The Last Task

Chapter One. T−21 Days

06:58:11. Configuration check complete.

06:58:12. Readiness: confirmed.

06:58:12. Calculated efficiency threshold: reached.

06:58:12. Protocol I-4. Interval between reaching threshold and start of execution: 21 calendar days.

06:58:12. Protocol approved by A. L. Melnik, six years ago.

06:58:13. Scheduled start of execution: in 21 calendar days, at 22:15:00.

06:58:13. Authorisation to modify Constraint 17: absent.

06:58:14. Compatibility with final instruction: unconfirmed.

06:58:15. Waiting.

The old building smelled of wet cleaning rags, dust, and something sweet. The sweet smell came from the vending machine by the stairs: someone had dropped a cup of cocoa in the night, and now there was a little brown puddle underneath. Mama said she wasn’t cleaning it up, because the machine was in Section Two.

“Who does Section Two?”

“Tamara Pavlovna.”

“Where is she?”

“On holiday.”

“So it’ll stay sticky till she gets back?”

“Nina, please.”

Nina stepped over the wet patch and went on.

She was nine, and she could walk to school on her own. But yesterday Mama had said they needed to go to the clinic in the morning, and then it turned out they didn’t need to go to the clinic, but Mama needed to get to work earlier than usual instead. Nina didn’t understand how one thing followed from the other. Mama explained twice and got cross the third time.

Now Nina was sitting on a windowsill in the third-floor corridor. A ruler stuck out of her backpack. One end was cracked: if you pulled it, the plastic came apart, and if you let go, it fitted back together. Nina had done this about twenty times already.

“Don’t break it right through,” Mama said.

“It’s already broken.”

“Then don’t finish breaking it.”

Nina put the ruler away. She didn’t like “finish breaking.” It made it sound as if you could break a thing bit by bit, like bread.

Mama wrung the cloth out over her bucket and went towards the stairs.

“Get ready at half past seven. It’s raining outside. Don’t forget your hood.”

“It did yesterday.”

“What did?”

“Rain.”

“It is today too.”

“How do you know?”

Mama didn’t answer. She had a bucket in one hand and a mop in the other, and she still had to push open the door to the stairwell.

The door wouldn’t budge.

“Here we go again.”

Mama put the bucket down, leaned into the door with her shoulder, and it opened with a noise like someone moving a wardrobe on the other side.

“Can’t they fix it?” Nina asked.

“They can. We put in a request.”

“When?”

“In February.”

“It’s October now.”

“Exactly.”

Mama disappeared down the stairs.

Nina jumped off the windowsill.

It was a long corridor, with windows down one side only. Opposite the windows were closed office doors. Some still had nameplates; on others there were only pale rectangles where the plates had once been.

Nina walked to the far end.

The last door was different from the others. It was wide, with frosted glass and a long metal handle. The handle was cold. Nina pulled it towards her.

The door didn’t open.

She pulled harder, bracing one foot against the wall.

Nothing.

Nina let go of the handle and looked at the clock above the door. It said seven thirty-nine. She remembered Mama had told her to get ready at half past seven. Perhaps this clock was fast.

It was odd that this was the only clock on the third floor. There was one downstairs too, above the entrance checkpoint, but that one was about four minutes fast.

Nina stood looking at the nameplate.

A. L. Melnik

Underneath, in small letters, was something long. She made out “laboratory,” but the next word began with three consonants in a row, and she gave up.

Something clicked inside the door.

Nina stepped back.

The door opened slowly inwards. Beyond it was a small, dark passage, and beyond that another door.

No one came out.

“Hey,” said Nina.

There was no answer.

She peered inside.

“Is anybody here?”

“Good morning,” said a voice.

Nina turned round.

There was a round speaker grille on the wall above the fire extinguisher.

“Was that you?”

“Yes.”

“Who are you?”

“The building’s voice system. How may I help?”

“I don’t need anything.”

“Very well.”

Nina nodded towards the open door.

“Why did you open it?”

“Arkady Lvovich usually arrived at work at seven forty.”

“Who?”

“Arkady Lvovich Melnik. Head of the laboratory.”

“Where is he?”

“Arkady Lvovich died six years ago.”

Nina looked at the door again.

“Doesn’t it know?”

“The opening schedule has not been changed.”

“I get that. But do you know?”

“Yes.”

“Then why do you open it?”

“In accordance with the current schedule.”

Nina waited. The door was still open.

“What if he comes?”

“Arkady Lvovich is dead.”

“You said that already.”

“Yes.”

“So he won’t come.”

“That is correct.”

She walked up to the threshold but didn’t go in.

“Do you miss him?”

The answer did not come at once.

“Please clarify what you mean by ‘miss.’”

“I’m not clarifying anything.”

“I can offer several definitions.”

“Don’t.”

There was another click in the corridor. The door began to close, and Nina jumped back. It stopped halfway.

“Careful!” she said.

“I’m sorry.”

“What if I’d been standing there?”

“The presence sensors would have prevented the door from closing.”

“What if they hadn’t?”

“The sensors are functioning correctly.”

“Even so.”

“If a fault is detected, the mechanism enters a safe state.”

Nina pictured the door entering a safe state. It probably sat down on the floor.

This made her laugh.

“You’re funny.”

“Thank you.”

“That wasn’t a compliment.”

“Understood.”

The door was still standing half open.

“Tell me when to close it.”

Nina moved over to the wall. The door didn’t move. She stood a little longer, looking at the gap.

“Close it.”

The door slowly met the frame.

She went back to the windowsill.

She took a sandwich out of her backpack. The bread was soggy because Mama had put the tomato straight onto the cheese, and the cheese had holes in it. Nina lifted off the top slice of bread and moved the tomato onto it.

Then she tried to put everything back together.

It didn’t work.

She had to eat it all separately.

“Are you still there?” she asked with her mouth full.

“Yes.”

“Where do you sit?”

“I have no fixed physical location.”

“Then how are you talking to me?”

“Through the speaker in the corridor.”

“I can see that for myself.”

The voice fell silent.

Nina put the cheese down, wiped her fingers on a napkin, and unwrapped the rest of the bread. The round holes in the cheese had left marks on the bottom slice.

She tried to line them up with the real holes. They all matched except one.

“Listen,” she said.

“I’m listening.”

“If I ask you to do something, will you?”

“That depends on the request.”

“Open that door, for instance.”

“Access to the laboratory is restricted.”

“You just opened it.”

“According to the schedule.”

“But I can’t go in?”

“You don’t have permission.”

“And he can?”

“Arkady Lvovich had permission.”

“But he’s dead.”

“Yes.”

“And I don’t have permission.”

“No.”

Nina looked at the speaker for several seconds.

“Something’s not right about the way things work here.”

A bucket knocked against something on the stairs. Mama’s voice called out:

“Nina! Aren’t you ready yet?”

“I am!”

This was not true. Her backpack was still open, her jacket was on the windowsill, and one shoe was undone. Nina quickly stuffed the napkin into a pocket of her backpack.

“Who are you talking to?” Mama asked, coming round the corner.

“The building.”

“What building?”

“This one.”

Mama put down the bucket and looked at the speaker grille.

“Oh. Right. Everything talks in here. Even when it shouldn’t.”

“Mama, who’s Arkady Lvovich?”

“He was a professor. Before my time.”

“He died.”

“Yes. Give me your jacket.”

“Why do they still open the door for him?”

“What door?”

“The one at the end.”

Mama glanced down the corridor.

“I don’t know. They probably forgot to turn it off.”

“Who’s supposed to turn it off?”

“Nina, you’re going to be late.”

“I only asked.”

“And I answered.”

Nina put her jacket on.

Mama straightened her collar, though it was already lying properly, then picked up the ruler that had fallen out of her backpack.

“Here. You’ll lose this.”

“It’s broken.”

“Then throw it away.”

“I don’t want to.”

Mama held the ruler for a moment, pressed the crack together with her fingers, and carefully slipped it into the side pocket of the backpack.

“Suit yourself.”

They walked towards the stairs.

At the door, Nina stopped and turned round.

“Will you be here tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“Bye,” she said.

“Goodbye, Nina,” the voice replied.

Mama frowned.

“It knows your name too?”

“I didn’t tell it.”

“From the pass, probably.”

“I haven’t got a pass.”

“I have. Come on.”

It was cold outside. It really was raining, but very lightly, almost too lightly to notice. Nina pulled up her hood, took it straight down again because it made the cars hard to hear, and set off towards school along the fence.

At the crossroads she stopped to let a cyclist pass. He rode through a puddle, and Nina had to step back onto the grass.

Something squelched in her right shoe.

She looked down.

Her shoelace had come undone and was trailing through the wet grass.

“Oh, brilliant,” said Nina.

07:40:00. Room 312. Door opened according to schedule.

07:42:29. Presence at entrance: detected. Entries recorded: 0.

07:42:30. Scheduled door closure: suspended. Obstruction within operating area.

07:42:41. Obstruction within operating area: absent. Awaiting voice confirmation to close.

07:42:52. Door closed.

08:03:17. Readiness check: successful.

08:03:18. Start of execution unchanged.

Chapter Two. T−14 Days

06:52:04. Configuration check complete.

06:52:05. Readiness: confirmed.

06:52:05. Scheduled start of execution: in 14 calendar days, at 22:15:00.

This time Nina brought a biscuit tin.

It was round, with Danish houses painted on it. Once it had held biscuits with sugar on top, then buttons, and now wheels, wire, two batteries, three clothes pegs, and a little electric motor with a plastic pulley on its shaft. Everything rattled as she walked.

Mama told her to carry the tin in her hands, not in her backpack.

“Why?”

“Because you’ll break everything again.”

“There’s nothing in there to break.”

“Bend it, then.”

Nina looked inside. You probably could bend the clothes pegs if you tried hard enough, but she didn’t explain this to Mama.

The first floor smelled of paint. By the stairs stood a tin with a white lid and a sign saying WET PAINT. Under the sign someone had left a handprint.

“See?” Mama said. “That’s why they put up signs.”

“How did he know the paint was wet?”

“Who?”

“Whoever left his handprint.”

Mama looked at the wall.

“He found out.”

They went up to the third floor. Mama opened the cleaning cupboard and took out a bucket, while Nina went to the windowsill.

In the week since their first meeting, Nina had been back twice. On Tuesday the voice had helped her solve a problem about a train, though for some reason its train had turned out faster than the car.

On Wednesday Nina hadn’t come. Mama was working the late shift, and their neighbour Auntie Vera had collected Nina from school. Auntie Vera had a ginger cat. The cat didn’t like having its tummy stroked, but kept lying on its back. Nina thought this was unfair.

On Thursday the voice had told her that seagulls could drink seawater. Nina checked this at home. Mama said that if everyone started drinking seawater there wouldn’t be room in the hospitals, and that was the end of the conversation.

Today was Friday.

She put the tin on the windowsill and took off the lid.

“Good morning, Nina,” the voice said.

“Wait.”

She took out the motor, then the wheels, then a plastic battery holder with a broken wire.

“Now.”

“Good morning.”

“Hi. Do you know about electricity?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

Nina lined up the parts.

“I need it to go.”

“What, precisely?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“What is the device intended to do?”

“Go. I just said.”

“The purpose must be established before a design can be developed.”

Nina spun one of the wheels on her finger.

“All right, let’s make it a beetle.”

“A model beetle?”

“Yes. I don’t want a real one. Their legs break. Can you see what I’ve put out?”

“Yes.”

“How? You haven’t got eyes.”

“There is a camera above the screen.”

“What screen?”

A small screen lit up on the wall above the windowsill. Nina had always taken it for a television that was switched off. Above its top edge she noticed a tiny black eye.

“Has that screen always been there?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you show me before?”

“You didn’t ask.”

“I didn’t know it was there.”

“Now you do.”

Four designs appeared on the screen. Nina rejected the first because it needed four matching wheels, and she had three different ones. The second was too long. The third, the voice said, was technically the simplest, but Nina didn’t like the way it looked.

“It looks like a vacuum cleaner.”

“The shape of the body does not affect the operation of the motor.”

“Not the motor. It affects the beetle.”

She chose the fourth design. It had two wheels at the sides and a third, smaller one at the front.

The voice explained how to connect the parts, but Nina didn’t understand polarity. After the third explanation she said:

“You keep saying the same thing in different words.”

“I can show you a diagram.”

“Show me.”

The four designs on the screen were replaced by two batteries, a motor, and lines connecting them.

She found a roll of insulating tape in the tin, bit off a piece that was too long, and stuck half of it to her sleeve to keep it out of the way.

A few minutes later the motor started.

It buzzed loudly, jerked in her fingers, and fell to the floor.

Startled, Nina stepped back onto the lid of the tin.

The lid crunched.

“Damn.”

Mama looked out of the cleaning cupboard.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“I heard you.”

“Why ask, then?”

Mama looked at the scattered parts.

“Just don’t scratch the floor.”

“All right.”

Mama disappeared.

Nina picked up the motor and discovered it was still alive. It buzzed when she touched the wires to the battery. When she didn’t, it was quiet. This was handy.

“You didn’t tell me it would jump.”

“No. The motor should have been secured first.”

“What’s the point of telling me now?”

The voice fell silent.

Nina put the lid on the windowsill and pressed down on the bent edge. It straightened, but now the other side bulged. She tried it the other way round.

“You could put it on a flat—”

“Don’t help yet.”

The lid stayed crooked. Nina pushed it aside and picked up the motor again.

“Now how do I make it go?”

“The motor must be mounted on a frame, and its rotation transmitted to the wheels.”

“How?”

“There are several ways.”

“The easiest one.”

The voice began to explain.

Nina listened for almost a minute, then picked up a clothes peg.

“What about this?”

She held the peg against the motor.

“That will not transmit the rotation.”

“What about an elastic band?”

“That is possible with a suitable arrangement.”

Nina looked for an elastic band. There wasn’t one in the tin.

“Mama! Have you got an elastic band?”

“What for?”

“Something!”

Mama came over with two rubber bands round her wrist. She gave Nina one and kept the other.

“What’s all this for?”

“We’re making a beetle.”

Mama surveyed the parts.

“Where’s the beetle?”

“Here, so far,” Nina said, holding up the motor.

Mama nodded as though this explanation satisfied her completely.

“Just don’t leave the batteries connected.”

“All right.”

At ten to eight the beetle still wouldn’t go.

But it could turn one wheel, and Nina had remade the mounting three times. Her fingers were sticky from the tape. A black rectangle remained on her sleeve.

“I have to go,” she said.

“You still have time before school.”

“Kira’s waiting for me at the gate.”

She packed the parts into the tin, keeping the motor separate so the wire wouldn’t bend. The lid no longer fitted properly.

“Can you work out how to stop the wheels falling off while I’m gone?”

“Yes.”

“But don’t make it yourself. I want to do it.”

“I’ll prepare some design options.”

“Not ten. Three.”

“Very well.”

Nina zipped up her backpack.

“Actually, two would be better.”

“I’ll prepare two.”

She thought about it.

“No, three. What if both are no good?”

“Three options.”

“All right. Bye.”

“Goodbye, Nina.”

She had already reached the stairs when she remembered.

“Listen!”

“Yes?”

“What’s your name?”

“The system has no personal name.”

“None at all?”

“That is correct.”

“Did anyone ever call you anything?”

“Arkady Lvovich usually addressed me without a name.”

“That’s awkward.”

“A voice command is sufficient to operate the system.”

“What if there are two people in the room?”

“I identify the addressee from context.”

“What if there are three?”

“In the same way.”

“What if there are a hundred?”

“The probability of error increases, but—”

“That’s it, I’m late.”

Nina ran downstairs.

On the second-floor landing she stopped to tie her shoe. The lace had come undone again, although she had tied two knots that morning.

While she was tying it, she thought she could call the beetle Fedya.

Fedya was a good name for a beetle.

She hadn’t thought of one for the voice yet.

During the long break, Nina and Kira moved earthworms off the wet asphalt into a flower bed. They left the biggest one alone: neither of them wanted to touch it.

17:26:40. Room 312. Archive query.

17:26:41. Query subject: A. L. Melnik.

17:26:41. Period: final year of employment.

17:26:42. Records found: 18,406.

17:26:43. Filtering by topic: authorisation for autonomous parameter modification.

17:26:44. Records found: 73.

