at once - big tough guys - approach the boys.

"Here, please" - Danila's friend shows his pass.

"And you?" - they turn to Danila who of course has no ticket.

"And us? We've got gas in our apartment!" - Danila comes up with.

"Right, you're paying the fine."

"How much is the fine?"

"50 rubles."

"Nah, I'd rather get off..."

"Get off, get off."

The fare-dodgers are kicked out onto the street.

"So, young men, 50 rubles or down to the precinct."

"We're students, poor, no stipend, nothing to eat..."

"Wait, wait, save the BS for the police station, so you don't have to tell it twice..."

"Honestly, guys, here's 5 rubles I have..."

"Now hop. And what's that sticking out?"

Cigarettes, hand them over. He takes a pack of blue LD.

"You're free! And don't let me see you on this route again..."

Danila and his friend leave.

"Where did you hide the dollars?"

"In my socks."

At the Mitino radio market.

Conversations of buyers in rows piled with goods:

"And do you have a monochrome monitor here?"

"No, this is a color EGA, 16 colors. There's also CGA 4 colors, and yesterday they delivered VGA 256 colors... interested?"

Danila takes out 4 boxes of 3.5" diskettes. "I managed to record these yesterday, games are on them..."

His friend looks at them: "Captain Comic 3, Ninja Saboteur 12, Wolfenstein 4d... Are you serious?! Where did you get this?"

"I made it up myself, just printed the labels on the printer."

"And what's actually on the diskettes?"

"Whatever was around - Tetris, Arkanoid, Pacman."

"You con man. They're going to beat us up..."

3 rubles per diskette, that's enough for a new mouse too.

The friends sold most of the diskettes and bought a new desktop computer, monitor, printer, with the dollars pulled from the socks.

At the exit of the market, hooligans accost the guys - 5 of them.

"Hey, dudes! Honestly, I swear, I'll be damned, never see freedom again - you give us, like, 20 rubles each, and we don't do anything to you, just let you go peacefully."

"And if we don't have it?"

"You getting tough?! ...we still let you go, just we mess up your gear, smash the TV, break this guy's glasses."

Danila: "Well, get it out, how much did we make from the disks..."

"Nothing... I bought a mouse..."

Next scene, they're walking down the street with beaten-up boxes, Danila's friend has his glasses broken.

"Bought a mouse... and when did you have time..." - grumbles Danila.

"And a mouse pad too..."

"Good for you... and slippers for cockroaches, and mittens for ants..."

Pulls a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his bleeding nose, a flyer is stuck to the handkerchief, the one he took at Mitino. He reads: "Developers, programmers wanted. Palladium Dome company. Phone. Address."


Year 2026.

"Dear colleague.

Palladium Dome company informs you that your position is being eliminated due to reorganization. Within two weeks, you must contact HR to sign the relevant documents..."

Office in Moscow, open space. Alexander finishes reading the HR email about his dismissal.

"Well then... if that's how it is, then so be it. Thank Zeus for delivering me from these slave galleys!

Only my work files - to hell with you... oh, deleted... what do you know...

Reorganization... bastards... forgot who's the boss here..."

Deletes everything from the computer through the terminal console.

"Two-week notice... yeah right, I won't set foot here tomorrow..."

"Here's the Orthodox 'drop database cascade'... and here's the aspen-stake 'rm -rf'. Ghouls!"

Screen goes dark.

"There, all set! Rolled back to the stone age..."

"Sanya, Sanya, Sanya, Sanyok..." - the breathless team lead runs into the office. "Help us out, buddy, save our pink butts. 36 hours we're on fire. Pyre. Deadlines. This project we can save. There are candidates in the meeting room for an interview, you interview them and regardless of the result take them on as helpers, you get a grade promotion, we grind for a day and a half then half a year vacation on the islands, old buddy..."

"What are you buzzing in my ear for right now? After today's letter from HR I don't give a damn about your sweatshop..."

"What, old buddy, did you take offense? It's just... HR got hacked today... security's already dealing with it..."

Alexander walks out of the open space, gives an obscene gesture: "I don't buy it!"


Year 3025.

Ivan, a young man of about 20, sits (hovers) over a green field with closed eyes in lotus position. On the horizon - endless flooded daisy meadows. A snow-white crane wedge flies across the sky. Grasshoppers chirp in the grass, a lazy bug crawls along a blade.

"Ten minutes to Exodus!" - announces an invisible mighty mechanical Voice.

In the sky giant silver countdown digits appear: 9:59... 9:58...

Out of nowhere two people in robes appear in frame, we see the face of only one - this is curator Gobel.

His companion points to Ivan: "Is this really your best employee?"

"Yes, architect of 5-dimensional databases, work experience 74 years. With our firm since age 6."

"Hmm, isn't he too young for our project?"

"Don't doubt him, he's already completed the assignments better than all the others."

"But these are your assignments. At Palladium Dome he'll still have to go through interviews. Let him come to the main office tomorrow morning."

"His work day is ending now, we can chat..."

"Don't bother, the briefing is tomorrow, blessings to you!" Disappears...

"Blessings to you."

"EXODUS!" - thunders the menacing metallic voice. The camera turns around and we see that thousands of people in lotus position sit and hover before Ivan. They open their eyes and one by one start vanishing, dissolving into space.

"Ivan, wait" - Gobel floats over to Ivan.

"Ah... curator Gobel, blessings to you!"

"Blessings to you, Ivan!"

"Who was that with you over there... on the hill...?"

"He's from the Dome. They need our help again, your help... will you help?"

"No way, it's the end of the workweek, all the architects are already feasting on chiburgers in Valhalla, I was going to the ocean..." Ivan lifts a surfboard from the grass... "And what, another business trip again?..."

"Come on, Vanya, look, you're our youngest, who better than you? Tell you what, I'll give you a day off later... Look - I don't know what kind of project they have in mind, but if they say you handled it, we'll promote you to chief architect... and who knows... I'm not eternal either..."

"Curator Gobel, as the Chinese and Japanese rulers of antiquity used to say: 10,000 years of life to you. I don't entertain illusions about high positions. Can I have at least one day at the ocean?!"

"No, Ivan, no... Tomorrow morning at 10 in their head office. I'll watch over your board."


Year 1990. Moscow, Kropotkinskaya metro, Ostozhenka st., a high-rise with the sign: Palladium Dome Corporation.

Danila, head craned up, climbs the steps and enters the revolving doors. Inside everything looks high-tech, very modern by 21st-century standards. Danila, having felt up the ultra-thin 85" OLED TV in the lobby, in amazement bumping into people, makes his way to the reception.

"I'm here... how do you say... " - his gaze falls on a laptop at the reception desk... "damn..."

Danila freezes.

"Are you here for the interview?"

"Yeah..."

"13th floor, room 41." Says the man, not letting Danila come to his senses, hands him a badge with a pass, without asking for any documents. "That way!"

Danila zombies his way to the turnstiles. We see the face of the man at reception - this is coordinator Gobel.

Danila approaches the turnstile, watches others go through, then goes in too. He walks to the elevator alone, doors open, he enters, doors close...

At the last second someone manages to stick their hand in and also runs into the elevator. It's Ivan.

Ivan: "Beg your pardon."

"13th floor... teleport..." and waves his hand.

Nothing happens.

Danila figures out to press 13.

"Oh wow... what vintage" - Ivan is amazed. "I read about such mechanisms in ancient treatises of Moscow architecture."

The bewildered young men ride up to the 13th floor.

In room 41 meanwhile the team lead we already know is still working on Alexander: "...everyone who was on vacation got yanked back, the fired ones were brought back, the dead ones were resurrected... the entire staff is now grinding on this project... state order, military, shh... the secrecy there is intense... but in your part there's nothing like that... you'll just take a polygraph afterwards and that's it... why are you looking at me?... I never get off the polygraph myself..."

"Masha from HR will help you, Masha bring them in, how many are there?"

"Two..."

"Yeah... slight oversight... should be more... well never mind the sooner you start the sooner you finish, if they turn out to be total dunces, don't dismiss them right away, let them run for coffee for you, we'll fire them later..."

Masha leads Ivan and Danila into the meeting room. The team lead quietly slips out of the room.

"My name is Maria, this is Alexander, technical director" (at these words Alexander puffed up with importance).

In the meeting room Ivan and Danila sit across from Maria and Alexander.

"We have an express interview, very little time, so we'll ask you both the same questions."

"How long did you work at your previous job?"

"Well, after university I worked 2 years at the department, as a programmer..."

"More than 10 years as a database architect, let's say (everyone is surprised but silent)."

"What technical university did you graduate from?"

"Bauman Moscow State Technical University!"

"International Cybernetic University... named after Bauman..."

"Well well, that's a thing too..."

"What metro station do you live near?"

"I'm outside the city actually... on the outskirts."

"Zhdanovskaya..."

"What line is that on?! Yeah Sobyanin really overbuilt things..."

"Alexander now you... technical questions."

"What programming languages do you know?"

"C..."

"C++?"

"Uh... no... just C..."

"What else?"

"What else... is one not enough?... well I know a little assembly..."

Ivan's jaw drops: "First time I see an Old-Believer developer..."

"And you?"

"Unipy,

XenoRuby,

Igogo,

Zetta (a little),

Graph-anya,

Nihao++,

Visual Eskere,

Shukrantime,

Peresvet Query Language,

ZeroCube..."

"Enough" - Alexander stops the senseless, in his opinion, listing of nonexistent languages.

An awkward pause hangs in the air...

"How does a developer differ from a programmer?"

"I suppose these are synonyms..."

"There's much to discuss here. According to the ancient treatises on development by Kaspersky-Russinovich, allow me to draw a comparative table" - Ivan strains to walk over to the board and grab a marker - "and do it in their honor as the office plankton of antiquity used to..."

"Thank you, no need... I trust you know the subject."

Maria meanwhile slips out of the meeting room with: "ok now you handle it from here, I've got a standup, I'll be back..."

Alexander, after a brief silence: "Well then, gentlemen developers, the interview was so Express that I don't even know your names." Extends his hand.

"Sanya."

"Vanya."

"Danya."

"We'll work together."

End of Episode 1.


Episode 2: 36 Hours


Maria hands Alexander three envelopes.

"For you and your padawans, an advance, management is motivating. Well, you can skip these guys, since they're useless..."

"Yeah..." - Alexander looks through the glass closed door at the two padawans standing in the meeting room.

In the meeting room Danila, sinking heavily onto a chair: "Listen, buddy, I'm seeing all kinds of stuff here, you know, I think I saw a laptop running Windows 11 and what a model, it's thin as a blade."

Ivan, after waving his hands unsuccessfully, finally opens the blinds.

"What??? Summer... But it was winter... no way..." - Danila covers his eyes with his hand.

"That's actually not surprising. I'm being recruited to the Dome as an outstaffer for the second time. Don't be surprised by anything, this time they've done the whole vintage thing. By the way, I'm an expert on the history of old-machines and I've even read ancient Wikipedia manuscripts. Are you also an expert?"

