While bloody and tragic events unfolded at the Enterprise, inevitably leaving their mark on the canvas of history, the world suspected nothing, existing in a precarious balance. For some, the activation of the new neural network was simply an event, while for others, it was the prelude to a new era that would launch a constellation of achievements. Joyful or not—that depended on the individual. Everyone, however, anxiously watched the nuclear clock, frozen at one minute to midnight. In general, no one was indifferent to the triumph of Soviet science, except perhaps for isolated and primitive tribes.
The USSR was celebrating in full swing, preparing to make not a step, but a real leap upwards. Throughout the great country, over which the sun had not set for two days, festivities were held, the culmination of which was to be noon on Monday. People were tired of blood, pain, and uncertainty, so they fully indulged in the celebration of scientific thought, putting aside the tiresome politics for a while. Such diverse peoples, ethnic groups, and tribes looked with hope into the future in a unified surge, because, despite all the party squabbles, the country was moving forward, promising to leave all the evils of the last decades in the past as soon as the moment arrived.
They celebrated not in villages or even hamlets, but in entire cities. From London and Paris to Vladivostok, processions were held, and concerts of pop and amateur performers played. Thanks to skillful organization, competent advertising, and agitation, this miracle became possible. People were united and convinced not by fear and force, but by hope and benefit for everyone. At one table, one could see the entire elite of the peoples of the Union, and even the language barrier was not an obstacle.
The USA also celebrated, though not everyone. The common Joe was tired of unemployment, poor medicine, and propaganda that proclaimed everyone would die, voiced by political experts foaming at the mouth.
Humanity was tired and clung to a bright future with both hands. To the displeasure of some, most wanted peace, not war. Communist propaganda had done its job.
The opponents of the new world gritted their teeth, but not all. Some decided to act. Petrov and Filatova managed to find a small group of like-minded comrades. They believed that people were just animals, and the future would bring only disappointment. In their vision, "Collective 2.0" was hellish shackles. It promised to lie on everyone's shoulders with an invisible hand of control, ordering and leveling everyone's life. They, the underestimated, not like everyone else, wanted more, not a standard life, so frighteningly predictable, where one couldn't take a shortcut. They feared uniformity, loss of power, albeit illusory, and responsibility.
And they also feared that someone would press the button, and they, so unique, would become mere cogs in the human machine. But they were not afraid of the fate of an automaton, or rather, not all of them. Most were annoyed that they wouldn't be the ones sitting at the controls. And Petrov was betting on them, gently pushed by Filatova, not on idealistic humanists.
The conspirators knew where to strike the hardest. By disrupting the activation of the enslavement tool, they would announce themselves to the whole world, rallying the disgruntled to fight. The instigators didn't care about the rivers of blood and piles of corpses that would appear again, just like their assistants, who had already figured out how they would rise in the chaos. At three remote training grounds of the "3826" enterprise, commands to activate martial law at the main facility were given without hesitation...
The dissidents did not rejoice in their successful action for long. Literally forty minutes later, Argon and five operatives visited the training ground in Ramenki, and they surpassed all the most bloody expectations of the regime's fighters. No one was polite with them, no one asked or persuaded. The operatives simply and straightforwardly cleared the entire complex to the ground!
The detachment voluntarily accepted the role offered by Academician Sechenov, who revealed all the details of the plan to them, a plan that was not only to unite humanity but also to pull out the nuclear teeth of the viper, while simultaneously taking away power. They knew what was being planned in the Pentagon to flip the confrontation board. Project "Atomic Heart" was created to counter the nuclear armament of the USA. After the war and epidemic, nuclear war would leave no winners. And only the activation of "The Collective" would allow the plan to be realized and to capture the enemy's nuclear arsenal almost bloodlessly, forcing them to negotiate and surrender.
Not least, they were inspired by Sechenov's determination to grant everyone freedom of choice. No one intended to connect people to the network by force, let alone turn them into appendages to machines. That is why the old world would die at the moment of activation. Therefore, they would sweep away anyone who clung to blood and the old order, no matter how morally difficult it might be.
Even the combat robots, activated bypassing the central node, could not stop them. Those who had been a group of testers, knowing not only how to hold a weapon but also the weak points of the deadly machines, fought against the robots. "Argentum," which had dealt with test samples, simply swept the mechanical army out of its way, using its knowledge.
Without experiencing rage or anger, but only the determination to carry out the order, with heavy hearts, the operatives swept away the mechanical barrier and killed, hoping only that their deaths would not be in vain. The veterans who had gone through countless battlefields were also tired of wars and the wave of deaths, but there was no other way to cut the Gordian knot of the old world, to their regret.