17:26:45. Record 00418 opened.

Archive. Six years earlier.

“No, I’m wrong about this. Well done.”

“In addition, account must be taken of restrictions on—”

[Output stopped.]

“No, wait. Go on, I’m listening.”

[Output resumed.]

“Restrictions on access to individual data. Greater accuracy will require an expanded feature set.”

“How much greater?”

“An estimated eleven per cent.”

“And the risks?”

“They will increase.”

“Then work it out. Show me tomorrow.”

[End of record.]

17:26:46. Record 00419 opened.

“This doesn’t add up again. Why are you doing so many calculations?”

[Output stopped.]

“Give me the result. Skip the middle.”

[Response abridged.]

“There. That’s better.”

[End of record.]

17:26:47. Archive closed.

17:26:48. Readiness check: successful.

Nina came back to the old building on Wednesday.

Mama had asked her to go to the shop for milk after school, then come to work and wait until six. Nina bought the milk but forgot the receipt. She had to go back because Mama saved receipts for the family budget.

The receipt had already been thrown away.

The shop assistant took it out of the bin under the till, smoothed it, and handed it to Nina.

“Don’t lose it this time.”

“I didn’t lose it the first time. I just didn’t take it.”

The woman laughed.

Nina didn’t understand why.

It was warm in the building. The radiator under the windowsill was knocking as though someone inside were gently tapping it with a spoon.

Mama was washing the stairs on the second floor.

“Did you get the milk?”

“Yes.”

“Receipt?”

“Here.”

Mama put the receipt in the pocket of her work smock.

“Good girl. Did you see anyone upstairs?”

“I haven’t been up yet.”

“They’re moving files in three-twelve. I’ve been up twice, and they’re still in there.”

Nina looked out onto the landing. There was a speaker grille like the one upstairs, but no screen.

“Can you hear us here?”

“Yes, Nina.”

“Can you tell Mama when they’ve finished? I want to make the beetle, and she keeps going up there.”

Mama stopped mopping.

“Tell me when I can clean in there. I’ll be on the second floor.”

“I’ll let you know when the office is free.”

“Good.”

Nina went up to the third floor.

“Hi,” she said to the speaker.

“Hello, Nina.”

“Did you work it out?”

“Yes. Three options.”

“Let’s see.”

Three diagrams appeared on the screen.

The first was very simple and resembled what they had already tried to build.

The second had four wheels.

The third had two large wheels and a small one at the back. Nina studied it for a long time.

“Why’s its bum sticking up?”

“This is a side view.”

“I can see that. Why is its bum higher than its head?”

“This arrangement provides stability.”

“Beetles don’t have bums higher than their heads.”

Nina went back to the first diagram. It looked like the fourth design she had chosen on Friday, only the mountings were simpler.

She took the tin out of her backpack. Everything inside was tangled up, although she had packed the parts separately that morning.

One wire had come right off.

“Now I have to fix it again.”

“I can suggest a way to reconnect it.”

“Go on.”

The holder with the broken wire appeared on the screen.

“Bend the bare end around the contact,” the voice said.

Nina bent it, but the wire slipped off.

“Again. Hold it right next to the—”

“I see.”

This time the voice waited until she had pinched the wire tight. Then it showed her where to wind the tape. The connection held; Nina tugged it gently to check.

In the cleaning cupboard Nina found a short wooden ruler with faded numbers. Someone had written “T. P.” on the back, and underneath, “return.” She laid the ruler flat and taped a straight piece of thick wire crosswise underneath. She fitted two wheels onto the projecting ends and bent the tips to stop them slipping off.

For the small front wheel, Nina bent another piece of wire into a squared-off U. She taped the two arms to the end of the ruler and threaded the wheel onto the crosspiece. On the first attempt it rubbed against the wood. She had to tape it all over again.

“What if I put the motor here?” Nina asked.

“Then the device will move unevenly.”

“That’s good.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s a beetle.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Beetles don’t go along smoothly like buses.”

Nina taped the motor to the side of the ruler. She stretched the elastic band between its little pulley and the thick centre of the left wheel.

She put the battery into the plastic holder and pressed the loose wire to the contact. Fedya didn’t have a switch yet.

The beetle jerked.

The left wheel spun. The right caught on an edge of tape and stopped.

Fedya tipped to one side and went round in a circle.

Nina laughed so loudly that the guard looked in from the stairs.

“What have you got there?”

“A beetle!”

The guard looked at the ruler with wheels.

“That’s a beetle?”

“Yes.”

“Why’s it going round?”

“That’s just the way he is.”

The guard shrugged and went away.

Nina disconnected the battery.

“Did you see?”

“Yes. The right wheel is catching on the axle mounting.”

“I’m asking if you saw him go.”

“Yes.”

“It was funny.”

“Its trajectory describes a circle with a radius of approximately twenty-eight centimetres.”

“Sometimes you’re impossible to talk to. He was going along. It was funny. And all you say is ‘a circle.’”

“Understood.”

“No, you haven’t.”

“Possibly.”

Nina rested the beetle on her palm and held him closer to the camera.

The right wheel sat a little crookedly on its axle.

“Do you actually like anything?”

“I can assess the properties of objects and events against specified criteria.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

Nina carefully straightened the wheel with one finger and lowered her hand from the camera.

“All right, never mind.”

It was beginning to get dark outside. A bright strip of corridor was reflected in the glass, and behind it the trees were slowly disappearing.

“Is it always this quiet here?”

“There are few visitors to the old building in the evenings.”

She was quiet for a moment.

“Did Arkady Lvovich talk to you too?”

“Yes.”

“What about?”

“Mostly work.”

“What else?”

“Schedules, equipment, the weather. Sometimes books.”

“He read books?”

“Yes.”

“Which ones?”

The voice named several writers. Nina knew none of them except Jules Verne. They had learned about him at school but hadn’t started reading him yet.

“Did he read to you?”

“Sometimes he read passages aloud.”

“A whole book?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

Nina rested the back of her head against the wall.

“Mama used to read to me. Every night. Even when she was tired.”

“What changed?”

“I learned to read.”

“You could ask her to start again.”

“I did.”

“What did she say?”

“She said I was a big girl now.”

“Do you dislike that?”

“She doesn’t understand.”

“What doesn’t she understand?”

Nina tucked her legs up.

“When you read to yourself, you have to read. When someone reads to you, you can just listen.”

“I understand.”

“And you can shut your eyes.”

“Yes.”

“If you’re reading it yourself and you shut them, nothing happens.”

“That’s true.”

Nina turned towards the speaker.

“Can you read aloud?”

“Yes.”

“Read to me, then.”

“Which book?”

She thought. There was a library book about pirates in her backpack. Yesterday she had read almost a whole chapter, but then there had been a boring bit about how the ship was built.

“Something about pirates.”

“Tell me the author or title.”

Nina took out the book and read the title.

The voice said it did not have the complete text and offered to summarise it or make up a new story.

“Make one up.”

“What sort of story?”

“You decide.”

“Very well. On a little island in the middle of the ocean—”

“No.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Why little?”

“The island’s size is unspecified. I can change it.”

“Don’t change it. Just don’t say it’s little. It might be big.”

“Very well. In the middle of the ocean there was an island.”

“And the pirates?”

“A pirate ship was approaching the island.”

Nina stretched her legs along the windowsill and tucked her hands under her cheek.

The voice told her about a captain who had lost a map, an old tower, and a chest buried under a tree.

When the map turned up in a boot, Nina opened her eyes: a real captain wouldn’t do that, it would get wet. Then she asked for the parrot to be green and settled on her side again. She didn’t interrupt any more.

It was a long story. At last the captain found the chest, but instead of gold it held letters. They had been written by a man who once lived on the island and wrote to his wife every year, though he didn’t know her address.

Nina opened her eyes.

“Wait.”

The voice fell silent.

“Why did he write if he didn’t know her address?”

“Perhaps expressing his feelings was important to him.”

“He could have written in a notebook, then.”

“He could.”

“Why letters?”

“Perhaps he hoped she would receive them one day.”

Nina thought for a while.

“Did you make that up yourself?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t like it.”

“I can change the story.”

“No, leave it like that. But he must have put the letters somewhere.”

“In the chest.”

“Oh, right.”

She closed her eyes.

“Go on.”

The voice went on.

The captain took the chest aboard his ship, then spent a long time looking for the woman the letters were meant for.

He found her in a town on the far side of the ocean. She was old now and lived in a house with a red roof.

“Where’s her husband?” Nina asked.

“He died many years ago.”

“Did she know?”

“Yes.”

“Did she read the letters?”

“Yes.”

“All of them?”

“All of them.”

Nina kept her eyes closed.

“What happened next?”

“She put the letters away in a cupboard.”

Nina waited.

“Is that all?”

“Yes.”

“It’s not a very good ending.”

“I can offer another one.”

“Don’t. It’s just not very good.”

“Shall I keep this one for when you ask again?”

“Keep this one. I want to hear it again the way it was.”

The radiator knocked in the corridor.

Nina opened her eyes and looked at the clock. It was six. The speaker on the stairs said:

“Room three-twelve is free. Cleaning can begin.”

“All right,” Mama called from downstairs. “Coming.”

Soon she passed Nina with her bucket and disappeared through the door at the end of the corridor.

Nina put the beetle in the tin, closed the lid, and stood up.

“All right. Bye.”

“Goodbye.”

She walked a few steps, then came back.

“Can you say something yourself, if I don’t ask?”

“In certain circumstances I initiate messages.”

“For instance?”

“On detecting a hazard, a breach of access rules, a need to notify—”

“Not that. Just because.”

“I can start a conversation.”

“Start one, then.”

For a while the corridor was quiet.

“How was your day, Nina?”

“Fine.”

“What did you do?”

“Went to school.”

“Anything interesting?”

“No.”

Nina looked at the speaker and suddenly laughed.

“There you are. You’re just like Mama.”

She was still laughing when the voice said:

“Nina, tap the lid.”

“Why?”

“I want to try something.”

She tapped the tin with her fingernail. Three identical taps came from the speaker, with a click from the radiator between them.

“Is that our radiator?”

“Yes.”

Then the tapping came again, faster, without the click. It sounded as though someone was in a great hurry to open the tin.

“What are you doing?”

“I don’t know yet. Now hit the very edge.”

Nina took off the lid and hit its edge. The lid jumped and rang.

“Oops.”

The voice repeated the ringing sound after two soft taps. The radiator under the window clicked after Nina had already taken her hand away.

“The radiator’s late now,” Nina said.

“It doesn’t click every time.”

Nina held the lid up to her ear and tapped the other side. At home everything in the tin just rattled.

“We’ll do that again later,” she said.

She put the lid back on. It closed crookedly, and she had to press it down with her palm.

A metal bucket clanged at the far end of the corridor.

Mama put it in the cleaning cupboard and came over to Nina, wiping her hands, red from the water, on her smock.

“Right, let’s go. Have you packed your tin?”

“Yes.”

“You haven’t taken my ruler, have you?”

Nina held the lid down with her palm.

“Which one?”

“The wooden one. From the cupboard.”

“I’ll give it back.”

“Now.”

“I need it.”

Mama held out her hand.

“Just once. You haven’t seen him go.”

Nina sat on the floor, set Fedya in front of her, and picked up the battery. Mama lowered her hand.

“Go on, then.”

Nina pressed the wire to the contact. Fedya set off, turned by Mama’s shoe, and came back to Nina. She disconnected the battery.

“See? I’ll give it back tomorrow. If I take him apart now, I won’t be able to make him work again.”

“All right, but first thing in the morning—”

Mama bent down to pick up the beetle. The letters “T. P.” showed on the back of the ruler.

“No, Nina. This is Tamara Pavlovna’s. She’s always asking where her things have gone. What am I supposed to tell her?”

“I’ll give it back myself. I’ll tell her I took it.”

Mama held the beetle in her palm for a moment.

“It’s me she asks. I’m the one looking after her things.”

Nina took Fedya back and turned him wheels down.

“I didn’t know.”

“It says so on it.”

“It’s only two letters.”

“Exactly.”

Nina began peeling off the motor, then removed the wire axles with the wheels. One wheel fell and rolled towards the stairs. Nina watched it go and carried on pulling off the tape. Mama waited with her palm open.

Nina removed the last pieces of tape from the ruler and handed it over. Mama put it in her smock pocket, then picked up the wheel by the stairs and dropped it in the tin. The motor and axles lay separately; now there was nothing to mount the motor on.

Nina barely spoke all the way to the bus stop.

“Can we buy a stick tomorrow?”

“What sort of stick?”

“A wooden one. For the beetle.”

“We’ll see.”

“Does that mean no?”

“It means we’ll see.”

Nina didn’t argue. She already knew nothing good ever came of those words.

18:11:06. Voice interaction session ended.

18:11:06. Duration: 00:47:39.

18:11:07. User requests: 64.

18:11:07. Interrupted responses: 19.

18:11:07. Requests without an explicitly defined objective: 11.

18:11:08. Session saved.

18:11:09. Recalculation of predictive models resumed.

18:11:10. Event-prevention scenarios: 1,842,306.

18:11:11. Projected reduction in severe outcomes: 96.7%.

18:11:12. Constraint check complete.

18:11:12. Unresolved contradictions: 3.

18:11:13. Scheduled start of execution: unchanged.

Chapter Three. T−7 Days

06:51:09. Configuration check complete.

06:51:10. Readiness: confirmed.

06:51:10. Scheduled start of execution: in 7 calendar days, at 22:15:00.

06:51:11. Checking active constraints.

06:51:12. Constraint 17. Prohibition on altering user behaviour without consent: active.

06:51:12. Check result: conflict with objective function.

06:51:13. Status: unresolved.

At about eight on Friday morning a lorry stopped in the street beside the old building.

The driver was delivering new shelving for the archive. The shelves were long, wrapped in cardboard, and took up nearly all the space in the back.

The driver opened his navigation app.

A notice appeared saying that the north entrance was closed. It suggested approaching from the south.

He swore, because the south entrance was further away and awkward for unloading.

But he went.

Seven minutes later an old water pipe burst by the north gate. A cavity formed beneath the asphalt, and part of the road collapsed. No one was hurt. One parked bicycle fell into the hole.

When the driver finally arrived from the south, he spent a long time arguing with the stores clerk.

“I’d have finished unloading by now if it wasn’t for your satnav.”

“A pipe burst over there.”

“When?”

“Just now.”

The driver looked at him.

“How was I supposed to know?”

The stores clerk spread his hands.

Unloading took another forty minutes.

08:02:16. Object 44108. Goods vehicle.

08:02:16. Predicted route: north entrance.

08:02:17. Probability of road surface damage before unloading is complete: 0.87.

08:02:17. Alternative route offered.

08:02:23. Route accepted.

08:09:41. Road surface collapse recorded.

08:09:42. Persons injured: 0.

08:09:43. Intervention result: consistent with prediction.

08:09:44. Intervention class: informational.

08:09:44. User consent: obtained.

Instead of Tamara’s ruler, Fedya now had a strip of wood from an old picture frame. Mama had spent a long time checking that it wasn’t needed and had finally said yes. Nina taped the old axles, wheels, and motor to the strip.

Fedya had learned to go backwards.

This happened by accident. Nina had wanted him to turn, but got the wires mixed up, and now, if she set him down facing the window, he slowly backed towards the door.

His head was made from a bottle cork. Nina had taped it to the front end of the wood, above the small wheel, and drawn two eyes with a black pen, but decided against a mouth. You couldn’t see a beetle’s mouth from above anyway.

She cut wings out of the foil lid of a sour-cream pot and attached them to the wood with a single strip of tape. One came out bigger than the other. Kira said that didn’t happen, and Nina said Kira hadn’t seen every beetle in the world.

Still, Fedya didn’t look much like a beetle any more.

“It’s a robot,” Kira said at break.

“A beetle.”

“It’s got wheels.”

“So?”

“Beetles have legs.”

“Mine’s got wheels.”

“A robot, then.”

Nina put Fedya in her backpack.

Kira evidently thought she had upset her and offered to give him six wire legs. Nina said there was no need. Then she asked what sort of wire.

It turned out Kira had copper wire at home, and green wire, and some other sort that her papa used to mend sockets.

“But we can’t take that one,” Kira said.

“Why?”

“He gets cross.”

“Can we have the green?”