Office, open space, the corner where Alexander usually works is somewhat removed from other employees.

"This is your workspace for the next..." - looks at his watch - "35 hours. Sit there. Don't shine for now. Lunch in 3 hours. Aaa... what am I doing, am I a rat?!... Here, your advance was handed out..." - gives the guys envelopes - "but we'll have to work, we'll sleep here too, there are little couches over there... it's like a hackathon-marathon for us."

Alexander sits, intently staring at his monitor. Across from him beyond the partition Ivan unsuccessfully pokes a finger at his monitor. Danila stares wide-eyed at a 27" monitor, feels it up, looks at the mouse trying to find a ball inside it...

Alexander continues working enthusiastically at the computer (he has 3 monitors and 3 keyboards at once).

Across from him Ivan has folded a little house out of the bills he was given. Danila opened his envelope, looks at the unfamiliar bills: "Is this even money?"

"A relic form of bounty" - Ivan answers knowingly.

Maria enters with a laptop.

"What are you doing here?"

"They told me to help you, I'm also a scrum-master..."

"Uh-huh... sit there."

Maria sits next to Danila. Danila is just drooling at the sight of the laptop... "May I?!" - takes the laptop from Maria, plugs in the mouse, plunges headfirst into studying the technology of the future...

"32 GB of RAM?!!!" - a genuine cry of amazement is heard across the entire office...


Year 1990. Moscow. Winter. University department.

Two girls and Danila's friend are sitting there.

"It's a shame Danila quit, the whole automation rested on him. Denis, you know your way around, can you reinstall Norton Commander for me at home?"

"Me? Well yeah. What kind of computer do you have? 5.25" or 3.5"?"

Three students burst into the department. The girls in unison:

"We're not working!"

The students in unison: "Neither are we!"

"For Vasya, can we get a retake referral? Pleeease!"

"Come back tomorrow..."

"There's actually a really sad story: Vasya's parents sent him money so he could buy the exams..."

"What?!"

"But he drank it all... please understand... Vasya, why are you silent..."

"Girls, they're all lying... I was just sick... so I need a retake, Denis, hi! Help out, buddy" (he pleadingly takes off his fur hat).

"Girls, print them a referral, I'll forge for the dean..."

The referral is printed, but in the process the printer breaks.

"We'll have to go to Danila..."


2026 Palladium Dome. Office.

"I'm embarrassed to ask..." - asks Alexander - "does anyone know Java?"

"Well there's such a motorcycle..." - replies Danila.

"And you?" - turns to Ivan.

"Nope, never even heard of the motorcycle."

"Well then go on... that way, to the end of the floor, there's a free coffee machine, bring me a cappuccino with almond milk."

Maria with the laptop is sitting nearby on the couch:

"What's wrong, is it all bad?"

"Total ass really... 36 hours of shame and then probably fired... Imagine they gave us a Task: port an OpenShift docker code, Java-based at that, onto a legacy procedural architecture, and make it into a driver or .so file. There's a weird database here, not relational, not NoSQL, not graph and not hierarchical... You understand me?"

Masha blinks.

"You go get coffee too."

It's gotten dark outside. Already late. Alexander is still grinding for everyone. The padawans sit across from him. Everything is piled with coffee cups.

"OK guys, you got paid but not as much as me, so go home, come back at 10 tomorrow morning."

Maria: "I'll stay a bit longer."

Ivan and Danila step out of the elevator on the 1st floor.

"You going to the metro?" - asks Danila.

"Listen... however it works out... let's try through the metro... never been before..."

Danila exits first through the revolving doors and finds himself in 1990 Moscow, it's still winter outside. He puzzledly puts on his hat.

Ivan exits second and lands in his year 3025. Eternal summer. Before him stretches an endless nighttime steppe, you can hear grasshoppers chirping.

"Looks like Danila fell off..."

The camera pulls back from Ivan, and we see he's standing at the entrance of a gigantic palladium-colored tower a kilometer high. In the distance more majestic skyscrapers are visible. Giant spheres and ribbons of unclear purpose float and fly in the sky. A bit farther a bright wide column of light appears from space:

"Portal to Mercury is open" - announces the metallic voice (as if in the background).

"To the islands" - says Ivan and disappears.

At the Palladium Dome reception two girls watch the scene: Danila in a fur coat and hat enters through the revolving doors, shouts: "Ivan!"

Exits. Enters: "Vanya, where are you?!"

Exits. Enters: "Have you seen Vanya?"

Shakes snow off his hat. Meanwhile outside the window it's summer.

Maria has fallen asleep on the couch. Alexander rubs his eyes at the computer.

A big ocean wave crashes over a surfer, but he doesn't fall and bursts out of the wave's grip, laughing joyfully. It's Ivan. He's happy. Cheerful but majestic electronic music plays.


The alarm clock rings, 7 a.m., still dark outside, winter. Danila wakes up. Grandma is bustling in the kitchen. Danila threw his jacket on a chair in the kitchen, the envelope with money is on the table.

"What kind of money is this? Counterfeit?"

"No, grandma, new ones, they gave me an advance at work..."

"Will there be denomination again?"

"Looks like it..."

"They'll cheat us again like with the vouchers..."


Ivan wakes up via a bracelet alarm, opens his eyes. He's lying at the bottom of a pool, surfaces, climbs out.

"Blow-dry. Clothes - neutral Dome. Maaaango fresh..."

And right before our eyes he dries off, clothes materialize on him, a glass of drink. He takes a sip. In Ivan's room (quite large and tall), besides a medium-sized pool, there are intricate exercise machines (possibly sports), several couches, a collection of surfboards on the wall. Floating paintings in the air (some depicting Ivan himself with medals and awards). On the ceiling sits a giant butterfly.

"Kuzya, hi! I left you something to drink there."

"To the office!"

Ivan disappears. Numbers on the wall show the time: 9:55.


Year 2026. Palladium Dome office. Ivan enters the elevator, just before closing Danila in fur coat and hat runs in.

"Heya... I was looking for you at the exit for half an hour yesterday actually." - Danila says offended.

"Hi! Sorry, didn't have time to warn you, urgent matters... came up..."

They ride the elevator together.

"In short, I'm a guinea pig here myself. Imagine, this Dome apparently didn't just style everything vintage, but actually moved the kernel into the ancient year 2026. I figured out yesterday already that you're no old-tech expert, but a developer from nineteen..."

"Ninety" - Danila finishes.

"Yes, I saw you setting the date on the computer yesterday..."

"Just thinking out loud... what year are you from?..."

In the office, sprawled on three chairs near three running computers, Alexander is sleeping. Maria is absent. Ivan and Danila sit nearby beyond the partition.

"Did you fly to Mars?"

"Yep."

"Jupiter?"

"That too."

"What kind of computers do you have? Quantum?"

"Computer... one... unified... on neuromorphic 10-dimensional structures made of one-dimensional Planck strings. Listen, should we wake him up?"

"Which country is the greatest?"

"We have only two countries: North and South Pangaea. And one capital... in the middle - Jerusalem."

"Who would have guessed..."

Maria passes by, sees Alexander sleeping, signals: don't wake him, adjusts the blanket on him.

"Yesterday he was saying he couldn't get something to work there... legacy... some kind..."

"How could we help him?..." - Danila feels guilty, gets up, approaches one monitor... looks... puzzled... "this is FoxPro..."

Alexander is having nightmares in the style of the famous YouTube short film "7 red perpendicular lines in the shape of a kitten":

Alexander, Maria, the team lead and an unknown person (we don't see his face but he's the most important) sit in a meeting room. Maria says: we need to bring the vector database to 3rd normal form and so that it's not a server solution but... how do you say...

"On-premises" - picks up the team lead.

"Yes, draw us a sketch of how you'll solve this task."

"I'm not going to solve this task. Normal forms apply only to RDBMS..."

"But the business has set the task..." - the team lead interrupts.

"I AM the business here!" - thunderously says the unknown most important one. "And I decide!"

"Allow me to draw it. There's a vector database..." - draws on the board, nervous - "in it embeddings, essentially multidimensional vectors..."

"Vectors?..." - interrupts the most important one.

"They are like little arrows" - the team lead obsequiously prompts.

"Are they parallel or multidirectional? Like qubits?"

Alexander wipes sweat from his forehead with a board eraser, looks at it, throws it away.

"Well such... multi..." - Alexander exhales in despair.

"Well then normalize them... to 3rd... no, to 5th normal form!"

"That's impossible!"

"Have you tried? You're a data engineer. The task has been assigned to you."

"And the Foxie" - says Maria.

"What Foxie?" - the most important one asks.

"The logo."

"Yes! The logo is the most important thing. Concentrate on the Logo!" - menacingly says the most important one, we see his face - it's curator Gobel!

"WORK!!!"

And Alexander wakes up in a cold sweat. Stupidly stares at the screen. Beyond the partition sit the padawans, on the couch - Maria, looking at something on the laptop.

"So... this... dozed off a bit... WOW!!!

Who wrote the code here?" - Alexander in amazement.

"It was him" - Ivan points to Danila - "I told him not to touch anything..."

"No, this is cool... this is really cool... so... so... so... please... please... commit... push... Done!!! Sent it all for pull request review. Finished in 30 hours. Aaaaa... guys... we're a team!"

Shakes hands: "Danya... Vanya..."

In response: "Sanya..."

The team lead enters the office:

"Hey you - Tilly, Billy, Willy and... Webby... Why aren't you working?"

"It's all done, dude!... Closed the Task."

"Cloooosed?... no way" - looks thoughtfully at the monitor - "And at Timofeev's... 15 people... still sitting... grinding."

Dials on the phone...

"Well... GPL gnu... did you see the link? To the pull request. You have the same. The hell is more complicated for you?... I was just at your place. Step it up... grind... " - hangs up.

"Dudes... everyone gets a grade promotion!!!"

"You promised half a year on the islands too..."

"We'll consider it, per the Labor Code... so as not to violate legislation... I'm off to report to the CEO."

Leaves.

Danila and Maria sit on the couch.

"Phone?"

"Smartphone."

"Like a tiny laptop or what?..."

"You're weird." - Maria takes a selfie, on the screen their photo appears - her and Danila, immediately starts applying filters. Danila is in shock at the miracle. A bit to the side Ivan demonstratively yawns and looks out the window. Alexander approaches him:

"Did you cover me with the blanket?"

"No, she did."

"She?..." - looks at Maria cheerfully chatting with Danila (romantic music plays).


End of Episode 2.


Episode 3: A Project for Professionals


"In my opinion, that's a Hypercube..." - Alexander says thoughtfully, looking at an intricate image on the monitor.

Alexander, Ivan and Danila sit together in the office.

"More like a Tesseract." - says Ivan, curiously examining the object on the screen.