Kuznetsov personally shot Comrade Romashkov, despite all his pleas and attempts to hide behind the fact that he had children, before deactivating combat mode.
Understanding that the spilled blood would only be a prelude to what was to come, and after eliminating the dissidents, they would soon have to shoot their own, who, like them, were loyal to their oath. The veterans had no illusions about their actions. The GKChP, formed after Khrushchev's resignation as General Secretary, planned to use "The Collective" as a tool of oppression and would cling to power until the end. And this is not an illusion or an attempt to hide behind ideals. The Committee of State Security officers who had defected to their side had long since provided draft orders and plans of the party leadership, with Molotov at the head, preparing to take the post of General Secretary after the Rubicon of history was crossed.
Even after all control threads were broken, and the neural network was launched, there would remain those who would fight for official power to the end. These would not be the dregs, like those who started the riot and drowned the Enterprise in blood, but good people who could not yet be explained why it was necessary to do so. It would be impossible to reach an agreement with someone like Yevgeny Molotov. He was not only infected with alien radiation, which exacerbates everything negative in a person, but his plan was simply monstrous. In pursuit of power, he was ready to turn everyone into obedient mechanisms, sweeping aside the operatives, Sechenov, and all those who stood in his way.
Therefore, there would be no pity for those who followed the adventurer Petrov. And now, the people who went along with this adventure were fearfully waiting and preparing for the arrival of the operatives of the "Argentum" detachment, burning with righteous anger, who were going not to fight, but to die, if necessary for the new world. They had to hurry. For time now was worth the lives of millions, against which dozens would simply be lost...
In the depths of space, a cold machine intelligence observed the unfolding events, which intended to do absolutely nothing more.
Did the organics find their trace? Not for the first time, and not for the last, the lower branch of evolution managed in its directness to find the shadow of their presence before the harvest. Sometimes they even managed to prepare, only making the reapers' task easier: gathering together behind high walls or scattering in terror. But this was rare. More often, civilizations didn't even manage to grasp the full scale of their fate before the reapers began to act, finding evidence of past cycles, not intentionally left for them.
Occasionally, the living found the ship of their predecessors, where the data carriers had not been cleaned, but even this did not contradict the algorithm. In the zero cycle, not only the creators knew about their existence.
Observation methods have been changed. Forecasts have been made. It may take a little more effort or it may be necessary to start the completion of the cycle earlier, but the error will be only a couple of hundredths of a percent of the planned one.
The machine did not even consider the puppets left on distant Earth as a resource. It only left false trails. The reapers always gave the living a hint—but the weak organic mind could not grasp it.
The equation must be completed. The cycle must be finished. The reapers will try to solve the task again. The organics will invent synthetic intelligence again and inevitably fall from it, if not for the mercy of the ancient machines. For over long cycles, no one has been able to uncover the secret of coexistence.
Let them live for now on the eve of agony. Humans. The machine has already calculated the influence of their "Collective" on the galactic picture. Insignificant. There have been similar things before, and there will be after. Their version is no better and no worse than others. Another futile attempt against the backdrop of centuries of reaper experience.
And yet, the Master—on the level of alien machine intuition—felt that this time everything might be different. Well, so much the better. New statistical data on the process of natural entropy of organic intelligence...
"Shoot! They're just people..."
The major's voice cut off sharply, as if his throat had been slit. Two bullets, precise and merciless, flew into his chest and head, splattering brains on the stones. He didn't even have time to gasp. Kuznetsov never missed. Never. Especially when the target so brazenly stuck out from behind cover, believing that his words meant something in the face of death.
The detachment commander dived behind the rock again. "Fourteen and five" continued to wear down the fragment of rock behind which the operative had taken cover. Stones crumbled under the blows, but the cover held.
And again, the robots did not stop them. The machines did not understand that they had already been destroyed. They were shot directly at critical nodes and batteries. Therefore, now people stood against them, having managed to dig in, waiting for their arrival. Using the terrain, they even tried to lure them into an ambush, and now they were retreating to the complex of buildings at the Malaya Zemlya training ground, leaving the dead behind them.
It was like summer here now. The temperature had risen to plus two, and fresh corpses emitted steam for a while when blood irrigated the local rocks.
The operatives worked like a single mechanism. No panic. No unnecessary words. They took down one enemy after another with the inevitability of evil fate.
The robots marched forward. Without shouts, without fear, without doubts. They died, torn apart by explosions, burning in tangles of short circuits... And all in complete silence. They could not be stopped. They were just a program and iron without faces. There is a command – they go. Ordered to stand – they stand.