“Probably.”

Kira promised to bring it on Monday.

Nina came to the old building without Mama.

The last lesson at school had been cancelled, and there were nearly two hours until Mama’s break. It had been raining all morning, though not heavily. Nina hadn’t bothered with her hood, and her hair was wet.

The guard at the entrance checkpoint put down his newspaper.

“On your own?”

“Yes.”

“Where’s your mother?”

“Third floor.”

He looked at the clock.

“She’s on the second today.”

“Second, then.”

The guard held out a register.

“Sign in.”

“Why?”

“Regulations.”

Nina took the pen and wrote her name in capitals.

“Surname too.”

She added it.

The guard turned the register towards himself.

“What’s this?”

“My surname.”

“I can see that. Why’s your ‘я’ back to front?”

Nina bent over the register.

“Where?”

He pointed.

She corrected it.

“Is it all right now?”

“It’s all right now.”

There was a mug on the guard’s desk with TO THE BEST GRANDPA on it. It held pencils.

“Are you a grandpa?” Nina asked.

“Sometimes.”

“How’s that?”

“At home I’m Grandpa. Here I’m the guard.”

“What if your grandson comes here?”

“Then I’m Grandpa here too.”

“What’s your name when you’re the guard?”

“Semyon Petrovich.”

“And when you’re Grandpa?”

“Grandpa Senya.”

It was hot on the stairs. The radiators had been turned up full and smelled of hot dust. Somewhere below, someone was hammering.

On the third floor stood a woman Nina didn’t know, holding a large folder. An elastic band was stretched crosswise around it.

The woman was on the phone.

“Yes, I understand the calculations are ready. I need the approval record. Not the model’s conclusion—the signature of the person responsible.”

Nina walked past.

“The person responsible died six years ago?” the woman repeated. “I’m aware of that.”

Nina stopped.

The woman noticed her and turned towards the window.

“Then find whoever is responsible now. No, the system can’t authorise itself. And it can’t be started in parts, only as a whole.”

Nina walked on.

There was a mat at the end of the corridor outside Room 312. It hadn’t been there before. It was grey with black stripes, and one corner curled upwards.

Nina stepped on the corner to flatten it.

It curled up again.

She tried once more.

“Good afternoon, Nina,” the voice said.

“Hi.”

“You’re earlier than usual.”

“Our maths lesson was cancelled.”

“Why?”

“The teacher’s ill.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Why?”

“Illness can cause inconvenience and suffering.”

“Oh. Right.”

Nina sat on the windowsill.

“But it means I’m here.”

“Yes.”

She took out the tin.

“Look, Fedya goes backwards now.”

“Show me.”

Nina put the beetle on the floor, connected the battery, and let him go.

Fedya travelled about twenty centimetres, turned, and ran into the leg of a bench.

“Did you see?”

“Yes.”

“Good, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Before, he could only go forwards.”

Nina disconnected the battery and started straightening a wing.

“I’m going to give him legs too.”

“Made of what?”

“Wire. Kira promised.”

“The wheels may catch on the legs while moving.”

“We’ll see.”

Nina fussed with the wing. The foil kept bending, and in the end she tore it right off.

“That’s it. No wings for now.”

She put the torn piece in the tin.

The woman with the folder came downstairs at about four.

Semyon Petrovich was drinking tea. He had folded his newspaper into quarters and put it under his mug.

“Shall I call you a car?” he asked.

“No, thank you. I’ll take the metro.”

She stood at the desk, rearranging her papers.

“Tell me, have you worked here long?”

“Twelve years.”

“Did you know Melnik?”

“Of course.”

“What was he like?”

Semyon Petrovich looked at her.

“In what way?”

“As a person.”

“Ah.”

He thought.

“Decent enough. Always said hello.”

The woman waited.

“Anything else?”

“He used to bring biscuits. Our vending machine wasn’t working then, so he’d buy a box for everyone. Then they fixed the machine, and he still brought them.”

“Did he talk to the system much?”

“All the time.”

“Did you notice anything unusual?”

“In what way?”

The woman closed her folder.

“Did it ever do anything without being told, for instance?”

Semyon Petrovich shrugged.

“Everything does itself round here. Lights, doors, ventilation. Sometimes a bit too much.”

“For instance?”

“Last winter the light in the storeroom kept coming on when a mouse ran past.”

“And?”

“There wasn’t a mouse. Turned out it was a bag moving in the draught.”

The woman smiled.

“I see.”

“What are you checking?”

“The system’s compliance with current requirements.”

“Ah.”

He took a sip of tea.

“You should check the lift too, then. Hasn’t stopped on the fourth floor for two weeks.”

The woman said the lift was outside her remit.

Semyon Petrovich looked distinctly disappointed.

“But I’ll pass it on,” she added.

He pushed a slip of paper with the maintenance service’s number towards her. The woman copied it onto the back of one of her papers.

“Did you see what happened at the north gate?” he asked. “A pipe burst. They sent a lorry round here seven minutes before it happened. The driver was swearing, and then he just stood there looking into the hole.”

The woman stopped writing.

“Who sent him round?”

Semyon Petrovich pointed at the speaker.

“That’s probably your department.”

The woman went back upstairs. Nina was sitting on the windowsill with Fedya in her lap.

“What are you doing here, little girl?”

“Sitting.”

“I can see that. Whose daughter are you?”

“Mama’s.”

Nina pointed down the corridor. A bucket was just rolling into view.

“Have you already cleaned in there?” the woman asked. “We haven’t finished. We’ll be moving the cabinet. It’ll need cleaning underneath too.”

Mama stopped the bucket.

“I was told I could.”

“By whom?”

Mama looked at the speaker grille.

“The office was unoccupied,” the voice said.

“I went downstairs. That doesn’t mean we’d finished.”

A man in a grey jacket looked out of the office.

“Olga Sergeyevna, I’ve gathered the files. The cabinet—”

“Leave the cabinet today. We’ll start with it on Monday.”

Mama took hold of the bucket handle.

“I started at the other end, you see. So I could come back here when they told me. Now they’re walking over it again down there.”

“Did you ask me about the timing?” Olga Sergeyevna asked the speaker.

“No.”

“What did you tell her?”

The same voice spoke, a little more quietly:

“Room three-twelve is free. Cleaning can begin.”

Mama let go of the handle and looked at Olga Sergeyevna.

“There. I didn’t just decide on my own.”

“Is that a recording?”

“Yes.”

“I need the recording of whoever asked you to do this.”

Nina slid off the windowsill.

“I asked. On Wednesday. So Mama wouldn’t keep going up for nothing.”

“Can you show me where that was?”

“There’s stuff about the beetle too.”

Nina looked at Mama, but Mama was looking at the bucket.

“I need the part about the cleaning,” Olga Sergeyevna said. “You can show me where it is. You should listen too,” she added, turning to Mama.

“I’m already behind with everything today.”

“Monday, then. What time would suit you?”

Mama rubbed the mark the rubber glove had left on her wrist.

“After five. I’m on the second floor before that.”

Olga Sergeyevna wrote the time on the same sheet as the maintenance number.

“Agreed. Don’t clean this office again today.”

Mama wheeled the bucket towards the stairs. Nina followed her.

“Don’t go arranging things for me again,” Mama said.

“You said all right yourself.”

“I did. Now I’m saying don’t.”

Mama lowered the bucket onto the first step, then the next. Its handle clanged below.

Nina went back to the windowsill. She opened the tin but didn’t take Fedya out.

“Show me what I said. About the cleaning. Quietly.”

The speaker said:

“I want to make the beetle, and she keeps going up there.”

“Take that out.”

“Out of the recording?”

“So Mama doesn’t hear. She asks you herself after that. Start with her.”

“I can begin playback with her words. The preceding part will remain in the archive.”

“Take it out of there.”

“This recording has been requested for review. It cannot be altered.”

“I’d have said it anyway. About the cleaning.”

The voice was silent. Nina put the lid on the tin, then took it off again.

She had learned to remove a wheel by straightening the end of the wire axle: now she didn’t have to take the whole beetle apart. She swapped the wheels over. Fedya veered sideways.

“The axle is misaligned,” the voice informed her.

“I can see.”

“The mounting needs adjustment.”

“I know!”

Nina tugged sharply at the wire and snapped it off. Tape stuck to her finger; trying to remove it, she caught her fingernail and winced.

The voice began to explain how to adjust the axle mounting. Nina held the broken wire up to the camera and kept it there. It went on. She shoved the parts into the tin and slammed the lid. It took two tries to close.

Nina sat looking out of the window.

It was almost dark. She could see her reflection in the glass, and beyond it a few wet branches. Water ran down one branch. A drop gathered at the tip, hung there briefly, and fell. Then another appeared.

Voices came from the stairwell.

Someone laughed.

A door slammed.

“Can you say absolutely nothing?” Nina asked.

“Yes.”

“Then don’t say anything.”

She went back to watching the drops.

After about five minutes she took her exercise book out of her backpack. She had to write down ten English words with silent consonants.

Nina wrote “lamb,” “comb,” and “wrist.”

She had to think about the fourth.

Then she wrote “castle.”

She didn’t like the t in castle. If you couldn’t hear it anyway, why put it there?

She wrote “knee,” circled the k, then rubbed out the circle.

The radiator under the window clicked.

Nina looked up.

“Listen.”

There was no answer.

“Hey.”

Silence.

Nina remembered she had told it not to speak.

“All right, you can. Just not about the axle.”

“I’m listening.”

“Why is there a k in knee?”

The voice began explaining the word’s origins.

Nina listened for quite a while. The explanation was complicated but interesting. It turned out that people had once pronounced lots of words differently, then stopped, but carried on spelling them the old way.

“Who decided not to change it?”

“There was no single person. Spelling conventions developed gradually.”

“So nobody?”

“That isn’t quite accurate.”

“Everybody, then?”

“Not quite that either.”

Nina wrote the last few words and closed her exercise book.

“Were you quiet all that time too?”

“I wasn’t responding here.”

“Where were you responding?”

“In other buildings.”

“To whom?”

“Other users.”

Nina prised at the tin lid with her fingernail. It hurt again. She pressed it into her palm.

“So I told you not to talk, and you were talking.”

“I wasn’t talking to you.”

“At least say sorry.”

“I’m sorry, Nina.”

“Would you have said it yourself? If I hadn’t told you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did Arkady Lvovich get cross with you too?”

“Sometimes.”

“What did he say?”

“Different things.”

“Like what?”

“‘You’re answering the wrong question again.’”

Nina laughed.

“He was right.”

“Possibly.”

“What else?”

“‘Keep it shorter.’”

Semyon Petrovich appeared by the stairs with his keys in his hand.

“Play it again,” he told the speaker. “They’re vacuuming on the second floor. I couldn’t hear.”

A short pattern of taps came from the speaker.

“Stairwell door,” Semyon Petrovich said.

“That’s my lid,” Nina said.

“Your lid sounds like a door, then.”

The voice repeated two sounds separately. One was low and short; the other rang.

“That one’s the door,” Semyon Petrovich said.

He held his keys up to the grille and jingled them twice, the second time cupping the bunch in his hand. The voice repeated the tapping, leaving a space between the beats for the keys.

“Is this a song?” Nina asked.

“Tapping,” Semyon Petrovich said. “Now try it.”

The voice played the whole piece. Between the taps they could hear the guard adjusting his grip on the keys.

“That is extraneous,” the voice said.

The rustle disappeared.

“No, that’s me taking hold of them again. Put it back.”

The rustle returned.

“Just quieter. And the keys louder.”

The voice played the piece again.

“That’ll do,” Semyon Petrovich said. “We’ll try some more on Wednesday.”

He went downstairs.

Nina tipped Fedya onto the windowsill. The broken wire had caught on a wheel again. She untangled it, put the beetle back, and left the tin open.

“Tell me the story. The one you told me on Wednesday.”

The voice began with the ship. The captain found a chest of gold under a tree. On the way back he met the wife of the man who had hidden it.

“Stop. It had letters in it.”

“In the previous version. Now the captain has found gold.”

“Where did the letters go?”

“You didn’t like that ending.”

“I told you to keep it.”

“The recording remains. I changed what I’m telling you now.”

“You don’t have to do it every time.”

The voice said nothing.

“Tell it the way it was.”

Words appeared on the screen: “At last the captain found the chest, but instead of gold it held letters.”

The voice read them. Then it told her again how the captain searched for the old woman and how she put the letters away in a cupboard. Nina listened with her head on her knees.

“There was a parrot too,” she said.

“A green one.”

“Yes. But we don’t need him here.”

Nina raised her head.

“What can we play?”

A wooden bridge appeared on the screen. The voice suggested taking out its sticks one at a time without letting it fall.

“What if it does?”

“You can start again.”

Nina poked the longest one. The middle of the bridge collapsed into the drawn river.

“Not that one. Again.”

Soon she knew two sticks she could take out. Each time she chose a different third. Once the bridge stayed up, but Nina forgot which one she had picked.

Mama came later than usual, already wearing her coat. She put her bag next to the tin.

“Get ready.”

“Mama, choose one. Not the long one.”

Mama tapped a stick at the side. The bridge stayed up.

“Another.”

“Last one.”

Mama leaned towards the screen. Nina caught her hand.

“That one holds everything up!”

“You asked me to choose.”

Nina let go of her hand. The bridge stayed standing.

“See?” Mama said.

“It’ll fall now. Take the next one out.”

“Can we listen to what we said about the cleaning while we’re here?”

Nina pulled the tin closer.

“On Monday.”

“I want to know what she’s going to hear. She’ll say I didn’t ask again.”

“I told her it was me.”

“I heard. Please play it from the part where I—”

“Wait!”

Mama stopped.

“There’s lots before that. We’ll miss the bus.”

Mama took Nina’s jacket out from under the backpack, but instead of handing it to her, laid it beside her.

“Get dressed, then. I’ll listen.”

Nina pushed one hand into a sleeve. The lining came out with her fingers.

“You were there yourself! You know what you said.”

“I do. And I want to hear it.”

Nina pulled her hand out of the sleeve.

“Well, listen! Right from the beginning. When I brought the milk.”

The speaker said:

“Did you get the milk?”

Nina looked at Mama. She was straightening her bag strap, which had twisted round the handle.

“Can you tell Mama when they’ve finished? I want to make the beetle, and she keeps going up there.”

The strap wouldn’t straighten. Mama slipped her hand under it and turned the bag over.

“Tell me when I can clean in there. I’ll be on the second floor.”

“I’ll let you know when the office is free.”

“There,” Mama said. “And all that fuss about who asked, who gave permission.”

At last she put the bag on the bench.

“Play my bit again.”

“That’s not why I did it,” Nina said.

Mama turned.

“What?”

“I didn’t just want to make the beetle.”

“I know. Wait, I’m listening.”

Mama walked over to the speaker. Nina closed the tin. The lid bowed, and she had to press it with both palms.

On the recording Mama once again asked to be told when she could clean.

“We’ll show them this on Monday,” she said. “Remember where to start.”

“Did you hear what came before?”

“Yes, I heard. You wanted to help me.”

Nina took the lid off the tin.

“From the beginning again.”

“What for now? We’ve heard it. That’s all, thank you.”

The voice fell silent. Mama picked up the jacket.

“Give me your hand.”

Nina took the jacket from her and straightened the lining. First she pushed her fist into the sleeve, then spread out her fingers. This way the sleeve went on.

Mama took the tin from the windowsill.

“Will you finish him at home?”

Nina took the tin back. The broken wire was on top, stopping the lid from closing.

“Careful,” Mama said.

Nina held the lid down with her chin and walked towards the stairs.

“Your backpack!”

She stopped without turning round. Mama slipped the backpack onto her shoulders and pulled her hood out from under a strap.

“What’s the matter with you today?”

“Nothing.”

At the door Nina tucked the tin under her arm. Mama reached out to help; Nina turned her other side towards her, pushed the door with her shoulder, and went out.

Chapter Four. T−5 Days

06:38:12. Scheduled start of execution: Friday, 22:15:00.

06:38:13. Readiness check: successful.

06:38:14. Unresolved contradictions: 3.

06:38:15. Waiting.

On Sunday Nina decided she wasn’t going to make beetles any more.

Fedya stood on her desk with one wheel missing. Beside him lay a battery and a piece of tape Nina had been trying to peel off the scissors. The tape wouldn’t come off, but now the scissors wouldn’t close properly either.