"The hypercube's spectrography of isomorphic-relative sets doesn't correspond to the existentially-apperceptive convergences of the tesseract."

"Well that's obvious" - Danila imperturbably interjects - "it's not clear what to do with it... how was the task even set?"

"And the task was set like this: Timofeev came running and said that half his staff quit, and they piled a Task on him about steganography, even though he has no relation to cybersecurity, then the team lead joined in, word by word, and now this Task is ours... our headache... Do you guys understand information security?"

"You don't need to understand anything here" - says Ivan - "It's an entry point... Give me half an hour."

He moves everyone aside and starts typing on the keyboard at insane speed.

Everyone is surprised.

"And just the day before yesterday he couldn't even turn on the computer... look how he got the hang of it..." - Danila says puzzled.

"Let's go for a smoke" - Alexander suggests.

"Outside?... uh... let me grab my hat... it might not work out... let's go, I need to tell you something... about me and about Ivan..."

They leave.


Palladium Dome. Office presumably of security staff. Polygraph.

Three people in the office. One sits at a computer in the background and looks like curator Gobel. A girl - polygraph operator sits at a desk and asks questions.

In the foreground on the polygraph, hung with sensors, sits the team lead.

"Only yes or no... Are you male?"

"Yes."

"Is your eye color brown?"

"No."

"Blue?"

"Yes."

"Have you been working at the Dome more than 5 years?"

"Yes."

"During your work have you participated in theft or leakage of company data?"

"No."

"Do you have major outstanding loans?"

"No."

"Are you older than 100 years?"

"Yes."

"Do you know what a Tesseract is?..."


1st floor of Palladium Dome. Lobby.

Alexander in a T-shirt, Danila in fur coat.

"Still didn't have a smoke..."

"OK, the snow trick I can sort of justify. But the fact that you bring packs of LD and Camel from somewhere without any of those 'Heart attack for the smoker, lung cancer for the puffer' warnings... makes me think..."

"Listen... aren't we maybe all lying together in a psych ward right now? And they're giving us sedatives... I heard schizophrenia patients see entire worlds and live for years like that... fantasizing..."

"Honestly speaking, I'm afraid to come to your place, but your tech is just too cool."

"There are lots of strange things, Danya. This team lead of ours keeps going for smokes, and when I follow him out, he disappears somewhere... like you... They started calling people in for the polygraph. And the CEO... I've worked here for five years and I don't even know what he looks like... suspicion, anxiety, jitters...

I should read up on the symptoms..."


Year 3325. Green fields.

The sky is overcast. Rain is about to fall. Two figures walk across the field. Curator Gobel and an unknown person in a robe (whose face we can't see).

"Cancel the rain!" - commands the curator and the clouds disperse, a sunbeam blinds a gopher and it crawls offended into its burrow.

"Are you going to Jerusalem now?"

"Yes, but not in this century."

"I see."

"5 minutes to Exodus" - the mighty metallic voice rings out across the steppe.

"Should we still recruit specialists?"

"Let's wait, so we don't spook... you know who."

"By the way, who brought in this youngster from the 20th century? Your work? I can see it in your eyes. Don't be afraid, he'll come in handy. That's all, gather the council of the 2nd security group, see you..."

Disappears.

"Blessings to you!" - fawns curator Gobel.


Year 2026. Office. Alexander's workspace.

Behind him sits a satisfied Ivan, his face shining with happiness. Nearby stand the guys.

"Cicada 3301 has nothing on this!!!..." - Alexander says admiringly - explains to Danila - "There was a mysterious organization on the internet called Cicada, recruited hackers and cryptanalysts."

Turns to Ivan: "By the way 3301... that's right around your year... uh... habitation..."

"You spilled it already" - Ivan looks reproachfully at Danila.


The guys sit in the cafeteria, eating lunch, the three of them at a table somewhat away from other workers.

Alexander is curious:

"Did you fly to Mars?"

"Uh-huh... Yes. And to Jupiter too."

"And?..."

"Computers aren't quantum. A complex system with infinite potential on neuromorphs, the fundamental basis is Planck strings with infinite oscillation frequency."

"Uh-huh... hmm... I bet you have robots doing the grunt work, and what do people do?"

"I'm an architect. We have one profession left - architect. Actually it's a complex symbiosis with neuromorphs. We work three hours a week. It's encouraged to work for several corporations at once. I work for three companies simultaneously, one hour each. What else do we do... it's customary to spend three days a week on sports (master of sports in surfing at your service), two days on art or hobbies, one day - day off... Saturdays."

"Who would have guessed."


Year 1990. University department. The dean sits at his desk working.

"Andrey Viktorovich, I reinstalled the database, as you asked."

"Thanks, Denis. We'll have new equipment delivered soon. A Xerox copier. You know that one?"

"I do."

"Knowledge is good. By the way you don't happen to know who forged my signature on a retake referral?"

"Who would dare?"

"It doesn't matter anymore. I already expelled this Vasya. He disgraces... science. Why so sad?" - looks at the gloomy Denis and the two girls. "Here, take a candy... Throw out our old printer, I gave you dollars for a new one, did you buy?"

"Yes, from Danila, I'll go get it..."

"Good..."


Year 2026. Office.

The guys are sitting relaxed on the couch near the workstations.

"By the way, that advance they gave us, can we buy a laptop with it?"

"No."

"And a smartphone?"

"Also no.

I hope you're not lugging tech to your place at home? It's like in the movie: you crush a butterfly in the Jurassic, and in the Cenozoic a new race of super-smart monkeys forms..."

"What kind of butterfly? I have a guard butterfly at home - if you step on it, it'll bite you to death, doesn't like strangers..."

"Doesn't matter..."

Masha approaches.

"Sasha, team lead wants you, a Demo of today's Task is happening in the meeting room."

Alexander stands: "Vanya let's go humble them with neuromorphic intelligence."

They leave.

Masha says to Danila: "Listen, you know how to reinstall an operating system, right?"

"Well I'm a master of sports in re-imaging OSes. What happened?"

"My laptop keeps freezing, at the service point they'll take a week to repair it, tomorrow's my day off, can you have it by the day after?"

"Easy, as you say."

Receives the laptop.


2026. Moscow. Morning. Novogireevo. 7:00.

Alexander wakes up in his apartment. Modern 2-bedroom European. Drinks coffee.

Smart home plays cheerful music:

"The sun lit up the horizon

Morning interrupted my sweet sleep"

(sings a pleasant female voice, a remix of Sector Gaza - "30 Years").

His modest life is shown. Collection of discs and gaming consoles. 85" OLED TV on the wall. Portrait of Darth Vader with an umbrella on the wall. Photo of Alexander from his graduation. Electric guitar on the wall. On the desktop on the laptop monitor - a photo of Masha.

Alexander puts on a fancy shirt and even a tie, leaves the apartment.

"On this day I'm dressed to the nines

On this day I'm warmed by your warmth"

(the music continues).

Alexander takes the metro, gets off at Kropotkinskaya. Picks up a scooter, rides to the Palladium Dome office.

A Tesla Model X stops at the office entrance. A fashionable type gets out, opens the door. Masha comes out of the office, the type meets her, kisses her, they get in the car, drive off. Alexander clenches his teeth, enters the building.

The padawans sit at their workstations.

"Ooo, boss is in a bad mood!..."

"Guys, there's a Project for real professionals. We're professionals, right?! Right."


9th floor. Door to the server room.

Alexander knocks the agreed knock. Door opens.

"Kolyan, friendlies."

They enter with bags full of suspicious glass bottles.

A small server room 4 by 6 meters with an anteroom. In the server room - 2 rows of racks: servers, routers, mini-PBX. On the racks - solid Palladium Dome emblem painted.

In the anteroom on a desk with the admin control monitor a feast is laid out. Alcohol poured, the desk neatly covered with A4 sheets.

"Guys, we got a day off today after yesterday's heroics" - says Alexander. "But since today is my birthday..."

"Oh boss... congrats! A gift is on us!"

"Sanya, why didn't you say earlier" - Kolyan, moved, takes out from the drawer a HyperX Pulsefire mouse without a box, hands it to Alexander - "take it... take it, I have a whole bunch. Shooter mouse, battle-tested, sighted in... got it?!"

Alexander thanks: "I wanted to invite you to a restaurant, but for some valid reasons not everyone can make it there, so let's sit here for half an hour and head home."


2 hours pass. Same location.

"Kolyan, haven't you noticed strange things in our company?"

"For sure, in accounting and HR... you come to them, climb under the desk to crimp a twisted pair, and they have... 8 pairs of shoes, flash drives, L'Occitane bags, a cactus, some lababus pinned with needles... Witches."

"Nah... like, have you seen our CEO?"

"Once. I'm riding in the elevator, on the -2 floor two such mugs each two meters tall get in, bodyguards, and they stood like this: no room in the freight elevator at all, I got pressed to the wall... got it? And with them a third one, characteristically in a robe..."

"Like a Jedi?"

"Possibly... or like a Satanist. I didn't see the face, but I immediately figured... the CEO... rumors about him had circulated before that he dresses like that.

Well they all rode up to their top VIP floor."

"And while you were riding, did he say anything?"

"Yeah right... these gorillas kicked me out of the elevator at -2."


2 hours pass. Same location.

Kolyan and Alexander are playing a 3D shooter. Ivan, face in a plate of snacks, weakly waves his hand and mumbles: "home, teleport... alpha channel... portal to home..."

Danila barely stands on his feet, weakly tries to lift him and incoherently calls: "Need to go outside... let's go for a smoke..."

"I told Sirius not to pour anymore..." - Kolyan summarizes.


Year 2026. Palladium Dome building. Top VIP floor.

The Board meeting room richly decorated and solid. Long table. 8 men in expensive suits sit at the table (management). At the head of the table - the main one in a robe.

"Barrier, isolation?" - asks the main one.

Curator Gobel nods affirmatively.

"And what is this one doing here?" - the main one points to the team lead, modestly perched at the edge of the table.

"Enrolled in the 2nd group today. Throw him out?"

"OK let him stay. Let's begin then. Curator Gobel briefly brief the inspectors on the matter."

"Gentlemen, imagine hypothetically that you live in the 33rd century. Earth's might has reached its peak. Neuromorphic intelligence is capable of working miracles unthinkable in the 20th centuries. All of humanity's knowledge is accumulated and contained in a special Vault."

A screen appears in the air right in the middle of the table showing a Tesseract.

Gobel continues:

"To guard this artifact an organization of the best security architect-experts is created - the Dome."

On the screen - video: the kilometer-tall Palladium Dome tower.

"But something terrible happens, a mysterious organization, and according to some sources it's a single person of incredible power, encrypts the Tesseract with a chrono-code of an unknown cryptofield."

On the screen appears a dark figure in a black robe, no face visible.

"We call him... the Black Architect."


Year 1990. Winter. Evening.

Denis rings Danila's doorbell, grandma opens.