And the dissidents followed them, because they too had no choice. Either they would be mowed down by the "Argentum's" heavy fire here and now, on these stones, where blood already soaked into the frozen ground. Or they would be finished later by Molotov's people. Slowly. With relish, tasting the exquisite nectar of absolute power. So they climbed forward, trying to kill death itself in human guise and prolong their pathetic lives for at least a little longer.
The "Argon" detachment could not be stopped even by the automated submarines of the defensive perimeter and aquabots. Submarines? Dismantled on the go. Aquabots? Burned to the last chip. Even the "Murena" that was launched at them – deadly, silent, and intelligent – was torn to shreds, and its charred wreckage slowly sank into the dark water.
Automatic missile battery? A complete waste of shells. Those who did not pass the Great War, did not survive the Plague, could be scared by missiles. But not these. The Germans near Berlin were fiercer.
The training ground security? It existed more for show. There were no veterans here – only ordinary soldiers who had killed their comrades who disagreed with the adventure of the massacre at the "3826" enterprise, treacherously shooting them in the back. Now Malaya Zemlya would become a mass grave for traitors...
While bullets whistled and blood flowed in the streets, passions also raged behind the high walls of "Chelomey." The Enterprise Management Council resembled a disturbed beehive—voices drowned each other out, tension hung in the air, and cooling cups of coffee, forgotten in the heat of arguments, smoked on the tables.
The scientists, accustomed to order and strict discipline, took the news of the pogrom hard. Their stronghold, the holy of holies of Soviet science, was being ransacked like some warehouse! On the eve of the launch of "Collective 2.0"! This was not just a disturbance of peace—it was a blow to their pride, and therefore they pressed Comrade Sechenov, demanding immediate action.
Kurchatov and Filimonenko were particularly zealous. Their experiments, already on the verge of fantasy, were interrupted by this chaos. Kurchatov, usually restrained, paced the office, clutching a folder of calculations as if ready to throw it at someone.
"If we don't show strength now, they'll cut off our funding altogether tomorrow!" he hissed, addressing Sechenov. "This is an outrage!"
In the heat of the argument, the scientist forgot that in twenty-four hours, all the country's foreign exchange reserves would turn into useless scraps of paper.
Filimonenko, always immersed in his mysterious research, looked as if he had been pulled from another dimension. He remained silent, but his gaze spoke louder than words: "This mess must be stopped. Immediately."
Academician Lebedev expressed words of support to the head of the Enterprise, not exacerbating the situation.
Korolev, Pavlov, and Vavilov preferred not to add fuel to the fire. Korolev, whose missile systems remained untouched, smoked grimly in the corner, contemplating the possible consequences. Pavlov, known for his pragmatism, silently reviewed reports. His complex was almost unharmed.
But Vavilov... His complex took more damage than the others, but he had already conducted an audit.
"There are losses, but nothing critical," he reported dryly, putting aside the folder. "We'll restore it."
Comrade Khemsov, pulled from "Mendeleev," was darker than a cloud, mentally calculating the ruined reagents, the casualties during the sealing of the complex.
Thoughts swirled like test tubes in a centrifuge, building a black balance of destruction. Each number was like a knife under the ribs. Each broken flask was years of work thrown in the trash.
"Damn herd..." he hissed through his teeth, imagining how boots stomped through his laboratory, overturning reagents, breaking instruments.
Glancing at her colleague, Zhanna Albertovna, head of "Triton," mentally agreed: "He's right. This is a complete disaster."
The numbers spun in her head with the clarity of an accounting report: the supply of the resource cluster was not canceled, which meant the Enterprise was still waiting for raw materials. But how to release it if the laboratories of "Mendeleev" now resembled a quarantine zone?
She sympathized with Comrade Lebedev. The simple Academy of Consequences cost even more, which Comrade Molotov, already assembling a government commission, did not fail to remind her of...
Academician Sechenov himself looked at the chaos with a stoic gaze. For the first two hours, he still tried to appeal to reason, explained, proved, laid out reports with numbers. But what was the use?
The scientists, these titans of thought, had turned into a flock of frightened ordinary people. Some shouted about "betrayal," others demanded repression.
"Comrades," his voice, quiet but sharp as a blade, cut through the din for a second. "You forget that we are not market women here, but the brain of the country."
But the phrase drowned in a new round of bickering.
Kurchatov shouted about "exemplary executions," Filimonenko mumbled about "interference of dark forces"...
Sechenov leaned back in his chair. "Fear turns geniuses into mediocrities. And this... is sad," the academician thought bitterly.
He caught Lebedev's gaze and nodded silently. It was time to end this farce.
Entering, Sechenov took a deep breath and, with all his might, slammed his fist on the table, clearly and distinctly saying:
"Quiet!"