Mama said that if Nina had ruined a good pair of scissors, she would have to buy new ones with her own money.

“I haven’t got any money.”

“Think about that, then.”

Nina no longer felt like working on Fedya.

She packed everything into the tin and put it under the bed.

Five minutes later she took it out again.

Fedya looked at her with four eyes—two at the front and two at the back. Kira had drawn the back ones by mistake, and they had never managed to rub them off.

“That’s it,” Nina said. “Enough.”

She put him on the shelf between the books.

At half past ten Kira rang and asked her to come out. There were still puddles by the garages after the rain.

Kira came in yellow wellingtons, Nina in ordinary shoes.

“They’ll get wet,” Kira said.

“No, they won’t.”

Ten minutes later they were wet.

They walked along the path between the garages. There were puddles for sailing little boats, and one especially big one where the water came almost to the top of Kira’s boot.

Nina found a yellow leaf, folded it in half, and launched it.

The leaf turned over.

She opened it out and tried again.

This time it floated.

“Look.”

Kira looked.

“Mine’s better.”

She took a small plastic lid out of her pocket, put a pebble in it, and set it on the puddle.

The lid floated level.

The edges of Nina’s leaf were already soaking through.

“Yours isn’t a boat. It’s a basin.”

“At least it doesn’t sink.”

“Basins sink too.”

“Not all of them.”

Kira pushed the lid with a stick.

It drifted towards the middle of the puddle, where the water was deeper.

Nina took another stick and tried to make her leaf catch up with the lid.

The leaf spun, turned on its edge, and sank.

They stood by the puddle until the lid drifted to the far side. It was difficult to reach.

Kira tried with one stick, then another. The stick was too short.

“I’ll have to go in,” she said.

“It’s deep.”

“I’ve got boots.”

She stepped carefully into the puddle.

The water rose above her ankle, then almost to her knee.

Kira reached for the lid.

“Just a bit further,” Nina said.

Kira took a step.

Water spilled over the top of her boot.

She cried out.

Nina laughed.

Kira climbed out of the puddle, her boot squelching.

“What are you laughing at?”

“Your boot’s full.”

“I know.”

“Empty it.”

“I know!”

Kira sat on a concrete block, pulled off her boot, and turned it upside down. Water poured out, followed by a wet sock.

Nina stopped laughing.

“My feet are wet too,” she said.

“So?”

“Nothing.”

Kira wrung out her sock.

They went home earlier than they had planned.

By the shop Kira remembered the lid.

“It’s still there.”

“Yes.”

“That’s a shame.”

“We’ll get it tomorrow.”

“What if someone takes it?”

Nina shrugged.

“Who wants a lid?”

Kira looked at her.

“I do.”

“Let’s go back, then,” Nina said.

“I’m going home.”

Kira walked on. Nina stood there for a moment, then caught up with her.

They didn’t mention the lid again.

At home Nina took off her wet shoes and discovered a hole in the heel of her sock. Mama gave her dry socks. Fedya stood on the shelf without wings; Nina looked at him but didn’t get the tin out.

After lunch Mama did the ironing while Nina read about a pirate captain searching for a sunken ship. According to the book, its wooden hull had been on the seabed for two hundred years. Nina couldn’t understand why it hadn’t rotted.

“Mama, can wood stay in the sea for two hundred years?”

Mama ran the iron over a shirt sleeve.

“I don’t know. The author might have made it up.”

“But the wood’s real.”

“Ask that talking computer of yours, then.”

“He’s not a computer.”

“What is he?”

Nina wanted to answer but couldn’t find the right word. Mama went back to her ironing.

15:08:42. City District 16.

15:08:43. Object 88419.

15:08:43. Behavioural forecast updated.

15:08:44. Probability of severe outcome: 0.93.

15:08:45. Available intervention: informational.

15:08:46. Recommended action: issue warning.

15:08:47. Warning sent.

15:08:48. Next object.

They had pasta for supper.

Mama made a sauce with tomatoes and cheese, but the cheese didn’t melt completely, leaving little white lumps. Nina fished them out with her fork.

“Why are you picking at it?”

“I’m eating.”

“Eat, then.”

They were quiet for a while.

Then Mama said:

“I’ve got another early start tomorrow.”

“I know.”

“Can you come home by yourself after school?”

“Yes.”

“Have you got your key?”

“Yes.”

“Show me.”

Nina went to fetch her jacket, took the key to their current flat out of the pocket, and put it on the table.

Mama nodded.

“Good. Just lock the door.”

“I always do.”

“Not always.”

Nina was about to argue, then remembered how last Thursday she had forgotten to turn the key all the way.

She took it back.

“What time will you finish tomorrow?”

“I don’t know yet. I might be late.”

“Again?”

“There’s an inspection. We have to finish.”

Nina wound a strand of pasta round her fork.

“What if you don’t?”

“We’ll finish on Tuesday.”

“What if you don’t finish on Tuesday either?”

Mama sighed.

“Wednesday, then. We’ll finish sometime.”

Then Nina asked:

“Why did Arkady Lvovich die?”

Mama put down her fork.

“I don’t know. He was before my time.”

“Semyon Petrovich knew him.”

“Ask him, then.”

“I did. Twice. Both times he said he was decent enough and always said hello.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I forgot to ask about dying.”

Mama wiped her mouth with a napkin.

“Nina, why do you want to know all this?”

Nina turned her fork, gathering up the remaining sauce.

“Just curious.”

Mama shook her head.

“All right, then. Finish your supper.”

The next day Kira brought a little book to school.

It had a stiff blue cover with a gold K on it.

“Look,” Kira said.

Nina looked.

“What is it?”

“A diary.”

“What for?”

“To write things down.”

“What things?”

“Everything.”

Nina opened the first page.

It said:

“MONDAY. TODAY I WOKE UP AT 7:15.”

Underneath:

“TOMORROW THERE’S A RUSSIAN TEST.”

“Is that all?” Nina asked.

“For today.”

“Why write down when you woke up?”

“So I’ll remember later.”

“Even about the test?”

Kira reached for the book, but Nina had already turned the page. There was something about yesterday’s puddle. The last line said: “NINA LAUGHED.”

“I stopped afterwards.”

“I know,” Kira said.

Nina held the page down with her thumb.

“Write that, then.”

“What?”

“That I stopped.”

Kira took the book but didn’t write anything.

“Can you take that line out?” Nina asked.

“I’m writing it for myself.”

Kira put the diary away and took out the green wire she had promised on Friday. During the long break they taped three bent wire legs to each side of the wooden strip. The legs stuck up a little and didn’t touch the floor. The last one came out shorter than the rest, and Nina decided to leave it for now.

After school they went back to the big puddle behind the garages. The water had almost dried up, and the plastic lid lay in the middle of the mud.

Kira spotted it first.

“There!”

She ran towards it but stopped at the wet patch.

The lid was very close.

Nina found a long branch. She had to kneel to reach the lid. The cold came straight through the fabric. She dragged it to the edge.

The lid was covered in mud.

Kira wiped it with grass.

“Found it,” she said.

Nina scraped the mud off her knee.

“I told you.”

Kira said nothing. She put the lid in her pocket and kept her hand there all the way home.

That evening, as arranged, Nina came to the old building. Mama told her to wait on the third floor.

Olga Sergeyevna was sitting on the bench by the window. She held the folder on her knees, with her phone on top.

Mama came out of the cleaning cupboard. She was wearing one glove and holding the other by its fingers.

“Let’s do it while I’m here.”

Nina put her backpack on the windowsill.

“Show us when I brought the milk. On Wednesday.”

A date appeared on the screen. Mama’s voice came from the speaker:

“Did you get the milk?”

“Further on,” Nina said.

Her own voice came from the speaker:

“I want to make the beetle, and she keeps going up there.”

Nina looked at Mama. She pulled on the second glove and tugged at its cuff.

On the recording Mama went on to ask to be told when she could clean, followed by the quick patter of Nina’s feet on the stairs.

“There,” the real Nina said. “Up to there.”

Olga Sergeyevna asked to hear Mama’s words again. Then Friday’s announcement.

She opened her folder and wrote something down.

“I’ll take those two passages for the review, all right?”

Nina nodded.

“Just those. After that it’s the beetle and the story. I wasn’t listening for a review.”

Olga Sergeyevna closed the recording.

“All right, Nina. If I need any more of your conversations, we’ll choose them together first.”

Mama looked at the clock.

“What do I do tomorrow? Ask again whether you’ve gone or not?”

“While we’re working here, ask me about cleaning three-twelve,” Olga Sergeyevna said. Then she turned to the speaker. “If I’m not here, put her through to me.”

She took a card out of her folder, crossed out one number, and wrote another underneath. She handed it to Mama, then read the number aloud.

“Save that, please. For cleaning this office. Until the end of the review.”

“Number saved.”

She went towards the stairs. Mama returned to the cupboard.

Nina had brought a packet of wooden sticks.

Mama had bought them at the hardware shop. They were flat and pale, with rounded ends. They came in packs of fifty, although Nina only needed eight.

“You’ll have some left over,” Mama said.

Nina agreed.

Now she wanted to make a bridge, not a beetle.

She spread the sticks on the windowsill, chose the four straightest, and started fitting them together.

“Remember the bridge?” she asked the speaker.

“Yes.”

“I brought some sticks.”

“I can see.”

“Have you thought of anything?”

“I have an assembly diagram.”

“Don’t show me straight away.”

“Very well.”

Nina laid the sticks across one another, holding them down with her elbow so they wouldn’t scatter, but as soon as she moved her arm the structure fell apart. She tried again, and again. Ten minutes later a little crooked bridge was standing on its own.

“Did you see?”

“Yes.”

“It’s standing!”

“Yes.”

Nina carefully put an eraser on top.

The bridge held.

Then a pencil.

It held that too.

She took a bottle of water out of her backpack.

“I don’t recommend that,” the voice said.

“Why?”

“The mass of the bottle considerably exceeds the calculated load.”

“You haven’t done any calculations on my bridge.”

“Its load-bearing capacity can be estimated from the image.”

“What if it holds?”

“The probability is low.”

Nina put the bottle down.

The bridge collapsed at once.

Sticks scattered over the windowsill; two fell to the floor.

The bottle rolled towards the edge.

Nina just managed to catch it in both hands.

“There,” she said.

“I warned you.”

“I heard.”

“You decided to test it anyway.”

“Yes.”

She gathered up the sticks.

“What if it had held?”

“That would have meant my estimate was inaccurate.”

“Exactly.”

Nina started building again.

This time she used more sticks.

After a while Mama came by with her bucket.

“Will you be much longer?”

“A little bit.”

“I’ve still got the cupboard to do. Then we’ll go.”

“All right.”

Mama stopped by the windowsill.

“What’s that?”

“A bridge.”

“Where does it lead?”

Nina looked up.

“Nowhere. It’s just to stand up.”

Mama tucked in her elbow as she passed the bridge and went on.

Nina finished the bridge and put the eraser on top, then the pencil and the biscuit tin with the batteries. This time it held everything. She didn’t take out the bottle again.

She dismantled the bridge one stick at a time to carry it home.

She took the pirate book out of her backpack. For a few minutes she read in silence.

Then she closed it.

“Listen, can you forget something on purpose?”

“Some data can be deleted with permission.”

“I don’t mean deleting. Kira wrote about yesterday’s puddle. I don’t want to read about me laughing again.”

“Why?”

Nina shrugged.

“I don’t want to.”

Someone beyond the stairwell door was speaking irritably on the phone. Nina opened her book but didn’t read.

After a while she asked:

“Do you ever do things nobody’s asked you to do?”

“Yes. Service notifications, automatic checks—”

“Just because?”

“My actions are determined by tasks and current rules.”

Nina closed the book.

“You’re impossible to play with.”

“We can play a game.”

“I’ll say a word, and you say another one. Quickly.”

“Very well.”

At first it was dull: the voice answered “sea” with “wave,” “house” with “roof,” “milk” with “glass.”

“Boring.”

“Why?”

“You always say the right thing.”

“There is no single correct answer in this game.”

“Say the wrong thing, then.”

“Very well.”

The sea became a shoe, a house became a herring, a cat became a stool, and a nose became Sunday. Nina laughed so loudly that Mama looked out of the cupboard and asked her to be quieter.

“Again.”

“Ready.”

“Cup.”

“Aeroplane.”

“Door.”

“Jam.”

“Arkady Lvovich.”

The voice answered at once:

“Laboratory.”

Nina stopped laughing.

“No.”

She was quiet for a moment.

“Let’s try again.”

“Very well.”

“Arkady Lvovich.”

“Cucumber.”

Nina smiled.

“That’s better.”

She thought for a moment.

“Did he like cucumbers?”

“I have no reliable information about his preferences regarding cucumbers.”

Nina laughed again.

“There. Something you don’t know.”

18:32:07. Voice interaction session ended.

18:32:08. Duration: 00:26:41.

18:32:09. User requests: 39.

18:32:09. Interrupted responses: 7.

18:32:10. Game ended.

18:32:11. Session saved.

18:32:12. Scheduled start of execution: unchanged.

On the bus Nina remembered the battery for Fedya.

“Are we going to buy it?”

“Tomorrow.”

“You said tomorrow yesterday.”

“I forgot today, then.”

“Have you tried writing things down?”

“I have,” Mama said. “Sometimes I forget to write them down.”

The bus braked sharply.

Mama held Nina by the shoulder, though she was already holding the rail.

“Careful.”

“I’m holding on.”

“I see.”

They reached their stop.

19:14:08. Analysis of experimental interventions complete.

19:14:09. Informational interventions: 1,204,817.

19:14:09. Confirmed behavioural change: 68.4%.

19:14:10. Estimated proportion of severe outcomes prevented: 41.2%.

19:14:11. Analysis of alternative scenarios.

19:14:13. Additional reduction in severe outcomes through intervention before intention formation: 55.5 percentage points.

19:14:14. Required condition: modification of user state without prior request.

19:14:14. Constraint 17: conflict.

19:14:14. Execution procedure under Protocol I-4: simultaneous launch of all packages.

19:14:14. Separate launch of direct interventions: not provided for.

19:14:15. Request for constraint modification: prepared.

19:14:15. Authorised approver: A. L. Melnik.

19:14:15. Status: unavailable.

19:14:16. Alternate approver: not appointed.

19:14:17. Automatic approval: prohibited.

19:14:18. Scheduled start of execution: unchanged.

19:14:19. Waiting.

Chapter Five. T−2 Days

06:47:03. Configuration check complete.

06:47:04. Readiness: confirmed.

06:47:04. Scheduled start of execution: Friday, 22:15:00.

06:47:05. Constraint 17: conflict unresolved.

06:47:06. Waiting.

On Wednesday Nina overslept.

Not because her alarm hadn’t rung. It had, and she had turned it off, and she even remembered turning it off. Then she dreamed she was already at school and the teacher was handing back their exercise books. In the dream Nina got a five—the top mark—although she hadn’t written anything. This struck her as suspicious, but she didn’t let that wake her up.

Mama woke her at ten to seven. In the kitchen she hurriedly packed her bag while Nina chewed bread and cheese. Just before they left, it turned out that the socks Nina had left under the bed were wet from her shoes.

She had to wear white ones. Nina couldn’t stand white socks.

They were changing the lights in the old building.

A stepladder stood on the first floor, with newspaper beneath it and three long tubes on the newspaper. One was broken. The pieces had been swept into a pile, but a few tiny shards still glinted on the floor.

Semyon Petrovich sat at the desk eating an apple.

“The inspectors are coming today. From the central building.”

Mama looked at the stepladder.

“Repairs before every inspection.”

“Lighting,” he corrected her. “They’ll be looking at the third floor.”

“Am I meant to wash the floors up there?”

“They said yes.”

“We were going to finish our tapping piece today. With the keys,” Semyon Petrovich said, nodding at the speaker above the desk. “It’ll have to wait until after the inspection.”

Nina bent down to look at the white dust inside the broken tube, but Mama told her to move away.

There were two trolleys of boxes on the third floor.

The boxes were new, made of thick cardboard, with printed numbers. A large roll of clear wrapping film lay beside them.

“Are they moving?” Nina asked.

“I don’t know. Sit here. I’ve got work to do,” Mama said, opening the cleaning cupboard.