"Hello! I called Danila, I'm here for the computer... uhh... I mean for the printer..."

"Come in, Deniska, come in... The compuhter, look there in the room."

Denis enters Danila's room.

Masha's laptop is on the desk.

Denis reverently feels it, accidentally touches the touchpad, the laptop turns on, Windows 11 on the screen. (Divine music plays).

End of Episode 3.


Episode 4: Storm of the 90s


Year 1990. University department.

Dean is absent. Denis chats with the girls:

"... and so this homeless guy broke up the floors in the little hut, and inside is a briefcase full of dollars, slightly nibbled by a rat. And just as he does this, the door of the hut opens and in walk the Solntsevskaya OPG mobsters. It was their briefcase..."

The department door opens, enraged Danila enters.

"And I had a certain rat nibble on something. Where's the laptop, you scum?"

Denis and Danila sit in the student cafeteria on the first floor.

"I called you yesterday and today... Trouble, Danya. I just wanted to show it to my uncle..."

"Is it at your uncle's?"

"Hardly... didn't even make it home... got jumped... by some hooligans.

I ran from them for two blocks. But they hit me in the back with a brick."

"Was the charger with it?"

"Yes."

"That's bad. Damn, I'd removed the password too. How did it all line up like this..."


Saluyan, Gurya and Sylvester are riding in a black BMW 5 E34 through the center of Moscow.

Saluyan and Sylvester in the back seat.

"Look what Syava brought back from Butovo yesterday!" - Saluyan says. Shows Masha's turned-on laptop, stroking the touchpad and getting amazed by the cursor running across the screen.

"Seen anything like this? How much can we flip it for?"

"Well 10 years with confiscation if you're lucky. If it's a KGB gadget."

"Doesn't seem like it... in the back it says: 'made in China'... like on your watch... heh-heh-heh..."

"Well if it's a Chinese spy's, then 25 - for espionage..."

By an incredible coincidence the car gets a flat tire near Kropotkinskaya metro. They stop.

"Gurya, change the spare?!"

"Uh-huh" - Gurya steps out, we see they stopped right next to the Palladium Dome tower.

The laptop catches the Dome's WiFi, an Outlook mail-arrived sound rings out.

"Oh... a missive came in...

Masha, check the picture on Google.

Heh-heh-heh...

What do I press here, I won't sleep now till I check out... the picture..."

"Drop that nonsense, the Lubyanka is 5 minutes' drive from us. Probably already on their way."

"Hold on... hold on... Dollar at 100 rubles... holy crap I bought at 6 yesterday. 2026.

What's this... Chat Qwen... how can I help you today... heh-heh-heh..."

"Where to buy a piece... On Ozon... Scottish bagpipes..."

"Scottish, you don't know any reliable ones?"

"Where to buy a whip?"

"This is... this isn't it... I'll check up on the brothers now."

"Lyuberetskaya OPG..."

"Oooo... look at this... when... where..."

Gurya finishes changing the wheel, gets in the car, starts the engine. They drive off.

In the back seat the stunned hushed Saluyan and Sylvester stare into the monitor.

"A hare to death?!"

"Maybe call him on his mobile."

"And what would you say? That your roof is leaking... yours. Best not to go to the meet tomorrow, gracefully bail."

Saluyan calls on an antique cell phone: "Petro, heya!

Tell the brigadiers... all of them... to lay low for a day, all business is off. I'll figure it out..."


Year 3325. Jerusalem. Palladium Dome Tower. 342nd floor.

The most important one in a robe and curator Gobel in a tall hall with columns, giant doors, an ultra-high ceiling, the entire room richly decorated.

They walk from the doors to a large window overlooking the city. Through the window we see how giant spheres in the distance connect into a giant caterpillar.

"Yesterday two of our guards in the 21st century died."

"Black Architect?"

"Yes, he used a space simplifier."

"How is that?"

"It's when your body is transformed from 3-dimensional to 1-dimensional. From the outside it looks like a string hanging in the air, if you touch it, it disappears..."

"Completely?"

"Absolutely. Absolutely I no longer feel safe."

In the distance a giant caterpillar tied with ribbons turns into a titanic butterfly and flies away.

"Everything will be decided in the coming week."


Year 2026. Palladium Dome. Office.

Alexander looks at Danila with the gaze of a destroyer.

Ivan says:

"Well maybe it'll all blow over. There's nothing such there. Tech is antediluvian."

Alexander is indignant:

"They restored the Terminator from a hand - end of the world.

Inhabited Island, this dude flew to the planet Saraksh - end of civilization.

Back to the Future, they screwed up that almanac magazine - and bam, reality degradation.

If hyper-intelligent monkeys come crawling now, I don't know how to fight them off.

Danya, run now... to your place... observe, try to find out something, watch the news... ask around... but carefully... tell us in the morning."


Year 1990. Saluyan's mansion on Borovskoye Highway.

"Sylvester, why isn't this thing working anymore... what do you think?"

"Broke... Chinese crap..."

"Maybe it only works in Moscow? Gurya and I should drive around the center..."

Calls on the phone:

"Syava! Bro. Well as you see I'm alive. Yeah... they all got caught in the sweep... lucky for us... but we weren't involved. Listen, that gift of yours, you know the sucker? Not local? Sure? Well ask around in the area, maybe someone's seen him..."

They drive in the car.

"Gurya, slow down. The missive isn't coming" - looks upset at the screen. A person rushed out of the office almost gets under the wheels, this is Danila.

"I'll mow him down right now" - threatens Gurya, drawing a pistol.

A "missive" arrives.

"Stop. Quiet. Don't rustle" - Saluyan types on the laptop.

"So... so... so... Cherkizovsky market... Kashpirovsky."

"Gurya, you watch Kashpirovsky?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Watch closely..."

"So PSC firms... banks... time... time to level up..."

"That's it, let's go! Better safe than sorry."

Danila watches the departing car.


University. Auditorium. Denis is substituting for the professor, draws tables of RDBMS on the board, connected by primary keys. There are few students - about 30, youth are bored. One student drew a "lecturer control panel" with a marker on the desk, presses the drawn "Voice" button, nothing happens. Puzzled:

"It's not working..."

"Turn up the volume" - neighbors advise.

The door opens, Danila's head appears:

"Denis... uh... Valerievich... can I get you for 1 minute."

Danila and Denis walk along the corridor.

"They delivered such a behemoth to our department, a copier... called Xerox." - says Denis - "Let's write a notice about the lost laptop. Reward guaranteed. I'll copy it on the Xerox... post around the area..."

"No, Denis, we can't draw attention at all. We need to lay low now and observe. I actually came to tell you not to show up in our area for a while, call by phone. Info will surface... soon... in the news. The laptop is probably with bandits... given how unlucky I've been lately... or with the authorities. Better at the authorities' I guess..."


Danila buys at a Soyuzpechat kiosk on the street:

"Hello, give me all the newspapers with news... crosswords I don't need..."

Goes to read.

Evening at home. Danila, surrounded by newspapers, watches TV. News.

"Moscow's Crystal casino once again changes owners. The previous CEO was shot in the center of the capital. The Board of Directors appointed Maxim Saluyan to the position."


Several similar episodes happen in a row (bandits' car stands by the Dome office, then drives off).


Saluyan in the car: "Well Seryozha Mavrodi, the bastard... Petro did you buy MMM shares?"

"Nope..."

"Tell the brothers... only ours, not to buy, it's a scam."

BMW drives off.


Saluyan in the car to someone on the phone: "Tell Kuzma to withdraw the common stash, exchange ALL the Soviet rubles for dollars, URGENTLY."

BMW drives off.


Danila buys at the Soyuzpechat kiosk again (near the Palladium Dome office).

Danila, surrounded by newspapers, watches TV at home.

News: "Borovsky OPG leader - Maxim Saluyan again in the center of a scandal. To crown Petro the Young in the Kremlin Palace - that's the height of cynicism. Where are our authorities looking?..."


Another series of identical episodes.

Saluyan, studying info in the laptop:

"Yes, the Kazan ones are really brazen. Well no problem, we'll arrange it for you. Sylvester, get me the guys from Khadi Taktash..."

BMW drives off.


Saluyan to someone on the phone: "Rossiya Hotel? Yeah we're buying."

BMW drives off.


Danila again buys newspapers at the familiar kiosk and sees the already familiar BMW, looks at his watch. Starts figuring it out.

At this moment the puffed-up Saluyan gets out of the car and talks on the phone. Danila realizes it's Saluyan, since he's seen him on TV many times.


News: Maxim Saluyan and Sylvester Petrovsky are wanted. Officially they're charged with tax evasion. The gang terrorizing our citizens for many years doesn't trouble itself with tax contributions to the country's budget.

This is the trouble and storm of the 90s. They are outlaws.


Year 2026. Office. Meeting room.

Alexander, Ivan, the team lead and Masha sit.

"Where's your third one?" - asks the team lead.

"He has a special project, he's at home now, can't join the meeting..."

"OK then we won't wait, let's start without him. Today we have Retrospective, the sprint ends tomorrow. The scrum-master is with us" - points to Maria. "Well there's not much to discuss about the work done, everyone's a good boy and you'll get a promotion. I reported your success to the CEO (the team lead puffs up with pride). The day after tomorrow at sprint planning our curator - Gobel... Valentin Valentinovich... you don't know him..."

Ivan snorts. But the team lead continues: "will personally talk about the new epic. He promised to drop by, don't know if he will... As always the work is important and urgent, but the bonus is almost guaranteed..."

"You promised a bonus for the last Task too... or vacation..."

"I checked... 180 days of vacation in a row is impossible... a week plus is possible paid, the rest we'll compensate in money, no problem at all."

"We'd also need more human resources to help... since a whole epic is shaping up."

"There's PSE reserve. They wanted to merge you with Timofeev altogether... or rather give his people to you, well the curator will say about it at Planning."

The meeting room door opens, curator Gobel enters.

"Hello, young men!"

"Hello!"

"Goodness to you, Valentin Valentinovich!" - says Ivan.

Alexander suddenly recalls as if in a vision the vague dream where he was sitting in a meeting room and Masha was asking him to bring a graphical DB to 3rd normal form and a person very similar to curator Gobel was shouting: "I am the business here and I decide!"

"Let's get to know each other..."


Year 1990. Kropotkinskaya. Palladium Dome. Day.

As soon as the bandit BMW as usual pulls up to the Palladium Dome, Danila, hiding nearby in a phone booth, calls Lubyanka from the payphone.

5 minutes later unknown people fire a grenade launcher at Saluyan's BMW right by the Palladium Dome building. The car burns up entirely.


Danila staring at the blackened snow, scarlet stain on the asphalt, the BMW emblem that flew off the car...

"Well, the storm of the 90s has ended..."

Somewhere a fire engine or police siren is heard, or maybe an ambulance. Danila no longer cares, he slowly trudges toward the office entrance, enters, climbs up to his floor (sad piercing music plays).

At their workstations Alexander and Ivan sit.

"Danya, what's with your face?"

"Didn't you hear the explosion?"

"No... all quiet here..."

"It's all over. Problem solved, the artifact burned up."

"And I gave my laptop to Masha, she didn't even notice..." - Alexander says for some reason.

Danila sinks heavily into his workstation. Clutches his head.

The sound of incoming mail. He focuses on the screen with difficulty, there's a letter from unknown:

"Well, you have joined us.

Sincerely,

Black Architect."

End of Episode 4.


Episode 5: Recursion and Functional Programming


Year 3325. Jerusalem. Dome Tower. Leadership hall on upper floors.

About 17 people (mostly men) sit at a long massive table.

Through the huge window we see Jerusalem waking in the morning.

Giant spheres rise up, in the far distance a caterpillar of spheres begins wrapping itself with ribbons.

"By majority vote it has been decided... to isolate the space concentrator in the 21st century. Blessings to all.

Meeting adjourned." - says the most important one, whose face we don't see.

Through the window flies a small black cube. The glass shatters into shards, but not all of them fall to the floor, some particularly sharp ones hang at a height of 1-2 m.

"Danger!" - shouts the most important one and turns his massive chair with its back to the cube, joins his palms at his chest and disappears. His chair is farthest from the window so he is saved. Glass shards begin whizzing into people, some manage to teleport, some remain on the floor.

A figure in a black robe materializes around the cube, instead of a face - darkness. It turns out he's holding the cube between his thumb and index finger (but not tightly, the cube hovers as if in space between the fingers). The last person, lacerated with shards, desperately tries to crawl to the exit, but the Black Architect (yes, it's him) approaches him...

"Simplifier..." - whispers the dying one... and turns into a thin thread-like string (a metallic clap is heard with vibrations, as if a guitar string was sharply pulled by both ends and it straightened).

In the room guards begin materializing one by one and immediately open fire on the architect. They use laser scalpels (with destroying infinitely long thin beams) and barely-visible force fields (to isolate the opponent).

The Architect moves around the room at incredible speed and deftly dodges the beams, the force fields he breaks with his own anti-fields. Metallic claps are heard. And soon only the Architect and a dozen strings hanging in the air remain in the room. The Architect approaches the chair of the main one and flips through the 3D tablet thrown by him, photos of people flash by... among them: Ivan, Alexander, Danila...

The strings meanwhile are drawn closer to each other. The Architect approaches them and plucking the strings plays some simple melody (like "A grasshopper sat in the grass"), the strings dissolve into the air. The Architect bends under the table where a woman (from the Council) is hiding. She trembles in fear and is silent. The Architect places the cube on her palm, squeezes her hand and disappears. After a moment the Dome Tower explodes (actually only the upper quarter of the tower explodes), everything burns but the tower stands. A giant butterfly flies up to the tower and begins extinguishing it with water, in the background we see other butterflies coming to its aid...


Year 2026. Office.

Alexander, Ivan and Danila sit at work.

Alexander puts away a carton of Camel cigarettes and a carton of Donald Duck gum in his desk, behind him stands a surfboard (the guys haven't forgotten about Alexander's birthday).

"Let's go for a smoke or something..." - a suggestion is made.

The guys go to smoke. On the 1st floor by the doors Alexander comments: "By the will of fate everyone goes to smoke at their own time."

Danila in fur coat and hat exits to the street. Outside it's summer. And Moscow of 2026. Even more surprisingly, behind him in T-shirt and jeans Ivan steps out, slightly bewildered by what's happening. Alexander is absent.

"Holy cataclysms... So much for the smoke break..."

Ivan and Danila enter the office on their floor in search of Alexander. The entire floor is empty, computers don't work, as if powered down.

"What, fire drill or something?..."

The guys walk through the floor and exit the doors at the end of the hall and... magically appear at the doors at the beginning of the hall. The office is still empty, but suddenly one computer monitor lights up.

"They've trapped us in a loop, bastards" - states Ivan.

They walk through the hall to the end once more and again appear at the beginning. Changes in the office: one employee appears sitting at the computer that recently turned on, and one more computer turns on before their eyes.

"So, where is everyone?" - Danila asks the lone employee.

But he behaves inadequately, like a static NPC character from video games, talks in templated phrases out of context:

"Hi, guys! Today is the team lead's birthday."

"Heya, dudes! Did you hear?! Timofeev was fired!"

"Greetings, going for a smoke?!"

Sometimes just smiles stupidly.

Ivan and Danila reach the end of the hall.

"Let's do this, one steps out, the other waits, watches what changes in the office."

Ivan exits, but doesn't appear at the beginning of the hall (just disappears). Danila waits for him at the end of the hall for a long time, nothing changes in the office, all quiet. Finally he can't take it and exits too.

Danila and Ivan appear together at the beginning of the hall. In the office in the distance a second employee appears and a third computer (monitor) turns on.

"I waited two hours for you" - Danila says with unfair reproach.

"Oh, hi! Did you hear?! Timofeev was fired" - says Ivan...

"Just kidding, kidding... you should see your face..."

"OK, now let's do this simultaneously: you exit at the end of the hall, I'll exit at the beginning, but exactly simultaneously." They exit simultaneously. Appear together at the beginning of the hall. The office is perfectly empty. The first computer monitor lights up.

"We don't do that anymore..."

Danila walks to the window. Outside it's summer, but no one is visible: no people, no cars, silence and desolation.

They walk through the hall several times, more people and computers appear. People are all static and stencil-like, and the guys don't particularly know anyone from this floor.

"Have you noticed?! They appear according to Fibonacci numbers... 1... 2... 3... 5... 8..."

Half the office is already present, Alexander still isn't there.

"Golden ratio... Seems like we need to break this sequence somehow to break the recursion."

Next frame: Danila and Ivan dragging a reluctant nerd (an eccentric, informally dressed type, who for some reason is holding a large stuffed pig) toward the doors at the end of the hall, the three exit, two appear at the beginning of the hall. The nerd sits at his spot, nothing has changed.

Danila, armed with a fire extinguisher, smashes the window, it shatters to pieces, but the day seems to reset and they again stand at the beginning of an empty office and again only the first monitor lights up.

Danila and Ivan walk through the hall many times, but when the office fills to 42 people, growth stops and nothing else happens. When they go back the count slowly decreases.

Ivan and Danila sit in the mini-kitchen, eating the contents of the fridge.

"42... that's in some book... the answer to the main question of life, the Universe and everything... 42." - says Danila.

"Haven't read it" - answers Ivan.

"In your future, your supercomputer, what would it answer to this question?"

"What would it answer... it would answer: 'We live in a twilight world and there are no friends at sunset...'"

"What does that mean?"

"I just quoted you the film 'Tenet,' Christopher Nolan... yesterday in the office we watched it with Sanya..."

"OK... haven't seen it. Did you check phones? All silent? How long have we been here, like 20 hours walking? And it hasn't gotten dark outside..."

Next frame. The guys sleep in the middle of the office, having thoughtfully dragged a pair of couches each. Danila put the stuffed pig under his head for softness.

The phone rings. Ivan, rubbing his eyes, sticks bare feet into slippers and trudges to the phone.

"Hello!"

"Almighty Zeus! Vanya, is that you?"

"Sanya, hi... it's me... Danila is here too..."

"And Masha isn't?"

"Nope..."

"I see... the team lead is with me here... stepped out... he knows something but isn't saying it... How many days have you been in recursion?"

"By feeling... second day..."

"Lucky ones... we've been here for two weeks already... just the two of us. The team lead says we need to write a new monad in Haskell and pick a mathematical function... don't even ask how this will help us... maybe he's gone mad... or maybe he knows something... but he's being cagey. Did you notice anomalies or, on the contrary, patterns in your trip?"

"Yes, they appear according to Fibonacci numbers..."

"Awesome!!! And the maximum number?"

"42."

"Very interesting... we have everything different here of course. Very good guys, a ghost of a chance has appeared that we'll meet again... Pity the computers don't work..."

"Ours work..."

"Why didn't you say so!... find my computer and call back at this number... by the way what's our number?... I'll give you passwords..."

Ivan nudges the waking Danila:

"You slept through everything..."

"What... uh... what happened?"

"Run, please, to that end, see if Sasha's computer and phone work? We're on the line with him now..."

"Sanya?"

Danila runs to the far end. And from there shouts: "Vaaaanya, come here..."

Ivan carefully puts the receiver on the desk, walks to the end of the office, at Alexander's work computer sits Maria.

"No way... so she's been scripted too..."

"You're scripted" - Maria replies.

"We haven't seen you here before..."

"And I've been seeing you for a week, but when I try to get closer than half the office away, the day resets..."

"What sorcery. Well give us a hug, partner in misfortune."

Friends hug. Danila:

"Now life will be good. Things are looking up. Oh, the phone works. Hello, Sanya, heya, dude! Masha's with us, you're on speaker, give us the password."

"Dictating the password in Latin keyboard with Russian letters: 'TeamLead underscore Punk' ... no, not you... it's a different one... from old job... seriously, are you offended right now?...

"Then on the desktop there's a folder called Junk-for-you" - Sanya continues broadcasting through the speakerphone - "go in there, there's a shortcut to Hasswell, click it."

"There's a password..."

"Password... damn... who's at the computer now? OK... there are two Arabic words but written in Russian letters together. So... 'Mashash'... 'lyukha'..."

Masha furiously gets up from the desk:

"Bastard, finished!" - she walks offended to the other end of the office, gives an obscene gesture... unclear to whom.

"Ah... not a professional" - Ivan reproachfully says and sits at the computer - "Continue dictating..."

Next frame.

Alexander finishes dictating, Ivan finishes writing the code.

"Inserted the monad?"

"Yep."

"Save everything to the repo, but not in master, in... how was it?... in branch black_archi... I'm being prompted here..."

Danila with interest:

"What kind of branch is that?"

Ivan uploads the code and the day resets. Outside it abruptly becomes night, very quiet, the noise of the city can be heard through the window, cars driving.

In the office only Danila and Ivan sit, and at the other end Maria. A person approaches Maria from behind.

"Mash, forgive me..."

It's Alexander. Somewhere behind him the team lead looms...


Top VIP floor of the Dome. Board meeting room.

Around the perimeter of the room - 50 guards with combat scalpels. The meeting apparently ended and the leadership begins to disperse... The most important one in the robe addresses curator Gobel:

"So today you are the lord of the world, and tomorrow a string playing its last note..."

Notices the team lead:

"What did you guys arrange? Why a recursion..."

"This is an anomaly from a temporal collapse" - the Curator answers instead of the team lead.

"Now we're all trapped in the 21st century?"

"Now we ALL are trapped in the 21st century..."

"And him."

"And HIM."

"Then it means it's one of ours. This information is not for everyone. Maintain secrecy. And don't walk around without guards."