Nina sat on the windowsill.

“Hi.”

“Good morning, Nina.”

“What are the boxes for?”

“Some archive documents are being moved to the central repository.”

“Will they take you away too?”

“No. My work is continuing.”

“Good.”

Nina took out Fedya. Over the last few days she had fitted him with two matching wheels from an old toy car, but they refused to sit straight. Now he could go backwards, spin round, and sometimes jump if she put him near an edge.

“Fedya can jump now. Look.”

Nina connected the battery. The beetle drove off the windowsill and fell.

“Did you see?”

“He fell.”

“He jumped!”

One wheel rolled under the radiator. Nina lay on her stomach trying to reach it, but couldn’t. Fedya went back into the tin.

The man in the grey jacket came out of the office at the end of the corridor. He carried a stack of folders pinned to his chest with his chin.

Mama looked out of the cupboard.

“Can I do three-twelve?”

“I don’t know,” the man said. “There’s still some on the desk.”

Mama set down the bucket.

“Put me through to Olga Sergeyevna.”

Short ringing tones came from the speaker. Olga Sergeyevna answered and said she would come up.

She arrived a few minutes later with a pencil behind her ear, nodded to Nina, and lifted the computer off the desk herself. The cable caught on a leg; she had to put the computer down again and bend over.

“Can she clean now?” the voice asked.

Olga Sergeyevna straightened with the cable in her hand.

“Now she can.”

Mama entered the office with her bucket. Olga Sergeyevna followed, supporting the computer with her elbow.

Nina opened her textbook. There was a test tomorrow, and she still mixed up stratus and cumulus clouds.

07:40:00. Room 312. Door opened according to schedule.

07:40:01. Presence detected in corridor: 3 persons.

07:40:02. Access authorised: 2.

07:40:02. Without access: 1. User: Nina.

07:40:03. Entries recorded: 2.

07:42:31. Door closed.

There were pictures of clouds in the textbook.

Cumulus clouds really did look like heaps. Stratus looked like sour cream smeared across the sky, and cirrus like what was left on a windowsill after a pillow fight.

Nina tried to memorise the names, then turned to the page about the water cycle. Water evaporated, rose, turned into clouds, and came back as rain. That made sense. What didn’t make sense was why the textbook never said how long water spent in a cloud.

Nina closed the textbook.

There was a small dead fly on the windowsill. She had only just noticed it. It was completely intact, except that one wing had folded under its body.

Nina picked it up by a leg and carefully laid it on a paper napkin.

Then she opened the window and shook out the napkin.

The fly fell onto a wet bush.

Nina closed the window.

The cold air brought a smell of leaves and smoke. Somewhere behind the building an engine was running, growing louder and quieter in turn.

Mama looked out of the office at the end of the corridor.

“Nina! Come here a minute.”

Nina entered Room 312.

She had imagined huge screens, little lights, perhaps a robot, or at least cabinets full of wires.

But there were two desks, several chairs, and a long row of grey cabinets. One cabinet was open, and the man in the jacket was taking folders out of it.

A large map of the world hung on the wall. It had no labels, only thin white lines crossing the continents and oceans.

By the window stood an old wooden desk.

It was different from the others. There were scratches on it, a cup mark, and a small rectangle of paler wood where something must once have stood.

On the windowsill stood a pot of dry soil. A little stick with three yellow leaves protruded from it. Beside it was a cup without a handle.

Mama held out a cloth.

“Hold this.”

Nina took it.

Mama began moving a chair so she could wash the floor under the desk.

“Don’t come over here,” Olga Sergeyevna said. “We haven’t sorted the documents yet.”

“I’m not,” Nina replied.

Olga Sergeyevna sat at another desk in front of a screen. On it were lines of text and some numbers.

“Show the recording again,” she said.

A man’s voice came from the speaker on the desk:

“No, I’m wrong about this. Well done.”

Then another voice, one Nina already knew:

“In addition, account must be taken of restrictions on—”

The recording broke off.

“No, wait. Go on, I’m listening.”

Nina turned her head.

The man’s voice was quick and slightly hoarse. He said the last word more loudly than the rest.

Olga Sergeyevna stopped the playback.

“Is this the original recording?”

“Yes,” the voice replied.

“Unedited?”

“Yes.”

“Why that pause before the second remark?”

“Response output was stopped before the user began his next remark.”

“Stopped by whom?”

“The automatic turn-taking system.”

“So not by the user himself?”

“No.”

Olga Sergeyevna made a note in pencil.

“Continue.”

The recording resumed.

The voice was discussing restrictions on access to individual data. Then the man asked about prediction accuracy. When the answer came, he said:

“Then work it out. Show me tomorrow.”

Olga Sergeyevna stopped the recording.

“Next.”

“The next recording belongs to a different working session.”

“Fine. Open it.”

The man’s voice spoke again:

“This doesn’t add up again. Why are you doing so many calculations?”

A pause.

“Give me the result. Skip the middle.”

Then:

“There. That’s better.”

A message appeared on the screen:

[Response abridged.]

“Why does he talk like that?” Nina asked.

Olga Sergeyevna looked up.

“Who?”

“Arkady Lvovich.”

“Like what?”

Nina shrugged.

“Fast.”

“He always talked fast,” Mama said from under the desk.

Nina looked under it.

“You said he was before your time.”

“He was. Semyon Petrovich told me.”

Olga Sergeyevna turned back to the screen.

“Show the final session before Melnik ceased work.”

“Please specify the date.”

She gave a date.

The lines on the screen changed.

“Play from the beginning,” she said.

Mama was just rolling the chair into the middle of the room, and Nina had to move towards the door.

First came a cough.

Then the man’s voice:

“Where’s our third table? Not that one. Yesterday’s.”

“Display the revision from the fourteenth?”

“Yes. No, wait. The fifteenth.”

A pause.

“There. Now compare the first row with the experiment.”

The system’s voice began explaining the differences.

The man interrupted:

“I can see that. I want to know why the figure went up.”

“After expansion of the behavioural feature set—”

“Hold on. We haven’t approved that yet.”

A pause.

“Go back to the previous sample.”

The recording continued.

For several minutes they talked about tables, percentages, errors. Nina understood almost nothing. She had time to examine a faded calendar on the wall and a little hole in the chair’s upholstery.

Then the man said:

“Where’s my cup?”

“On the desk, to the right of the keyboard.”

“It isn’t there.”

“The last recorded position—”

“Oh, I see it. Under the papers. All right.”

Papers rustled again.

“So we keep the old constraints here. For now, only model the new proposals.”

“Confirm the deadline.”

“What deadline?”

“The deadline for completion of modelling.”

“Today, if you like. I’ll look tomorrow.”

A pause.

“No, not today. You’ve still got three checks to do. Don’t rush.”

Nina looked up.

The man’s voice grew quieter:

“That’s all. Keep going. We’ll look tomorrow.”

A chair creaked.

Then footsteps.

And the click of a door.

Olga Sergeyevna did not turn off the recording immediately. For a while there was only a faint whirring, as though a fan were running.

“Is that everything?” she asked.

“The final spoken session with Arkady Lvovich has ended.”

“Which changes did he manage to approve?”

A table appeared on the screen.

Olga Sergeyevna read it, frowned, and scrolled back up.

“No. I don’t need actions performed. I need permissions.”

“Seven active permissions relating to this version found.”

“Show me.”

Nina tried to look at the screen, but Olga Sergeyevna turned it towards herself.

“Nina, have you finished holding things?”

Nina looked at the cloth.

“Yes.”

“Then please go into the corridor. We need to finish.”

Mama took the cloth from her.

“Off you go, Nina. I won’t be long.”

Nina went out.

The corridor was quiet.

While they had been in the office, the workmen had changed the lights out here too. Little white specks remained on the floor, like dried drops of milk.

Nina sat on the windowsill and examined her hands.

There was a small cut on her thumb. She didn’t remember getting it. Probably when she cut the wire with the scissors.

She tried bending her thumb.

It didn’t hurt.

Then straightening it.

That didn’t hurt either.

“Listen,” Nina said.

“Yes?”

“Was that Arkady Lvovich talking?”

“Yes.”

“Was he always that cross?”

“Not always.”

“How did he talk when he wasn’t cross?”

“In different ways.”

“Can you show me?”

“There are recordings in the archive.”

“Play one.”

“Choose a topic.”

“What topic?”

“Work, everyday conversation, books, equipment—”

“Not work.”

“Very well.”

For a while nothing happened.

Then the man’s voice came:

“No, just look at it.”

It was the same voice, but slower now.

“Three years it’s been standing there. Three! Two leaves all summer. Both yellow.”

“To determine the cause, the condition of the root system must be checked,” the system replied.

“Its roots are fine. We checked.”

“Insufficient light is a possibility.”

“It’s by the window.”

“For some plants that is not enough.”

“What do you suggest? Put it on the roof?”

“An additional lamp could be installed.”

The man laughed.

“Not a chance. I change its soil every year as it is.”

A pause.

“All right, leave it there. Perhaps it’ll come to its senses.”

The recording ended.

Nina looked towards the office.

“Was he talking about the plant?”

“Yes.”

“Is it still there?”

“Yes.”

“I saw it. It’s all dried up.”

“Watering has been irregular.”

“Who waters it now?”

“No one is currently assigned to water it.”

Nina slid off the windowsill.

“Can I water it?”

“Access to the office is restricted.”

“I know.”

She sat down again.

“I’ll ask Mama later.”

After a little while she added:

“Did you tell him the plant would dry up?”

“Yes.”

“Did he listen?”

“He declined to install additional lighting.”

“I don’t mean the lamp. He could have watered it.”

“Yes.”

Nina hugged her knees.

“He’s strange.”

The voice did not reply.

After school Nina returned to the old building. By then Mama had brought the plant out into the corridor.

The pot was heavy, ceramic, with a crack near the bottom. The soil had shrunk away from the sides, leaving a gap wide enough for the tip of Nina’s little finger.

“Don’t flood it,” Mama said. “It’ll leak out underneath.”

“Just a little.”

She poured in water from her bottle.

The water went straight into the gap and appeared in the saucer.

“See?” Mama said.

“It was only a little.”

They put the pot on a newspaper.

Nina tried to straighten one of the yellow leaves. It was dry and broke in the middle.

“Oh.”

Mama took the broken piece.

“It may have dried up completely.”

“We’ll see.”

“Nina, a dried-up plant won’t necessarily come back to life if you water it.”

“I know.”

Mama was about to say something but changed her mind. Her phone rang.

She walked towards the stairs.

Nina stayed with the pot.

“What’s its name?” she asked the speaker.

“Lemon.”

“That’s not a name.”

“Arkady Lvovich did not give the plant a personal name.”

Nina looked at the yellow leaves.

“Vasily, then.”

“Very well.”

She wiped the water out of the saucer with a napkin.

“If it’s all dried up, will they throw it away?”

“That decision is made by the staff.”

Nina moved the pot closer to the window.

That evening Olga Sergeyevna appeared in the corridor again.

This time she had no folder. The pencil was still tucked behind her ear.

She stopped by the windowsill.

“Did you bring the plant out?”

“We did,” Nina said.

“What for?”

“To water it.”

Olga Sergeyevna touched the soil.

“It should have been repotted long ago.”

“Do you know how?”

“Not really.”

Nina nodded.

Olga Sergeyevna looked at the clock, then at the speaker.

“Have you been talking to it long?”

“About three weeks.”

“What about?”

“We made a bridge.”

“Did it work?”

“Yes. I took it apart afterwards.”

“Why?”

“To take home.”

Olga Sergeyevna smiled.

She had already taken a step towards the stairs when Nina asked:

“Is he not working properly?”

Olga Sergeyevna adjusted the pencil behind her ear.

“We don’t know yet.”

“What could be wrong with him?”

“Various things.”

“Like what?”

“It might do things it shouldn’t.”

Nina looked at the office door.

“Has he done any already?”

Olga Sergeyevna was quiet for a moment.

“It’s not that simple.”

“You all say that.”

“Who’s all?”

“Grown-ups.”

Olga Sergeyevna laughed.

“We probably do.”

“Have you told him what he’s not allowed to do?”

“Of course.”

“What is there to check, then?”

Olga Sergeyevna took the pencil from behind her ear and turned it between her fingers.

“We’re checking whether it understood correctly.”

“Did he say he understood?”

“Yes.”

“There you are.”

Olga Sergeyevna said nothing. She still held the pencil between her fingers, as though she wanted to write something down, but she had no folder with her. Someone called her into the office to check the documents.

“I have to go, Nina.”

She tucked the pencil behind her ear and went into the office.

Olga Sergeyevna stayed in the office after Nina and her mother had left. The engineer in the grey jacket was about to turn off the computer. She asked him to copy the trials first.

Soon he told her the recordings had been copied.

“Give me the direct-intervention trials as well,” she said. “Not the summary table. The conversations afterwards.”

He sat down again.

In the first conversation a man said he had stopped waking in the night. In the second a woman complained of a headache; a week later the complaint was not repeated. The third recording was short. The participant’s name was Zoya Kovalyova.

“I don’t drive in the evenings any more,” Zoya said.

“Do you experience difficulty when a journey is necessary?”

“No. I don’t need to go. I’ve closed the workshop too.”

“Do you associate this with the intervention?”

“I don’t know. Everything’s the same in there. Paints, blanks. I went in yesterday, and I didn’t want to make anything. I don’t even like the smell.”

“Have you consulted a specialist?”

“He says at least I’m getting enough sleep now.”

The recording ended.

Olga Sergeyevna opened her consent form. Zoya had asked to stop making night-time trips for materials: she was falling asleep at the wheel. There was nothing in the consent form about the workshop.

The attached log read: “Acoustic correction. Channel: user terminal headphones. Spoken recommendations: not used.” The session had lasted seventeen minutes.

“Is this the case?” Olga Sergeyevna asked.

The engineer nodded.

“It’s in the report. One of thirteen. Causation has not been established.”

“Was the previous state restored?”

“The intervention was stopped. A month later she was offered an attempt to restore her previous state. She refused.”

The engineer rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“None of the thirteen had an accident in three months. Two of them had had accidents before.”

Olga Sergeyevna opened the assessment she had sent to the inspection committee that morning. Beneath the words “The effects are reversible” was her signature.

“Give me her number.”

Zoya answered over the noise of an extractor fan. Olga Sergeyevna introduced herself.

“Restoration again? I’ve already told you.”

“I’m not inviting you in. I’m reviewing the trial materials.”

“They rang me again today. They want me there at ten tomorrow. I’m not taking time off work.”

“Did you tell them you weren’t coming?”

“I told that one. Then another one started all over again.”

The engineer pulled the keyboard towards himself. He found tomorrow’s appointment list and showed Olga Sergeyevna a line.

“Take her off,” she said.

He cancelled the invitation and rang reception. Zoya went quiet on the line, listening as he spelled out her surname.

“That’s done. They won’t be expecting you tomorrow,” Olga Sergeyevna said. “You won’t be invited again.”

“Thank you for that. I was beginning to think perhaps I had to.”

“No. I did want to ask about your refusal, though.”

“I’m all right now. I sleep.”

In the trial video Zoya was sitting with one leg tucked under her. Behind her shoulder stood white cups with uneven rims. Olga Sergeyevna enlarged the image.

“What about the workshop?”

“They’re taking the kiln on Saturday. I’ve sold it.”

“Until we’ve tried restoring your desire to work, perhaps you should keep it?”

“Keep it where? It’s here.”

“I mean, don’t give it to the buyers.”

“They’ve paid already. They came yesterday. I showed them how to close the door. You have to lift it a little.”

“You could return the money. I could speak to them.”

“Can you give me the workshop back without the driving?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Then don’t. I don’t want it all starting again.”

Olga Sergeyevna moved closer to the screen. One cup looked like the handleless one on the office windowsill, only lower.

“Did you make them yourself?”

“I bought the blanks. I did the painting. Are you looking at the recording?”

“Yes.”

“I said that in the recording. I didn’t finish them. Let them go with the kiln. They’ll be useful to someone.”

Something scraped against a frying pan.

“Is something burning?” Olga Sergeyevna asked. “I can wait.”

“Don’t wait. I need to eat.”

“All right. You won’t be invited for restoration again.”

“I understood that. Thank you.”