We see how before the most important one's robe lazuli force fields shimmer ghostly...


Office. Night.

Alexander hangs up the phone.

"They let us go... home..."

Besides Alexander, only Ivan and Danila are in the office.

"Well, you homeless wretches... let's go to my place to spend the night..."

End of Episode 5.


Episode 6: Vibe Coding


"Goooood morning, my little lovers of vibe coding! The weather outside is just gorgeous, a light warm carefree breeze blows outside. And on our Platform, under the action of ultra-powerful Arctic Cool fans, a strong wind of beneficial change blows. Prices on tokens for your beloved LLMs have already been blown down by 2%. Don't miss the discount..."

Alexander stops the news (or is this advertising):

"Alice, stop."

Morning. Alexander's apartment.

In one room waking up: he (on the couch), Danila (on a folding bed), Ivan (on the floor, already sitting in lotus position, meditating).

Ivan:

"You don't have a pool?"

"Nope... Cabin... shower... over there..."

"I'm first" - Danila beats everyone to it and occupies the bathroom.

Alexander:

"Got me thinking... With us now everyone writes code through vibe coding, how is it for you? Same? Through that Single Super Brain of yours?"

"Through CHILIC (Chandrasekhar Human Artificially-Leptonic Intellect Combine)... on neuromorphs..."

"So you chillin'?!"

"Yes... indeed... that's what we call it... how do you know?"

"Guys! Help turn on the water" - shouts Danila from the bathroom and Alexander goes to help him (you're an engineer... I'm just afraid to break it... - heard in the background).

Ivan inspects the photos on the walls, sees the photo of Masha on the computer...

"Well, understood..."


Friends ride a car-share to the office.

"I asked about vibe coding because, Danila, you weren't there, and at the last planning, our curator Gobel set us a task to perform a prompt-attack on a very strange LLM. By the way, Ivan, did it seem to me, or did you already know the curator?"

"I've worked at his Prefecture since childhood, he's also from 3325. Guys, he communicates with the Supreme Architect himself. Now they recruited the best specialists from the 34th, 27th, 25th, 21st and as it turns out the 20th centuries into the Dome. And classified everything. Target info is issued by the teaspoon per year... as you say here..."

Alexander:

"This reminds me of a situation as it was in a movie: there the government gathered the best of the best agents, special forces, marines, police and they give them assignments... and everyone does something without questions... and only one black guy there asks: 'why did you gather us here? Why the hell should I do your tests?'... in the end only this black guy was taken...

Well yeah... you haven't watched it (this is 'Men in Black' part 1).

What I mean is, maybe enough vibe-coding blindly, should we ask the bosses what's the main Vibe?"

"Well, I can ask Gobel" - Ivan ponders. - "Especially since he kept silent about the temporal blockades... my pet at home isn't fed for too long..."

They drive up to the office.


9th floor. Server room.

Kolyan sits in the anteroom at the admin control monitor. (Behind him on the wall hangs a poster where a grandpa says to his grandkids: here grandkids, are some self-written scripts. With us these scripts are like fertilizer, so what - they are soulless machines, while gramps wrote them himself). In the server room a black cube materializes in the air, slowly floats through space, lingers by one rack and burns out all 16 1U blade servers: they just spark and with a plaintive fading hum stop working. The cube flies into the anteroom, approaches Kolyan.

He looks at it with stunned eyes for several seconds...

"Hopa!..." - Kolyan triumphantly shouts and covers the cube with a faceted glass, trapping it on the desk surface (laughs victoriously).

A hand materializes out of nowhere and hits Kolyan on the head, he falls not quite successfully, hitting his face on the desk along the way, lies on the floor not moving.

Someone invisible clearly sits in Kolyan's place and begins to quickly type on the keyboard.

On the screen we see many appearing windows with Terminals and Command Lines, multiple downloads and installations flickering.


Office presumably of security. Where they conduct the polygraph.

In the room are 7 people, one watches the paired monitors, on one of which Alarm is flashing...

"9th floor... server room... guards... QUICKLY!!!"

One by one 6 people disappear from the room - the guard squad.


They materialize in the server room's anteroom, but no one is there. In the anteroom the admin control monitor is malfunctioning and smoking, Kolyan sits on the floor pressing a glass to his eye, rubs his bruised head. Several people come out of the server room:

"Clear. Equipment partially burned." The elder addresses Kolyan:

"What are you drinking here or what?"

The elder exits the anteroom into the corridor, where about 20 guards with combat scalpels are ready.

"Search the floor..."


Office. The guys' workplaces.

The guys approach their workstations, and at this moment the equipment and the lights (except for emergency) go out... after a while the lights come back.

"Someone rebooted the system" - says Ivan.

On his monitor instead of Windows poisonous letters appear: ChernoByl... Byl is crossed out and Archi is written above.

"Is it like that for everyone?" - reads - "cherno-archi?"

"Long wanted to ask. Who knows what about the Black Architect?" - Ivan says.


Office presumably of security.

At the monitors stands the most important one (we don't see his face), nearby curator Gobel reports:

"Today already twice... on the 5th and 9th floors.

Cryptoddosed our network... it seems all computers, as soon as they get a connection are immediately blocked..." - heavy sigh - "without equipment our specialists can't work. There are reserves in the Council's 1st-level machine hall... activate?"

"You'll burn out all my equipment this way. Hold on. Fix what you have. Try to set up an ambush here and here (points on the monitor)."


Office. The guys' workplaces.

"I have the same crap" - Alexander says - "on all my computers."

"And I'm fine..." - says Danila.

The guys approach him, he has on the screen: Volkov Commander.

"It's just that on the last day for fun I couldn't resist and installed MS-DOS..."

"And so what, can we connect via SSH to our server through the network?"

"To be honest, I heard about networks like a couple weeks ago... star topology... vampire tap and all... But I think I have an idea how to wire up a C network library..."


1990. Danila's apartment.

Grandma calls on the phone.

"Hello! Deniska! Is Danya at your place? Didn't come home last night... didn't even leave a note..."

Denis (at his own home), tormented by pangs of conscience: "Yes... at my place... he was... He said something about work at the office... urgent... he needs to repair... BIOS... Xerox and a coax network card..."

"Stop by his work, bring him pies... with dried apricots... he keeps forgetting to eat..."

Denis looks out the window, in the parking lot a 300th-class Mercedes is burning out, the police have already arrived, cordoned it off, are bustling around, onlookers crowd. His face changes all shades of gray.

"Yes, I'll go... I'll go today... definitely..."


2026. Office. Dome.

The guys crowded around Danila's monitor. On the monitor: Volkov Commander. Kolyan crawls out from under the desk... with a biiig black eye:

"Done, I commutated, go ahead..."

Danila, presses buttons... on the screen appears a successful ttl ping of the server's IP address.

"Hooray!"

The office rejoices.


From the security office, the most important one and curator Gobel watch them through cameras.

"I see that only these three of yours are working..."

"Incredibly promising guys" - Gobel chimes in - "my protégés..."


Alexander sits in Danila's place: "Well, here's your vibe coding, my little lovers..." - connects via SSH to the server - "Remembering terminal commands and combat code!..."

More developers from the office and security experts gather around him. They give advice. Swap places to code. Cheerful but combat music plays. All this happens to the music, but in fast tempo, from different angles. Screens on the monitor and people in the office change. With joint efforts in a few hours the virus is defeated, the system rebooted. On computers throughout the office on monitors revived operating systems appear. The music ends.


Alexander, Ivan, Danila and Masha sit in the Dome's café, late lunch.

Masha tells:

"...from accounting... saw off to retirement... in joy they tore up two trojans... as you say here.

The corporate party, by the way, won't be this year, but the annual bonus we're expecting big. So don't quit before the new year. Today there were 3 interviews, Timofeev got 6 middles dumped on him..."

"And us?"

"What did Gobel promise you?"

"Gobel is hiding somewhere" - says Ivan.

"When's the deadline on your task?" - Masha asks.

"For US" - Ivan corrects - "tomorrow morning is the demo, we show the results to the curator."

"And nothing about the equipment not working all day? No one even thanked Danila..." - Alexander says.

"Come on, Sash. What did I do, you SERVER... what... RE-ANTI-DDOSED..."

"Where did they take Kolyan? He never told what kind of incident he had?"

"They gave him a fine shiner, that's why he's silent probably. What kind of guards are running around the floors? With weird devices..."

"Listen, Mash, have you heard anything about the Black Architect?" - asks Danila.

Suddenly the anxiously disposed team lead appears.

"OK, kids, quiet. Where did you get the info about the Architect, did you dig something up?"

"Oooo... on the hunter the beast runs..." - Alexander joyfully says, rubbing his hands - "what, isn't it that there's a cherno-archi virus on the whole office? My dear friend we have some questions for you, let's step into the meeting room..."


In the office presumably of security.

Kolyan sits on the polygraph.

Unknown voice:

"Answer only yes or no.

Do you have 5 fingers on your right hand?"

"Yes."

"Are you over 100 years old?"

"No."

"Are you a blonde?"

"No."

"Brunette?"

"No."

"Bald?"

"Yes."

"Are you involved in today's virus attack in your server room?"

"No."

"Do you know who did it?"

"No."

"Did you see who attacked you?"

"No."

"Do you drink alcohol at work?"

"Noooo."

"Well there's a sufficient reason to fire him" - says curator Gobel addressing the most important one. - "We you and I understand who's to blame, but officially the company didn't work for almost a day, can't do without firings here..."

"Yeah for him it'll be a blessing, once he got lucky to stay alive, next time may not be so" - Gobel chimes in - "I even envy him!"

"Want to escape too?"

"Me? No (heavy sigh)."

"Do everything quickly and quietly, no panic in the office."


Meeting room on the 2nd floor.

Alexander, Ivan, Danila and Maria sit at the table, the team lead stands at the window:

"Damn me for approaching you, do you think I know something?"

"Uh-huh."

"You don't fear the polygraph... not firing either... how to manage you..."

"We insist that curator Gobel join us right now... for a couple of minutes" - says Ivan.

The team lead heavily sighs and looks out the window. Outside is visible how the shrunk confused Kolyan exits the office doors with a box, barely filled with personal items, not knowing where to go.

"Gobel won't come! To hell with it all..." - turns to the guys - "Listen... I myself got 2nd-level clearance a few days ago and I'm from the 27th century..."


Year 1990. Dome building. Lobby.

"What do you mean doesn't work?!

Never worked..."

Denis stands with a puzzled bewildered look near the reception (administration).

The 1st-floor lobby looks 90s-style... poor.

On the walls are pictures of Soviet cities, portraits of Gorbachev and Yeltsin, someone is reading the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.

He goes outside, bites into a piroshok (a bag of which he holds in his hand). Outside is winter, evening. We see the whole tower. At the top (VIP top floor) the lights are on (all windows). The camera approaches but not too close and we see how from inside a figure in a black robe looks at the window, but no face visible.