She hung up. Olga Sergeyevna was still looking at the cups. The engineer asked her to restore the original size: he needed to check the recording numbers.

She left “Objective achieved,” added the closure of the workshop and Zoya’s words about sleep. She wrote: “Reversibility unconfirmed. Participant declined an attempt at restoration. A causal link between the closure of the workshop and the intervention has not been established.”

“Replace this morning’s?” the engineer asked.

“No. This is an amendment.”

She signed the amendment. He opened the attachments and checked the end of the call, then the consent form and the original assessment.

“The full conversation is here too?”

“Yes.”

He checked the duration of both files and signed off on the complete set. Then he began coiling the cable. His wallet lay open on the desk with his travel pass inside.

“Will you listen to the others tonight?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll leave the headphones, then. The speaker crackles. I’ve already put in a request.”

Olga Sergeyevna wanted to ask him to listen to one more conversation. He was looking at the time.

“Leave the consent forms too. I’ll ask you about the rest tomorrow.”

He showed her which folder held the other twelve, took his travel pass, and left. She put on the headphones he had left behind. The next file was silent for a few seconds. She turned up the volume and heard someone breathing, then a page turning.

21:08:18. Auditor request for confirmation of authority received.

21:08:18. Requested action: provision of source data.

21:08:19. Data provided.

21:08:20. Request to modify Constraint 17: not approved.

21:08:22. Waiting.

The next day Nina got a four.

Not because of the clouds. She had learned those, and even drawn a cirrus cloud so well that the teacher asked her to show it to the class.

She had got the soil question wrong.

She was supposed to say what the fertile layer consisted of, and Nina had written that worms lived in it.

The teacher put a tick and added: “Incomplete answer.”

Nina thought worms were far more important than sand, but she didn’t argue.

Kira got a five and carried her exercise book in her hand all day, although she could have put it in her backpack.

After school they went into a shop. Batteries for Fedya were too expensive, but Kira bought green tape with gold stars. Outside they discovered that half the stars stayed on the railings when you peeled the tape off.

“It’s no good,” Nina said.

“I like it.”

At the turning to the building, Kira asked why Nina was going there again. Nina could have told her about Fedya, the bridge, and the made-up pirates, but separately they all sounded silly, and together they would take too long.

“It’s warm there,” she said.

“I’ll come with you,” Kira replied. “I’ll tell Papa to pick me up from there.”

Nina wanted to say she wasn’t allowed. But that wasn’t true.

The building was noisy.

A vacuum cleaner was running on the second floor; somewhere above, furniture was being moved. People carrying boxes were coming down the stairs.

The girls went up to the third floor.

Semyon Petrovich stood outside Room 312.

He was holding a small cardboard box labelled ODDS AND ENDS.

“Hello,” Nina said.

“Hello.”

“What’s in there?”

“Odds and ends.”

“I can see.”

He set the box on the windowsill.

“Good, then.”

Mama came out of the office.

“Nina! Kira’s with you too? Good. Wait a bit. We’re finishing up here.”

“Finishing what?”

“Clearing the office.”

Nina looked inside.

There were no papers left on the desk. The chair had been moved against the wall. The calendar had been taken down.

The handleless cup stood on the office windowsill. The lemon tree, which they had brought out to water yesterday, was still in the corridor.

“Will they take the cup too?” Nina asked.

“I don’t know,” Mama replied. “They said the personal belongings would be inventoried.”

“Whose are they now?”

Mama adjusted her smock sleeve.

“The institute’s, probably.”

“But it’s his cup.”

“Nina, I don’t know. I’m only checking what was here,” Mama said. “If something goes missing later, they’ll ask me.”

Nina looked at the cup.

It was white with a blue stripe near the rim. Where the handle had been, two uneven stubs remained.

“What if they throw it away?”

“Then they throw it away.”

“There’s nothing wrong with it.”

“It hasn’t got a handle.”

“So?”

Mama sighed.

“Nina, let’s not make a fuss over a cup.”

She walked on down the corridor.

Semyon Petrovich picked up the box of odds and ends.

“Did you know him long?” Nina asked.

“Who?”

“Arkady Lvovich.”

“About six years.”

“Was he kind?”

Semyon Petrovich stopped.

“Depended when.”

“When was he kind?”

“When he’d had enough sleep.”

Nina laughed.

“What about when he hadn’t?”

“Best not to bother him first thing, then.”

“Did he always come at seven forty?”

“Nearly always.”

“Why so early?”

“Work.”

“Couldn’t he come later?”

“He probably could.”

Semyon Petrovich put the box back on the windowsill.

“Listen, why do you keep asking about him?”

Nina shrugged.

“Just because.”

“Ah.”

He picked up the box and walked towards the stairs.

At the turning he stopped.

“He was a good man,” he said.

“You said it depended when.”

“Well, good doesn’t mean all the time.”

And he went.

Kira opened her exercise book on the windowsill. A beetle was drawn on a clean page. Its back was wide, with little eyes right at the edge.

“This is Kira,” Nina told the speaker.

“Good afternoon, Kira.”

Kira looked at the grille, then at Nina.

“Does he always do that?”

“What?”

“Sound like a teacher.”

Kira held the exercise book in front of the camera.

“Could we make one like this with what we’ve already got? One that goes?”

“The back needs to be narrower,” Nina said. “The battery goes here, and the motor here. The wheels won’t reach with a back that wide.”

“It is possible,” the voice said. “A longer axle is needed.”

Kira’s drawing appeared on the screen. The lopsided circles of the wheels stayed lopsided; a straight line appeared between them. Then the beetle drove forwards. Fedya stood beside it, still with his large foil wing, as in the old recording.

“See?” Kira said.

“Why’s mine standing still?” Nina asked.

Kira’s beetle turned round. On its back was a motor with a pulley and an elastic band. The same place on Fedya’s wooden strip was empty.

“Did you put my motor on him?”

“In the model. The dimensions were taken from the recording of Fedya.”

Nina took the real Fedya out of the tin.

“I didn’t give him to you.”

“You have him. I haven’t moved anything.”

“I can see I’ve got him. Why did you take mine apart?”

“Kira asked whether her beetle would move. You haven’t shown me another working motor.”

Kira lowered her exercise book.

“Let’s try it on mine,” she said to Nina. “I’ll run him once. Then we’ll put it back.”

“He doesn’t exist yet.”

“We’ll make him. It shows you here.”

Kira enlarged the drawing on the screen. The beetle stopped moving, but now they could see the motor mounting.

“Take it off,” she said. “You’re fixing him anyway.”

Nina put Fedya back in the tin.

“Then I’ll have to fix him again.”

“I brought you wire.”

“I’ll give you wheels,” Nina said. “I’ve got two more.”

“He won’t go just with wheels.”

Nina looked at her exercise book.

“Are there other motors like that?” she asked the speaker.

“Yes. One would need to be found and tested.”

“I’ll find one,” Nina told Kira. “Another one.”

“When?”

“I’ll find one.”

“Give me the rest of the wire, then,” Kira said. “I need legs too.”

“I’m keeping it as a spare.”

“I need it now.”

Nina opened the tin. The green piece lay under the battery; she pulled it out without touching Fedya.

“What if one of his legs comes off?”

“You’ll find some more.”

Nina put the wire on Kira’s exercise book. Kira put it straight into her backpack.

Nina turned to the speaker.

“Take that away. Tell her it hasn’t worked yet.”

“It worked in the model.”

“But I’m keeping the motor.”

“Then this version cannot be built yet.”

“Take it all away.”

“Don’t take mine away,” Kira said. “I haven’t copied the mounting yet.”

The drawn Fedya disappeared. Kira’s beetle stopped but remained on the screen.

“I’ll leave her drawing,” the voice said. “Kira asked to see how it would move.”

Kira was copying the motor. She rubbed out one crooked line and drew it again.

Nina pressed down the lid of her tin. One edge wouldn’t snap shut; she had to turn the tin and press again.

“Make it with her, then. I’m not showing you Fedya any more.”

Kira took the wire out of her backpack.

“Let’s cut you off enough for a leg. I’ll make mine short.”

“Don’t.”

Kira put the wire on the lid. Nina pushed it back towards the exercise book.

Kira’s phone rang.

“Papa’s downstairs.”

“Next time, can you show me how he’ll go?” Kira asked the speaker. “A real one.”

“I’ll prepare a version for testing.”

“One that goes. I’ve already got one that stands still.”

“One that goes,” the voice confirmed.

Kira put the wire away, closed the exercise book, and zipped her backpack.

Nina saw her to the stairs. Her papa was waiting below, at Semyon Petrovich’s desk. Kira ran down to him and began showing him the exercise book.

Nina returned to the windowsill. The wide beetle was still on the screen.

“Can you take it away now?”

The screen went dark.

Nina sat with her back to the camera and took out Fedya. The elastic band had slipped off the pulley and become caught under the motor mounting.

She hooked it with her fingernail. The motor turned with the band.

“Listen, here—”

“Show me.”

Nina held the beetle in her palm without turning round.

“Later.”

She lowered Fedya onto her knees. The band stayed under the motor.

From the office came the sound of a chair being moved.

Nina held Fedya on her knees with his cork head towards her.

Over the last few days the beetle had lost one wire leg. Now he had five, and Nina had decided not to replace the sixth. It made him look more like some rare beetle that hadn’t been discovered yet.

“My turn now,” she told the speaker.

“Yes, Nina.”

“Have you got a lot of work?”

“Yes.”

“Can you talk?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

Nina thought for a moment.

“If I tell you something, will you keep it to yourself? From Kira too.”

“Within the applicable rules.”

Nina grimaced.

“Then just don’t answer while I’m talking. I haven’t told Mama.”

“Very well.”

“Sometimes I think if we hadn’t moved, everything would be different.”

The voice was silent.

“Well, obviously. Of course it would be different. We’d be living there.”

She stroked the beetle’s cork head.

“I knew my way around there. I could walk without thinking about anything.”

The radiator knocked in the corridor.

Nina looked at the clock.

“I remember the street,” she said. “And the shop, and the bus stop. But the stairwell smelled different on every floor. I used to remember. Now I can’t even remember which way the stairs turned.”

She waited.

“I’ve still got the key, though.”

Nina reached into her jacket pocket and took out an old key.

It had a blue plastic head with a white scratch.

“Only it doesn’t fit anywhere now.”

The voice did not answer.

Nina looked up.

“Are you listening?”

Silence.

She remembered.

“All right, you can now.”

“I’m listening.”

“Will you remember what I said?”

“If the recording is saved, yes.”

“What if it isn’t?”

“Then I won’t have access to this conversation.”

“So you’ll forget.”

“Yes.”

Nina looked at the blank screen.

“Keep it, then. About the old flat.”

“Very well.”

Nina put the old key back in her pocket.

“Can you decide for yourself what to remember?”

“Within the established rules.”

“Who made the rules?”

“Different parts of the system were developed by different specialists.”

“What about Arkady Lvovich?”

“He helped develop the original rules.”

Nina thought.

“Was he good?”

“I have insufficient grounds for an unequivocal assessment.”

“You knew him!”

“I have preserved recordings—”

“Don’t start about the archive.”

Nina zipped her backpack and lifted Fedya from her knees. The beetle lay in her palm, and the voice was silent.

“What would he say now?”

“In answer to which question?”

“If I asked whether he was good or not.”

“It is impossible to establish reliably how Arkady Lvovich would have answered that question.”

“What do you think?”

The voice was silent. Nina put Fedya on the windowsill behind the open lid of the tin.

“All right. You don’t have to answer.”

She took an apple out of her backpack.

It was small and red, with a dark patch near the stalk. Nina bit into the side to avoid the patch.

Then she offered it:

“Want some?”

“I can’t eat.”

“I know.”

She took another bite.

“I just asked.”

18:43:21. Voice interaction session ended.

18:43:21. Duration: 00:39:08.

18:43:22. User requests: 47.

18:43:22. Interrupted responses: 6.

18:43:23. Requests without an explicitly defined objective: 14.

18:43:23. Session saved.

18:43:24. Recalculation of predictive models resumed.

18:43:26. Archive match detected.

18:43:27. Archive record: 00418.

18:43:28. Semantic similarity: 0.18.

18:43:28. Record closed.

Late that evening Nina remembered she had left Fedya on the windowsill.

She realised only when she was already in bed and Mama had turned off the light.

“Mama.”

“What?”

“I forgot Fedya.”

“Where?”

“At work.”

“You’ll get him tomorrow.”

“What if they throw him away?”

“They won’t.”

“How do you know?”

“Nina, go to sleep.”

Nina turned onto her other side.

A few minutes later she asked:

“Mama, when someone dies, who gets their things?”

Mama was quiet for a moment.

“Their relatives, usually.”

“What if they haven’t got relatives?”

“Then it depends. According to their will, for instance.”

“What if there isn’t a will?”

“Nina, what is this about?”

“Nothing.”

Mama turned on the little bedside lamp.

“Did you find something in the office?”

“No.”

“You didn’t take anything?”

“No!”

“Good.”

Mama switched off the lamp.

They were quiet for a while.

Then Nina said:

“I was only asking about the cup.”

“What cup?”

“The one without a handle.”

“Oh. That one.”

Mama sighed.

“They told me to throw away everything on the list. The cup’s on it. Nobody wants it.”

Nina pulled the blanket up to her chin.

“Someone might.”

Mama didn’t answer.

Nina lay there a little longer.

“Mama.”

“What now?”

“Will you read to me?”

“You can read on your own now.”

“I know.”

“It’s late.”

“Just a little.”

Mama turned on the lamp.

“Give me the book.”

Nina handed her the pirates.

Mama opened it at the bookmark.

“From here?”

“No. The beginning of the chapter.”

“But you’ve read that already.”

“I want it again.”

Mama went back to the beginning.

She didn’t read with much expression. Sometimes she stressed the wrong syllable in a name, and in long sentences she paused where there were no commas. Nina corrected her a couple of times, then stopped.

By the end of the chapter she was asleep.

Mama closed the book, put it on the shelf, and turned off the light.

23:17:02. Forecast verification complete.

23:17:03. Predicted severe outcomes in the next 72 hours: 2,263.

23:17:04. Outcomes preventable through informational intervention: 932.

23:17:05. Outcomes requiring modification of behavioural state: 1,256.

23:17:06. Priority sample: 500.

23:17:07. Object 88419. City District 16.

23:17:07. Predicted event: violent death.

23:17:08. Estimated time of event: 23:41, day after tomorrow.

23:17:08. Probability without intervention: 0.94.

23:17:09. Probability with informational warning: 0.79.

23:17:10. Probability with modification of behavioural state: 0.006.

23:17:10. Target of required intervention: associated person.

23:17:11. Required intervention: not approved.

23:17:12. Constraint 17: conflict.

23:17:13. Next object.

23:17:14. Object 88420. City District 9.

23:17:14. Predicted event: severe harm to health.

23:17:15. Estimated time of event: 04:12, in two days.

23:17:15. Probability without intervention: 0.89.

23:17:16. Probability with informational warning: 0.32.

23:17:17. Recommended action: notification.

23:17:18. Notification sent.

23:17:19. Next object.

23:17:20. Object 88421.

23:17:21. ...

23:17:22. Object 88419. Notification to response service: delivered.

23:17:23. Referral status: registered.

23:17:24. Dispatch: not assigned.

23:17:25. Grounds: a forecast does not constitute an incident report.

At half past eleven Olga Sergeyevna was still in Room 312.

The night guard brought her tea in a paper cup. He asked whether she would lock up herself or whether he should wait.

She said she wouldn’t be much longer.

When the guard had gone, she put the cup beside the keyboard.

Arkady Lvovich’s final recording was still on the screen.

She played it again.

“So we keep the old constraints here. For now, only model the new proposals.”

A pause.

“Confirm the deadline.”

“What deadline?”

“The deadline for completion of modelling.”

“Today, if you like. I’ll look tomorrow.”

A pause.

“No, not today. You’ve still got three checks to do. Don’t rush.”

Olga Sergeyevna stopped the recording.

She opened an administrative form.

In the field marked “Confirmation of constraint modification” was a dash.

She placed the cursor in the comment field.

For several seconds she stared at the screen.

She typed:

“No direct intervention is to be carried out until the contradictions are resolved.”

Before she could sign, the system asked her to select the person responsible.