A metallic clap of a stretching string is heard.

End of Episode 6.


Episode 7: Bjile


Year 2026. Dome. Office.

Masha fiddles with the coffee machine in the mini-kitchen for a long time. Filled beans. Poured milk. Pressed Cappuccino button. Error. Emptied the tray. Drained water from the pan. Button. Error. Turned off. Turned on. Scalded the cappuccino frother tube with boiling water. Drained steam from the hot water spout. Button. Error. Turned off. Turned on. Error. Hit. Error vanished. A stream of poured cappuccino began murmuring into a beautiful branded cardboard cup. Masha victoriously sticks the straw into the cappuccino and turns to the center of the kitchen.

At the table in the center Ivan, Danila, Alexander and the team lead sit with cups of cappuccino watching her with interest.

"Bravo!"

"You are a real engineer."

"Three things you can watch forever: cats, the abyss, and the abyss pouring coffee..."

"Don't hope now that the abyss will look at you... even with one eye."

Masha sits at the table with them.

Everyone sips coffee thoughtfully and is silent.

"In light of recent events, as I understand, it's no longer necessary to work?!" - says Masha - "Will they at least pay the bonus?..."

"Wrong thing to think about... Most likely there will be no one to pay the bonus."

"No one - from above or from below?"

"From both ends."

"Demo is cancelled" - Masha continues - "Planning too. Agile doesn't work anymore..."

"And we worked by Bjile" - sadly says the team lead.

"How's that?" - Alexander is interested.

"Bjile. It's Agile for bees. You now have the hype on cats and dogs, but in the 27th century and beyond - on bees."

"In the 34th - on butterflies..."

"Anyway, not the point. Already in the 25th century work became optional, but mental tension was practiced by all, it's good for health. People worked conditionally 4-5 hours a week. Gathered in 'Hives'... interest clubs. And a swarm-master distributed assignments, mostly tasks on automation of bee civilization in virtual space. I remember my colleagues and I in 12 working days completely built the entire planet Earth with hives. Cultivated creativity, no destructive."

"There were only two ceremonies: Bisota and Bizhuzha.

Bisota is when in a hundred minutes you needed to present your day's achievements and vote for the top 100 best achievements of your clan.

A..."

The phone rings.

"Right now? Is it urgent?!" - sadly - "Uh-huh."

"All folks, I'm off to the front lines, if I don't return - consider me a Community-egoist..."

He runs off.

"He flew off to harvest honey..."

"What kind of person, he could have told about Bizhuzha too..."


Year 1990. University department.

Dean sits at his desk working.

Besides him in the department - 2 girls - secretaries.

"Andrey Viktorovich!" - says one - "In the Xerox all the paper ran out again."

"How ran out? 5 packs of 500 sheets, the day before yesterday... what are you heating with them or what? Where's Denis?"

Denis meanwhile with a thiiick stack of A4 sheets glues an ad onto a theater pillar (over various small ads):

Person missing. Danila. 23 years old. Photo... Phone...

For certainty he glues the same ad on the other side of the pillar.

He wanders Moscow aimlessly, approaches a metro station. By the metro are trading kiosks, traders, drunks, an old lady selling socks and washcloths, an old man - brooms, someone has spread badges and books on the ground, in the distance somewhere sits a shell game operator (Bet 25 rubles to buy a Zhiguli, one ball three cups from Demidov Ivan, three cups one ball - Kasparov Garik played here... heard in the background).

A tall guy in a beaver hat approaches Denis. "Sir, gum, inserts, Panini stickers - interested? Football 90. Holland for 50 kopecks, Argentina for 75. Maradona and Cañiza for a ruble. Gullit, Van Basten for 95..."

"Not interested..."

"Dasaev for 80..." - heard in the wake.

Denis buys a pack of blue LD cigarettes at the kiosk, scraping the last change from his pocket. Goes to the metro. Stops and glues an ad on a building wall near the metro. From the kiosks three figures detach, young menacing guys in leather jackets, approach Denis.

"Hey kid..." - says one.

Denis, as an experienced fellow, takes off his glasses and puts them in his pocket.

"Give it here... let me see..."

Denis gives one sheet.

Looks.

"Dreza, take a look..." Dreza looks, shakes his head negatively.

"On our district you don't paste, I'm the overseer, we haven't seen such."

Takes about 20 sheets.

"I'll take some for distribution, show people."

They leave.

Denis with relief takes off his hat, sits on a bench, takes out the LD and lights up... (win a fanny pack for your husband... with all the soul soulfully into the soul... - heard in the background).


Year 2026. Dome. Large guard office.

In the background - SOC monitoring panels and the armory. The chief shift guard issues combat scalpels to junior guards. They approach one by one, get a weapon and teleport to their duty posts. After the last person 3 scalpels remain on the desk. Nearby an armchair with a large back turns, on the armchair sits pensively sad curator Gobel.

"Yesterday three guards didn't return from shift... only weapons were found..." - sadly says the shift chief - "How do you see the situation, Valentin Valentinovich? Critical but not hopeless?"

"Maybe already critical and hopeless, Yevgeny Yurievich... Yesterday the Supreme Architect disappeared... already 23 hours not contacting... there is information that he's not in this century... and that means we're unlikely to see him alive again."

"And now what?"

"Now what... Optimistic option, they leave us alone and we live out our modest days in this century, pessimistic - they wipe us all out... In the 34th century they'll elect a new Supreme, and here I'm in charge for now..."

"But half the Council is stuck here, surely they won't wipe!..."

"That's why I hope for the optimistic option."

"And the Black Architect?"

"That's the Main danger, throw all forces into guarding the Council. Spread them across the planet in different places, so even I don't know where they are."

"And you?"

"And I..." - sighs - "and about me, write that the captain refused to leave the ship... Act."


Year 2026. Dome. 13th floor. Office.

Danila, Ivan and Alexander sit at their workstations, not working.

"Did you trace that address from which the Black Architect sent you the letter that time?" - asks Ivan of Danila.

"I wrote to that address a couple times, but no reply, in general it may not even be the Architect... The team lead said the address was traced but a dead end... it goes off to Somalia somewhere, .so domain."

"Well, at least black..." - says Alexander.

"What's black?" - asks Danila.

"Well I heard Somali pirates use a black flag, with a skull and 2 AK-47s crossed."

"I think you're digging in the wrong place.

The team lead said the Architect is from the 34th century." - says Danila - "Vanya in the 34th do you have black cults? Black Mahaon there... or Black Prince."

"Even Somali pirates we have. Only it's not a cult but two brothers from South Pangaea, they have a startup, print designer surf boards, I ordered one from them."

"So what?"

"Nothing... the board broke... turned out to be like... pirated..."


Curator Gobel's office.

Small but richly furnished. Persian rugs on the floor. OLED panels on the walls. There's exit to a large open terrace outside, covered with lawn grass, on which mini-golf holes are visible.

In the chair sits a tired and gaunt curator Gobel.

"Hand Timofeev's group tomorrow then to these three... my protégés..."

"And one more thing" - curator Gobel takes from the safe a case with a laser scalpel and hands it to the team lead - "All 2nd level got one... for self-defense, a dangerous thing, accountable, in the morning I issue - in the evening you return. Better just don't take it out, you'll kill yourself. That's all... go..."


Office. 13th floor. Guys' workplaces.

Danila and Ivan hold a surfboard, on which they put Alexander and emulate a wave, cheerful music plays (from Alexander's laptop). The team lead enters:

"Do you guys have nothing to do?"

Turns off the music.

"Anarchy, no management, we're storming a bit, brainstorming how to live further..." - says Alexander, removing his sunglasses.

"You irresponsible types, you demoralize your neighbors... look they're sad over there... and they still have to write code... or whatever they do.

Oh, OK, let me ride the board too" - climbs onto the board - "But if they fire me, you're going as freight cars... Crank it!..."


Dome. Office. 1st floor reception.

A courier brought pizza (many boxes). By the reception the courier talks on the phone:

"Pizza delivery... to a Hawaiian party... with pineapples... 30 boxes... no rum, none... no, not run out... none in general... lei flowers?... listen, you only ordered pizza..."

The girls at the reception whisper:

"Listen, do those developers there really work?"

Another courier approaches the reception. Rings.

"Flower delivery. To a party. Hawaiian wreaths, orchids, hibiscus, plumeria. Good."

Hands the secretaries several orchids: "Told to deliver to you... personally..."


Office. 8th floor.

Gobel walks down the corridor with a tablet and a thoughtful look (4 large armed bodyguards follow him inconspicuously, pretending to stroll). The curator notices some disorder on his tablet, frowns. At this moment from the meeting room ahead of him the team lead emerges. Gobel:

"Oh, your pass works on the 9th?"

"Yes."

"The day before yesterday the admin was fired there and the equipment burned, they should have replaced it already, can you check?..."


9th floor server room (Kolyan's former server room)

The team lead enters from the anteroom into the hall with server racks, one rack is specifically burned out and no one replaced anything there. He pulls out one burned blade, looks at it, blows, a cloud of toxic black soot rises into the air, the team lead manages to squint, but still smears his face. He takes out a handkerchief to sneeze and goes out to the anteroom. But the sneeze freezes in his mouth... There...

The team lead sees the back of the Black Architect, bent over the desk with the admin control monitor. With a trembling hand he takes out the case with the laser scalpel, almost drops it, comes closer. The laser beam pierces the Architect's shoulder blade, exits the chest and burns through the monitor. The Architect immediately disappears, only drops of blood remain on the desk... The team lead approaches the desk, feels it as if trying to find the invisible body, drops of sweat run down his forehead from fear. From behind him we see how a trail of scarlet drops approaches the team lead. The team lead soars above the floor and flies to the middle of the room, he drops the scalpel near the desk. The scalpel rises up, from it a laser beam strikes, it describes a contour around the team lead and the floor under him falls down, the team lead with a stone slab falls to the floor below.

The laser scalpel quickly cuts circles in the floor one by one, and the team lead falls lower and lower, until he reaches -1 floor. Lies stunned in the dimly lit machine hall, cement crumbs sprinkle on him from above. Dust settles.

The Black Architect unhurriedly flies down from above, lands and comes close to the defeated enemy. About 20 black cubes rotate around the Architect in a complex trajectory, between his fingers he holds a gold one. He begins removing the hood.

The team lead looks at the Architect in surprise:

"Webby, is that you?"

A close-up is taken of the team lead, only he is visible. The well-known to the viewer metallic clap rings out and into the lit center of the machine hall slowly flies out a silvery thin string with golden overflows... Soulful sad music plays.

End of Episode 7.


Episode 8: The Dome Collapsed


"Webby, is that you?" - says the astonished team lead.

View from a different angle, from the side.

Masha stands next to the team lead, in her hand a golden cube.