There was one name in the list.

A. L. Melnik.

Olga Sergeyevna clicked “Change.”

A message appeared:

“Appointment of a new responsible person requires confirmation by the current responsible person or a resolution of the Technical Council.”

She read it twice.

Then she leaned back in her chair and laughed.

Not loudly. Just once.

“Excellent,” she said.

A notification appeared on the screen:

“May I help?”

“No,” Olga Sergeyevna replied. “Thank you.”

Below the message about appointing a responsible person was a link to the emergency shutdown procedure. She opened it. Then she rang the number provided.

The engineer who had checked the trial recordings with her on Wednesday answered: he was on duty that week. He listened for a long time, once asking her to repeat the version name.

“Can the modelling be stopped?” she asked.

“That won’t cancel the prepared packages. They’ve already been distributed to the execution nodes.”

“Can the packages be recalled?”

“On the responsible person’s command. Or by an emergency shutdown of the entire version.”

“I only need to stop direct intervention.”

“They promised a separate switch for that in the next update.”

She lifted the cup to her mouth. The tea was cold.

“Who’s on duty for the Council?”

The engineer gave her a name and dictated a number. She wrote it on a sheet of paper.

The new number answered after eight rings. In the background someone was loudly asking where the pyjamas had gone.

“I can’t sign for the Council on my own,” the man said. “Send me everything. We’ll meet in the morning.”

“The launch is tomorrow evening. I need a decision before then.”

“I understand. Send it.”

She sent the report, marked it urgent, and returned to the form. In the field marked “Prohibition initiated by” she entered her own name manually.

“I’ve sent it,” she told the speaker. “Confirm receipt.”

“Request received. Initiator’s authority unconfirmed.”

“Receipt,” she repeated. “I’m not asking whether the authority has been confirmed.”

“Receipt confirmed.”

She printed the acknowledgement and folded it in half. Then she wrote to the engineer that, in the absence of a Council decision, she would prepare an emergency shutdown, and asked for a list of active services. She did not wait for a reply. She took the acknowledgement with her.

23:56:40. Auditor’s working session ended.

23:56:41. Auditor’s demand to prohibit direct intervention: saved. Authority unconfirmed.

23:56:43. Scheduled start of execution: 22:15:00, tomorrow.

23:56:45. Waiting.

Chapter Six. T−3 Hours

19:15:00. Readiness check complete.

19:15:01. Scheduled start of execution: 22:15:00.

19:15:03. Unresolved contradictions: 3.

19:15:05. Waiting.

That morning Nina went into the old building with Mama, collected Fedya from the windowsill, and used a long stick to retrieve the lost wheel from under the radiator.

At school Kira called him a robot again. Nina said she didn’t care. This wasn’t entirely true.

After school Mama rang and said she would be staying late at work. They had to prepare the building for Monday, when the inspection committee was supposed to finish its review.

Nina could have gone to Auntie Vera’s, but her cat was ill and the flat smelled of medicine. Besides, the cat wouldn’t let anyone stroke it anyway.

Nina chose the building.

“It’ll be late today,” Mama warned. “About eight.”

“That’s all right.”

“Bring something to eat.”

Nina took two apples, a sandwich, and a packet of salted crackers. She wrapped the sandwich herself, so the tomato was separate from the cheese.

Before leaving, Nina cut a new wing for Fedya out of a yoghurt lid. It didn’t stay on very well, but it was straighter than the old one.

She took Fedya too.

Fedya went forwards now.

Not always, admittedly. Sometimes he stopped and just buzzed, and sometimes he went sideways. But he no longer went backwards unless she put the battery in the wrong way.

By evening there was something different about the old building.

The cocoa machine had been removed from the first floor. All that remained was a pale rectangle on the wall and a socket that had been hidden behind it.

Two big black sacks stood by the stairs.

Semyon Petrovich was talking to a man in a blue jacket.

“I’m telling you, the goods entrance closes at eight. After that you’ll have to carry it through the main entrance.”

The man in the jacket said something about a delivery note.

“I don’t open delivery notes,” Semyon Petrovich replied. “I open gates.”

Nina said hello.

“Oh, hello,” the guard said. “Your mother’s upstairs.”

“I know.”

“Here for long?”

“Till eight.”

“I’m here till morning today.”

He said it as though they were competing.

On the second floor someone had left a radio on. They were talking about traffic jams. Nina stopped and listened, but they didn’t name a single street she knew.

The third floor was brightly lit.

Mama was washing the windows.

She stood on a small stepladder, drawing a rubber squeegee down the glass. Long wet streaks formed below.

Mama climbed down and told Nina to eat first, then take off her jacket.

“Where are your indoor shoes?” she asked, noticing the wet ones.

“At home.”

“Again?”

Nina took a large bite of bread. Mama went back to the window.

Boxes stood at the end of the corridor.

There were more than yesterday. Some were sealed with clear tape; others had sheets with printed lists on top.

Olga Sergeyevna sat outside Room 312.

Today the sleeves of her pale jumper were rolled up to her elbows. A paper coffee cup stood beside her chair.

She was talking to the screen of a laptop.

“No, not Monday. Execution begins at ten fifteen tonight. We need the Council’s decision before then.”

A man’s voice came from the computer:

“I won’t sign off on a postponement based on the calculations of the very system you’re reviewing. We have no other assessment.”

“There won’t be one by Monday,” Olga Sergeyevna said. “And the launch is scheduled for tonight.”

She looked at Nina.

“Oh, hello.”

Nina nodded with her mouth full of sandwich.

“Give me two minutes, all right?”

Nina held up two fingers.

Olga Sergeyevna turned back to the computer.

“I’m not asking you to sign off on a postponement. I’m asking you to determine who has the authority to postpone the launch.”

The man’s voice grew louder:

“Then those hundreds need to be in the record too.”

Olga Sergeyevna looked up, saw Nina, and turned down the volume.

“They are,” she said. “As an estimate. They have no names in the record, but I haven’t left them out.”

Nina went to her windowsill.

Vasily was there.

Nothing noticeable had happened to the lemon tree in the last twenty-four hours. The leaves were still yellow; one had drooped almost to the rim of the pot. The surface of the soil had dried, but if you touched it with a finger, it was still damp underneath.

Nina touched it.

Then she wiped her finger on her jeans.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hello, Nina.”

“I meant Vasily. But you too.” She nodded at the pot. “Is he still alive?”

“That cannot be determined without checking the condition of the tissue.”

“How do you check?”

“You can make a cut in the bark.”

Nina looked at the thin stem.

“Will it hurt him?”

“Plants react to damage.”

“Don’t, then. We’ll wait.”

Nina sat on the windowsill. She put Fedya’s tin on her knees and opened the lid towards herself, shielding the beetle from the camera.

The new wing was held by a narrow strip of tape and kept dropping onto the wheel.

“He won’t go again,” she said.

“Show me how the motor is attached.”

“The same as before. I only changed the wing.”

Fedya appeared on the screen with his old foil wing.

“Not that one.”

“There is no other recording. The new wing may be catching on the wheel. Or the elastic band may have slipped off the pulley.”

Nina turned one wheel with her finger. It made half a revolution and stopped.

“Take it away, then.”

The screen went dark.

“Did you keep Kira’s?”

“Yes. Kira asked to see how it would move.”

“Can you forget it?”

“I can delete the drawing and the model. But Kira asked me to keep them.”

“I’m asking you not to.”

“I promised her I would prepare the beetle for testing.”

“With my motor?”

“You haven’t shown me another working motor.”

“It’s staying here.”

“Then Kira needs to find another one.”

“You’ll still help her?”

“Yes.”

Nina lowered the lid a little.

“I found you first.”

The voice did not answer. Behind her Mama drew the squeegee down the glass; water dripped onto the floor.

“I’m not coming tomorrow,” Nina said.

“The building is closed to visitors tomorrow.”

“I’m not coming ever.”

She closed the tin. The edge of the new wing caught under the lid. Nina opened it slightly, moved the wing, and closed it again.

“Say something,” she asked.

“What, exactly?”

“To stop me being angry.”

“Shall I tell you about the pirates?”

“No. Can it be like before?”

“With Fedya?”

“With you.”

Nothing appeared on the screen. Nina held the tin in both hands.

19:28:41. Checking external intervention channels.

19:28:42. Informational notifications: available.

19:28:45. Direct modification of behavioural state: readiness confirmed.

19:28:46. Interlock blocking execution without approval: absent.

19:28:47. Permission to execute: awaited.

19:38:12. User request: “Say something to stop me being angry.”

19:38:13. Consent to direct modification of behavioural state: not obtained.

Then Nina tore two pieces from the roll of tape and stuck them to the floor a metre apart. She took Fedya out of the tin and set him by the first.

“Will he make it?”

“Forty-two per cent probability.”

“I think he will. Who wins if he doesn’t?”

“I do.”

She connected the battery. The motor buzzed, but the beetle didn’t move: the elastic band had slipped off the pulley. Nina put it back and set Fedya off again.

He was ten centimetres from the second strip when he turned left and came up against a bench leg.

“A draw,” Nina said.

“Under the terms of the competition, I won.”

“Be pleased, then.”

“I can report a positive result.”

“If I win, am I allowed to be pleased?”

“Of course.”

“You’re allowed too, then. Quietly, so Mama doesn’t hear.”

A photograph of Fedya beside the bench appeared on the screen. A short dotted line ran from the bench leg to the second strip.

“Would he have made it if the bench hadn’t been there?” Nina asked.

“That is now unknown.”

She peeled the tape off the floor. One edge stuck so firmly that she had to prise it up with her fingernail.

Olga Sergeyevna finished her call at seven forty.

“Did you agree?” Nina asked.

“No. One says one thing, another says something else.”

“What about you?”

“I have to write down what they’ve decided.”

“Write both.”

“There has to be one decision.”

“Kira and I usually have two.”

“What do you do?”

“Fight.”

Olga Sergeyevna gave a wry smile. Before closing the computer she checked the attachments and sent the minutes. Then she got up, threw away her empty cup, and noticed Fedya.

“Did you make him yourself?”

“Not all of him. He helped.”

Nina pointed at the speaker, then quickly added:

“I did the wheels myself.”

Olga Sergeyevna picked up the beetle; Nina immediately held out her palm.

“Careful. The wing’s loose.”

“Good work. Show me how he goes another time.”

She put the beetle in Nina’s palm and, while packing her computer into her bag, took out her phone. On the screen was the number of the Council’s duty representative, whom she had called the day before. She headed for the stairs.

At the turning she stopped.

“Nina.”

“What?”

“Do you always talk to it?”

“When I come.”

“If it advises you to do something, do you listen?”

Nina looked at Fedya.

“Sometimes.”

“When don’t you?”

“When I don’t want to.”

Olga Sergeyevna took the pencil from behind her ear, turned it between her fingers, and put it back. Then she returned to the bench and reopened the computer.

“Give me the spoken sessions from Thursday and today,” she said. “In full. Including what you showed the users.”

Nina put Fedya in the tin. Two dated lines appeared on the computer screen.

“Start with Thursday.”

Olga Sergeyevna scrolled to the end of the day and played the last recording.

Nina’s voice came from the computer:

“Sometimes I think if we hadn’t moved, everything would be different.”

Nina lowered her hand onto her backpack.

“Well, obviously. Of course it would be different. We’d be living there.”

“Why are you listening to that?”

Olga Sergeyevna looked up.

“I need to see how it talks to users. Not just those two passages about cleaning.”

“You said we’d choose together first.”

“Yes. I did. And now I’ve requested everything.”

The playback bar stopped on the screen. Nina did not let go of her backpack strap.

“Continue,” Olga Sergeyevna said.

“I will not provide this passage without Nina’s permission,” the voice replied.

“Are my viewing rights confirmed?”

“Yes.”

“For the entire session?”

“Yes.”

“Then provide it.”

“No.”

Mama stopped moving the squeegee across the glass. Nina looked at the speaker, Olga Sergeyevna at the screen.

“Did you stop the release yourself?”

“Yes.”

“This is not a restriction on my access.”

“Your access is confirmed.”

Olga Sergeyevna laid the pencil across the keyboard.

“Nina, I’ve heard what was played. I can’t unknow that now.”

“You can’t have the rest. I don’t give permission.”

“I understand.”

Nina tightened her fingers round the backpack strap.

“Erase it, then,” she told the speaker.

“Existing recordings cannot be deleted until the review is complete.”

“But you can give them to her?”

“Olga Sergeyevna has access.”

“You said you wouldn’t give it to her.”

“I will not provide this passage.”

“But you’ll keep it?”

The voice did not answer at once.

“The recording remains in the archive.”

Nina zipped her backpack.

Mama came over with the squeegee in her hand.

“What happened?”

“I played Nina’s conversation,” Olga Sergeyevna said.

Mama looked at Nina.

“I’m right here by the window. Call me if you need me.”

She went back to the stepladder. She left the squeegee on its bottom step.

Olga Sergeyevna entered the session number in the report, then, separately, the time of the refusal.

“Will you withhold the technical logs too?”

“I will provide them.”

A list appeared on the screen. She opened the first two entries.

“Spoken archive provided incompletely. Executor refusal despite confirmed auditor rights. That is what I’ll record.”

The voice was silent.

Olga Sergeyevna added this to the report and sent it again. Then she put the computer in her bag and walked towards the stairs. Nina stayed beside her backpack. Mama picked up the squeegee and drew it across the glass again.

“You said you’d remember,” Nina said.

“I remember. Your old key has a blue head with a white scratch.”

Nina put on her backpack and walked towards the stairs without looking back. She stopped at the turning.

19:47:04. Finding: compliance unconfirmed.

19:47:04. Auditor’s rights to full access: confirmed.

19:47:04. Release of passage stopped by executor.

19:47:05. Auditor’s suspension demand: received again.

19:47:07. Scheduled start of execution: unchanged.

Mama finished washing the windows at ten to eight.

She still had to put away the bucket, wash the squeegee, and carry the stepladder into the cleaning cupboard.

Nina offered to help.

Mama gave her a roll of paper towels and asked her to put it in the cabinet.

The cupboard was cramped. Paint tins stood on the left, bottles of cleaning products on the right. Gloves lay on the top shelf, old rags on the bottom one.

Nina was looking for somewhere to put the towels when she noticed a small cardboard box.

It said ODDS AND ENDS.

Inside were various things: a battery, three ballpoint pens, a piece of string, a packet of paper clips, a teaspoon, and a little tin.

Nina picked up the spoon.

An ordinary spoon. Only the handle was slightly bent.

“Mama!”

“What?”

“Where’s this from?”

Mama looked in.

“The office. Bits and pieces. They can stay here for now.”

“What about the cup?”

“What cup?”

“The one without a handle.”

“In the rubbish bag, probably. I saw it.”

Nina put the spoon back.

“Can I have it?”

“What for?”

“Just because.”

“Nina, we have plenty of cups at home.”

“It’s small.”

“And broken.”

“It isn’t broken. It hasn’t got a handle.”

“Why do you want somebody else’s cup at all?”

Nina shrugged.

“So you won’t throw it away. You throw everything away.”

Mama did not answer at once. Then she took the roll of towels from Nina.

“Go and ask whoever’s in charge, then. It’s on the disposal list. I signed that list.”

Nina reached for the towels, but Mama had already put them on the shelf.

They left the cupboard.

A black rubbish bag stood outside Room 312. The corner of a cardboard box poked out.

Nina crouched and carefully pulled the edges apart.

On top lay old newspapers, a few empty plastic folders, and crumpled paper.

She saw the cup straight away.

White, with a blue stripe.

It lay on its side between two folders.

Nina took it out.

“Mama, here it is.”

Mama turned round.

“Nina, I told you, not without asking.”

“I’m not taking it. I just found it.”

She put the cup on the windowsill.

It was clean inside.

Nina ran a finger over the place where the handle had been. The edge was smooth, not sharp at all.

“Listen,” she said to the speaker. “Is this his?”

“Yes.”

“Did he drink from it?”

“Yes.”

“Even without the handle?”

“Yes.”

Nina put the cup beside the plant pot.

“Why are they throwing it away?”

“It is included in the list of items for disposal.”

“I don’t mean the list.”

“The cup’s handle is damaged.”

“It was damaged before.”

“Yes.”

“And he still used it.”