A guard bursts into the machine hall, hesitates seeing Masha, points the scalpel at her... and turns into a string. The string slowly floats to the center of the hall.

"It's me, as you see. They told you, don't take it out, you'll kill yourself."

Masha presses a handkerchief to her chest with one hand, it soaks with blood, with the other hand takes out the scalpel, carefully puts it in the team lead's pocket.

"Don't do it again. Go."

"Well, am I to go?.."

"Go."

The team lead rises from a crawl to his feet, still in shock, fearing a shot in the back, backs away to the exit. In the middle of the hall he begins to go around the hanging string in a wide arc, finally turning his head away for a second and saying:

"And one more question..."

But Masha is no longer in the hall.


Office. 13th floor.

Ivan, Danila and Alexander sit at workstations, in the background - bead garlands of flowers and pineapples, aftermath of the Hawaiian party.

"Guys, I just remembered, that time at the interview you said you graduated from Bauman MSTU... Well... I also graduated from there. Consider it brotherhood."

"Yes, department IU-5" - Danila confirms.

"Databases?" - Alexander is surprised. "I'm also from IU-5!"

"Our dean, of course, was a beast, always wanted to expel me" - Danila continues. - "Kolbin..."

"Andrey Viktorovich" - Danila and Alexander finish in chorus.

"What... wait... wait... and you have Kolbin... uh... 36 years... even more..."

"Coincidence? I don't think so..." - Ivan says profoundly.


Year 1990. University. Auditorium.

Dean of IU-5 Kolbin Andrey Viktorovich finishes the lecture. On the board are drawn comparative tables on symmetric and asymmetric encryption, DES, RSA, GOST 28147-89, Diffie-Hellman, initialization vector, Zhegalkin polynomial.

"At the next lesson - analysis of XOR operations in the DES algorithm and Vernam cipher..."

Students disperse.

The dean wipes the board. At some point the auditorium becomes deserted and quiet.

The dean turns around, in the middle of the auditorium sits the Black Architect.

The dean, removing his glasses: "And I was told that even a mouse can't slip through the barriers of temporal cryptoblockade... experts... pfah... lying scoundrels..."

Masha, removing the hood of the black robe:

"Hello, FATHER..."


Year 2026. Dome. Office. Curator Gobel's room.

He sits alone in the chair. On the desk a laser scalpel, on the scalpel an eraser, on the eraser a sharpener, on the sharpener still an intact pyramid of paperclips. Gobel with a businesslike serious look places another paperclip on top and the whole pyramid collapses... Closes his eyes. Behind him is heard a beep. Opens eyes, listens. The beep repeats.

Walks to the wall. Everything is quiet. Leans his ear in. A short beep. Thinks. Then grabbing the edge of the panel, pulls it sideways and the wall opens, and behind it...

Behind it... in a closet on long rows of shelves lie black cubes small and bigger, in the center lies a particularly large cube the size of a good printer and on it letters or numbers occasionally appear. And from it a beep is heard.

"So after all the pessimistic option..."


Year 1990. University. Auditorium.

Kolbin: "Hi, daughter! It's been quite a few years since we... uh... talked. Like 30? Let's hug!"

Masha sighs - "I'm not here for that..."

"I know, I know... Just to kill. Yes it's just business, is it worth talking about trifles now. Are you aware in general that you can no longer return from this century, space will dissolve you. Even I, somewhat an expert on chrono-blockades, and Supreme Architect, am in voluntary imprisonment here. Living out my days..."

"Not days, but seconds..."

"Why are you like this... You need it, I was wrong, you also sometimes got hot, but we're people, not soulless machines..."

"Nice, you veiled it so well: was wrong, got hot... I know that the blood of all those unfortunate people is on me..."

"Well they all did their duty... soldier's fate... to kill... to die... in general a fair duel."

"I turned them all into strings, such thin, graceful, small and defenseless, but if people knew what gigantic metal ribbons are now flying over Jerusalem in the 34th... and who is to blame..."

Masha wipes a tear: "In memory of those millions of ruined souls, I sentence you to death!

In 2 years a fleet from Alpha Centauri will arrive here and bring order to the Council, but you - the cunning master of skillful chrono-traps will no longer be able to prevent them..."

Kolbin: "Well, your honor, the sentence is passed... not subject to appeal, the defense doesn't object, ah... there wasn't any... have to do everything myself..."

The camera does a semicircle over them, we see that behind Masha in her hand a golden cube hovers... behind Kolbin in his hand a ruby and a black (Vantablack) cube.


Office. 13th floor.

The guys sit at the computers.

"And then he asks me, what's faster, encryption or hashing" - Alexander tells - "And I to him: Is the hash salted or not?... Got him an F..."

In the distance of the corridor the team lead appears, all dirty-dusty, with scratches, detached face.

Approaches the guys.

"Well, what a sight" - comments Alexander - "did you meet the Architect, heh-heh?"

The team lead is silent. And his gaze is enlightenedly sad. With only his eyes he conveys: Yes.

Everyone instantly becomes serious.

"No way?!"

"Sanya, you were asked to come up to the server room on the 9th... in about two hours."

"Who?"

The team lead is silent. Looks piercingly.

"Him?..."

"Her."


Year 1990. University.

Denis walks down an almost deserted corridor, passes by, the door to an auditorium, and is attracted by strange sounds, as if behind the door someone is stretching giant metal strings and rubbing metal on metal at this with humming as in a transformer booth. Denis approaches closer, the hum intensifies. Denis wants to open the door, but it with a crack and explosive thunder flies out right at him and slams Denis into the wall back-first.

Dust and some silver and gold crumbs in the air settle while the concussed Denis climbs out from under the door. Denis enters the auditorium. There is both dust and smoke there, but visibility improves, as all the windows are broken and a draft blows through. All the furniture is broken, the writing board lies on the floor and slightly burns. Denis takes out glasses from his pocket (half-broken), squints, puts on.

From behind the lectern flies right toward Denis through the air an amazingly beautiful silvery string with black and emerald specks (sad but anxious music plays). The writing board on the floor begins to move. From under it crawls out the stunned Masha, with difficulty rises, puts out the slightly smoldering robe. Approaches the string and touches it. A mighty muffled single ring of a Universal bell sounds. The string dissolves in the air.

"I'm sorry it all ended like this, Papa..."

Denis stands stunned but doesn't dare run.

"Hi, Denis."

Stupor. Silence.

"You're Denis, Danila's friend, right?"

"Uh-huh."

"He's fine. Sends you greetings. You'll see him I think, but it'll be a few years.

This was a sad moment just now... saying goodbye to father... I'm an orphan now... But don't think I'm just unhappy... white... fluffy... All kinds of things happened... Mom said I'm like my father... so this black curse is on me too... Fate is a villain...

I've talked your ear off probably, you have to go?"

"Naw..."

"With you it's winter now... soon spring... I love spring. Pussy willow, tulips, birthday in March. Many years already in general. And your century is good and the people... normal people... how much you have still ahead of you... but I have no moral right to stay here... after this... let's not be sad, OK?"

"Naw."

"Won't be?"

"Naw. Won't be."

"Here for memory" - Masha takes from somewhere under the desk debris her somewhat scorched bag, hands it to Denis - "burned a bit. Hug?!"

Hugs stunned Denis.

"Blessings to you!"

Disappears into the air.

The camera describes a semicircle over the dazed confused Denis and the ruins of the auditorium, somewhere in the background a lamp falls from the ceiling with a ringing crash.


Office. 9th floor. Kolyan's server room.

Masha materializes in the hall and exits into the anteroom. Her appearance is bad, the wound on her chest bleeds, dark circles under her eyes, one arm is missing up to the elbow.

She reaches the control monitor, taps with the stump of her hand at the keyboard, in her other hand a small bundle, places it on the desk, the monitor lights up. Masha types with one hand on the keyboard very quickly...

From the corner of the anteroom from behind a shelf Alexander steps out.

"Hi, Masha... the team lead told us everything... Why me?"

"Well that's because, Sash, it seemed to me that I'm not indifferent to you. Stop, don't touch me! I got intoxicated by antimatter. It's lethal!"

"What happened to you. How to help?"

"Help... yes you can..."

Maria's one arm completely disappears and the second up to the elbow.

"Press Enter, be a friend..."

Alexander presses.

"So... wait five seconds, now arrow up 3 times and again Enter."

Alexander presses. In his eyes - despair from the dawning understanding that he can no longer help Masha...

"Done!.. Sanya, the Architects' association thanks you for assistance.

Can you help a little more?! Take the bundle from the desk. In the future... in a couple of years or more, people will come to you, give it to them.

And now very important information: in 5 minutes the whole building will collapse, I warned your friends, run quickly outside, SAVE YOURSELF!"

Masha becomes particularly pale.

"Mash, I never confessed to you..."

"I know, Sash, I know everything... All would have been well for us, but the sins of the past... or of the future demand retribution... time has come... wanted to personally... with you... saaay goodbyyyye..."

Dissolves in space.

"Farewell..."


Office. 13th floor. Guys' workplaces.

On Danila's and Ivan's email and on the smartphone of the sitting nearby team lead simultaneously arrive messages. They read them. Jump up.

"Sanyok will be saved, WE BAIL!"

They run through the office hall (in which almost no people remain)

"There's a bomb in the building! Save yourselves!"

"Everyone to the stairs. Don't use the elevators..."

Next frame: view of the tower from the street. People run out of all doors outside. About 100 people have already run out and dispersed nearby.

About 60 meters from the building, on a lawn stand Danila, Ivan and the team lead.

"There he is!" - says Ivan, as the most eagle-eyed. Alexander runs out of the building. And in time...

The Palladium Dome tower before the eyes of the astonished crowd collapses... into a giant writhing metal ribbon and the wind quickly carries it into the sky... away...


Year 1990. Moscow.

Denis enters his home, opens the bag Masha gave him, inside is a laptop. Denis turns it on, on the desktop a text file is open.

"Hi, Denis! I'm stuck in 2026. Tell grandma I went on a business trip, I'll call her later.

Keep the laptop, they said I can. It's a good model, Russian-Chinese.

Danila."


2026. Moscow. Near Kropotkinskaya metro.

Friends walk to the metro.

"It's late already" - says Danila - "Sash, don't you mind that we're all coming to your place? Sash?!"

"Uh-huh."

Alexander is heavily depressed.

"What's that little bundle you have?"

They stop.

Alexander unfolds the cloth, inside lies a palladium ingot weighing about 3 kg with the Dome's emblem.

On it is written: Pd 99.96 black edition.

"This is what Masha gave me..."

Everyone gets sad.

"OK, let's go."

"For some reason I want to sleep from the stress..."

"You're on the folding bed then."

"Makes sense."

"And do you snore?"

"And will you tell about Bizhuzha?"

The friends enter the Kropotkinskaya metro.

From the metro a silvery Tesla Model X drives off and zooms into the nighttime Moscow.

THE END.


Moscow 2026.