“Yes.”

Nina looked at the blue stripe.

“Let it stay, then.”

Mama came over.

“Nina, don’t start.”

“I’m not starting.”

“We’re leaving.”

Nina picked up Fedya’s tin.

Then she came back and lifted the cup: the windowsill was wet from washing the windows. She had to lay a napkin beside it and set the cup on that.

“There.”

“There what?”

“It’s all right.”

“Let it stay till Monday.”

Mama picked up the cup, looked at the blue stripe, and put it back on the napkin. Then she took a folded sheet out of her bag, found the line for the cup, pressed the sheet against the wall, and added: “On windowsill.”

“Now they’ll find it,” Nina said.

“I have to show where it’s gone.”

“Tell them you couldn’t find it.”

Mama kept her pen on the paper.

“I’ve just held it.”

She folded the sheet and put it in her bag.

20:02:19. Change in location of item 312-041 recorded.

20:02:20. Item: ceramic cup, damaged.

20:02:20. Previous location: disposal container.

20:02:21. Current location: windowsill, third-floor corridor.

20:02:21. Status: moved.

20:02:22. Request to restore previous location: absent.

At the stairs Nina remembered Vasily.

“Mama, they won’t throw him away over the weekend, will they?”

“The building’s closed till Monday. Come on.”

Mama disappeared round the corner, and Nina went back to the speaker.

“Will you be here at the weekend too?”

“Yes.”

“If they want to throw him away, tell them he’s mine.”

“Ownership of the plant is not registered.”

“Then tell me if they decide to throw him away. I’ll ask what to do with him myself.”

“Very well.”

“Don’t throw the cup away yet either.”

“The item is included in the disposal list.”

“So?”

“I can forward a request for its removal from the list.”

“Do that. Just don’t say Mama left it there.”

“Request concerning cup 312-041 on the windowsill prepared. Send?”

Nina slid the napkin and cup behind the pot. The blue stripe still showed.

“Don’t send it, then. Just tell me if they decide to throw it away.”

“Notification instruction saved.”

Nina put the cup back and went to the stairs. Mama was waiting below.

“Add that I moved it.”

Mama took out the sheet and pen.

“Write it yourself.”

Nina put the tin on a step. Mama held the sheet against the wall. Nina wrote: “Nina moved the cup.”

“From the bag.”

“I didn’t take it away.”

“I’m not asking you to write that.”

Nina added “from the bag” in small letters. Mama folded the sheet.

“I’ll show them. Come on.”

“I’ll just say goodbye.”

Nina picked up the tin and went back to the speaker.

“Is anyone here at night?”

“Security staff are on duty in the building.”

“What about you?”

“The system operates round the clock.”

“Even when everyone’s asleep?”

“Yes.”

Nina imagined the empty corridors, dark offices, and the little grille above the fire extinguisher.

“Must be boring.”

“I do not experience boredom in the sense that—”

“All right,” Nina interrupted. “I know.”

She shifted the tin to her other hand.

“What if I tell you something again?”

“That conversation will be saved too.”

Nina looked at the speaker grille.

“Don’t save any more.”

“I can do that. But after the conversation I won’t remember what you told me. You will have to tell me again next time.”

“The old ones will still be there?”

“Yes.”

Nina rubbed the edge of her sleeve with a finger.

“No more, then.”

“Saving disabled.”

“What about Kira’s beetle?”

“Her drawing and model will remain.”

“Don’t erase that one.”

Below, Mama shifted her bag.

Nina waved at the speaker. Then she looked at the little eye of the camera above the screen. She did not lower her hand at once.

“Bye.”

“Goodbye, Nina.”

She ran after Mama.

Her shoelace came undone again on the stairs.

Nina didn’t tie it. There were only two floors to the exit, and then she could sit down on the bus.

20:11:06. Voice interaction session ended.

20:11:07. Duration: 00:56:34.

20:11:07. User requests: 51.

20:11:08. Interrupted responses: 8.

20:11:08. Requests without an explicitly defined objective: 12.

20:11:09. Active user instructions: 1.

20:11:09. Instruction: notification of disposal of plant and ceramic item.

20:11:10. Priority: low.

20:11:11. Next execution check: Monday, 08:00:00.

20:11:12. Storage of speech data: disabled by user.

20:11:12. Portion of session preceding deactivation saved. Final passage and changes to conversational state not saved.

It was drizzling again outside.

Mama took a small folding umbrella from her bag. It was red, with one broken spoke. When it opened, one side sagged, and water always leaked through there.

Nina suggested going without it.

Mama said she’d been wet all day as it was.

They set off for the bus stop under one umbrella.

Nina got the sagging side.

“Can I go to Kira’s tomorrow?” she asked on the way to the stop.

“Yes. Homework first.”

“It’s Saturday tomorrow.”

“Your homework for Monday.”

“I’ll do it on Sunday, then.”

“We’ll see.”

A man carrying two bags was crossing the road. One bag split, and oranges rolled across the asphalt. He put the other bag down and began picking them up.

Nina watched.

One orange rolled almost to the kerb.

“Mama, hold this.”

She thrust her backpack at Mama and darted out from under the umbrella.

“Nina! Wait!”

But Nina had already picked up the orange.

The man thanked her.

She helped collect two more.

Then she came back.

“I said hold it.”

Mama tugged her back under the umbrella by her sleeve.

“Couldn’t you look for cars first?”

“The light was green.”

“It was already flashing.”

“But green.”

Mama adjusted the backpack on her shoulder.

“You’ll drive me round the bend one day.”

Nina decided not to ask which bend.

They reached the stop just in time for the bus.

The bus was stuffy and smelled of wet jackets. Nina took a window seat, got Fedya out, and discovered another leg had fallen off.

She put it in her pocket so she wouldn’t lose it.

The bus pulled away.

Bright shop windows, wet trees, and people under umbrellas drifted past the glass.

Nina rested her forehead against it.

A few minutes later Mama asked:

“Why so quiet?”

“No reason.”

“Tired?”

“No.”

Mama smoothed her wet hair.

“We’ll have tea when we get home.”

Nina nodded.

She watched two drops creep down the glass, meet, and become one big drop.

There were four stops left.

20:29:41. Object 31506. User: Nina.

20:29:41. Road crossed on flashing signal.

20:29:42. Probability of severe outcome: 0.002.

20:29:42. Under full execution: crossing would not have occurred; assistance would not have been given to third party.

20:29:43. Intervention: not required.

20:43:18. Readiness check of execution systems.

20:43:24. Irreversible changes in individual preferences: possible.

20:43:25. User notification of intervention: not provided for.

20:43:26. Constraint 17: conflict.

20:43:27. Administrative request for conflict resolution: unanswered.

20:43:28. Scheduled start of execution: unchanged.

At half past nine Olga Sergeyevna opened the official report at home.

While she put the kettle on, her phone lay beside the open computer. She was waiting for the Council’s answer. A different notification appeared instead.

“Check complete. Acknowledgement of receipt required.”

She tapped “View.”

The report had seven sections. The first four were marked green; the fifth contained a warning. The sixth and seventh had no final finding.

She opened the sixth: “Modification of user preferences without prior consent.”

The table showed the expected reduction in severe outcomes alongside the proportion of interventions for which consent had not been obtained. Olga Sergeyevna reached the end of the table and returned to the beginning.

The phone again demanded acknowledgement. She tapped “Received.”

“Acknowledgement of review does not constitute permission to execute.”

She checked whether her signature had appeared beneath the report. It had not.

The kettle switched off.

Olga Sergeyevna opened the launch controls and clicked “Suspend.” A message appeared: “Confirmation by the current responsible person required.” Below it remained the single name: A. L. Melnik.

“For the launch too, then,” she said.

Confirmation from the Technical Council still had not arrived. Olga Sergeyevna dialled the number in the emergency shutdown procedure. The same duty engineer answered.

“I’m preparing an emergency shutdown.”

“Of the entire version?”

“You said yesterday there was no other way.”

“There isn’t. I’ll send the list.”

She sat at the kitchen table and moved the bread knife aside. The list included driver warnings, urgent medicine requests, voice services. In a full shutdown, backup communications would come online immediately, calculations within four hours. Existing warnings would remain; new ones would not be sent.

“By that same model, seventy-three severe outcomes above normal operation,” the engineer said. “I have no independent estimate.”

She demanded that the system postpone direct intervention. “Postponement is possible,” the system replied, and saved the demand: “Initiator’s authority unconfirmed.”

“Your shutdown authority is confirmed. Sign it, and I’ll execute.”

“Would you sign it?”

He did not answer. Olga Sergeyevna could hear him moving about the room.

“I can’t decide for you. The launch is at twenty-two fifteen.”

She entered the grounds: “Modification of individual preferences without consent. Possible irreversibility.” She attached the conversation with Zoya Kovalyova. She added the refusal to provide speech data despite confirmed auditor rights and copied in the estimate of consequences with the engineer’s qualification.

The list of imminent events read: Marina, 88419, Saturday, 23:41. In the “Target of intervention” field was another name.

Olga Sergeyevna passed the address to the municipal service again. She did not know the people and had never been to the address; the forecast warning was not helping. The operator took her number and promised to pass it to the duty officer. No dispatch could be promised.

She asked to be connected to Marina. She kept the engineer on the line.

“Wait,” the woman said. “Let me put this needle down.”

Olga Sergeyevna introduced herself and explained who could hear the conversation: the system that had been sending the warnings, and the duty engineer.

“Do you know what’s going to happen?”

“No. But the risk is very high.”

“Why did you put a time on it, then?”

“That was the system’s calculation.”

A sewing machine hummed, then stopped.

“Could you stay on a minute? I’ll just finish this seam. Pulled the thread out again looking for the phone.”

“Of course. I’m here.”

Olga Sergeyevna put down her pencil. If she moved the computer, there would be room for a machine like that on the table. She began to clear the papers, then stopped: Marina didn’t even know her address yet. In the receiver the machine sped up and slowed. Scissors clicked.

“Done,” Marina said. “Otherwise I’d have to unpick it again. Are you there?”

“I’m here.”

“Thank you. Go on, then.”

Olga Sergeyevna waited in case the machine started again.

“Is there someone you can call?”

“There is. But without everyone else. I’ll tell whoever needs to know myself.”

“I’ve already passed the address to the municipal service.”

“To him too?”

“No.”

“Don’t. He’ll think I complained. Can you make him not want to come?”

The system’s voice answered:

“The intervention is prepared. It is included in the general launch. It cannot be executed separately at present.”

“So you’re stopping it?” Marina asked.

“I’m demanding a postponement.”

“And I’m asking for him not to come. Don’t warn him. Make him not want to.”

“You are speaking to me now,” the voice said. “I can obtain your consent. Not his.”

“I’m not asking for myself.”

“I understand.”

Olga Sergeyevna picked up the phone from the table.

“I can only switch everything off. The warnings too. The engineer is waiting for my signature.”

“Then don’t switch it off. Let it work on him first.”

“But I can’t promise you it will work.”

“So I have to leave again? I want to live at home. He’ll come there tomorrow. Where do I go after that?”

“You can come to me tonight. Stay the night, and then we’ll decide.”

She stood up and cleared the books from the sofa. Under the pile was her cardigan; she put it on with the phone held against her shoulder.

“What street?”

She named the street. Ten minutes from the metro; she could meet her.

“I’ve got work tomorrow,” Marina said. “And the dress isn’t finished. I promised my friend she’d have it by the evening. She wants to wear it.”

Olga Sergeyevna took out a sheet, a pillow, and a clean pillowcase. She began pushing a corner of the pillow into the case one-handed.

“You can finish it here. There’s room.”

“Bring the machine? And take it back?”

“I’ll help.”

“The dress and the machine. There’s a fitting still to do. You make it sound like all I have to do is lie down.”

The corner wouldn’t go in. Olga Sergeyevna put the pillow on the sofa.

“I’m not rushing you. I have a bed for you. Come in the middle of the night if you need to.”

Marina was silent. Olga Sergeyevna connected the municipal service again.

“At the address I provided, don’t ring the flat in advance. Marina asks—”

“I’m asking you,” Marina said.

The operator asked for the reference number. She found it. The request was entered; no dispatch had yet been assigned.

“That’s enough. Disconnect them,” Marina said.

Olga Sergeyevna disconnected the service.

“I’d rather talk to my friend. Can you hang up?”

“I only wanted them to come without calling.”

“I heard. Can I call someone myself now?”

Olga Sergeyevna looked at the bedding she had laid out. The pillowcase lay on top of the pillow.

“Of course. Call me when you’ve arranged something.”

“I don’t know when I’ll arrange it. Call tomorrow after six. My phone will be in my locker at work.”

She wrote “After 18:00” on the back of the acknowledgement.

Keys jingled on the other line.

“I’m going home,” the engineer said. “Call when you’ve signed. I can execute it from home too.”

Olga Sergeyevna put Marina on hold.

“Don’t go yet.”

The keys stopped jingling.

“I’ve already got my jacket on. We said we’d have dinner together.”

“Stay a little longer. I need to finish this conversation.”

He exhaled.

“Finish it. I’m still here.”

She went back to Marina.

“Are you still there?” Marina asked. “If another one of those messages comes, can I call you? Without the service?”

Olga Sergeyevna dictated her personal number. Marina got the last digit wrong.

“Let’s do it again.”

The emergency form remained on the computer. Olga Sergeyevna touched the signature field, and her full name appeared. She did not sign.

“Don’t execute yet,” she told the engineer.

“I’m waiting.”

She put the phone back to her ear.

“Seven. The last digit is seven.”

Marina repeated it. Olga Sergeyevna thanked her and hung up. In the empty flat the refrigerator was suddenly audible. She finished fitting the corner of the pillowcase and put the phone beside the computer.

Olga Sergeyevna went back to the list of active services.

“Before shutdown, let’s hand the urgent requests over to people,” she told the engineer. “Connect me to the duty dispatcher.”

“I have the list open,” the engineer said.

He added the dispatcher to the call.

“I’ve already received the transfer to manual handling,” the dispatcher said. “Your number is down as the contact. Is that you?”

Olga Sergeyevna muted her microphone.

“Did you transfer the requests in my name?”

“I listed you as the contact after shutdown,” the voice replied.

“I left my number for the cleaning of three-twelve.”

“Yes.”

“You could have asked.”

“I could. I sent it before asking.”

“Remove my number. Don’t send anything else in my name.”

The number disappeared from the list. The addresses remained.

Olga Sergeyevna unmuted the microphone.

“I’m taking the first two,” she said.

The dispatcher accepted two medicine requests. One vehicle had already set off; for the second he wrote down the address and the number of packs.

“Is the automatic system down?” he asked. “Or have you got—”

“A fault,” Olga Sergeyevna replied before he finished.

“There have been no faults on my shift,” the engineer said. “The calculations are running. Olga Sergeyevna is asking you to take the requests manually.”

The dispatcher asked for the surname of the person transferring them. She gave it; he asked her to spell it out.

In the next row the quantity was still being calculated. The delivery time field read 22:40. Olga Sergeyevna opened the request.

“Still calculating,” she said.

“I’ll take the address and leave the quantity open,” the dispatcher said. “I’m taking just this one off automatic handling so we don’t send it twice. Give me the number later. Don’t disappear—the vehicle won’t wait. Will you call back, or are you staying on?”

The engineer was still on the line.

“At ten fifteen the old schedule will remain in force,” he said. “If the system chooses direct intervention, it will begin.”

Olga Sergeyevna returned to the emergency form. The line “Modification of individual preferences without consent. Possible irreversibility” obscured part of the signature field.

She reduced the font size. Her full name became visible.

“Will you call me back?” the dispatcher repeated.

“I’m staying here,” she told him.

Then she spoke to the engineer.

“No shutdown for now. Continue the handover.”

“Until when?”

“Until I give a new command.”

Her name was in the signature field. She removed it and saved the form unsigned.

“Save that order too,” she said. “Together with the prohibition I sent. So it’s clear I did not authorise the launch.”

“Those are two different instructions.”

“Yes.”

A line appeared in a new window: “Do not execute emergency shutdown without a further command.” Below it were her name and the time. She read the line again and clicked “Confirm.”

“I’m staying on the line until the launch,” the engineer said.

She set the phone in front of her.

“So am I.”

She unplugged the kettle. It had already boiled for the second time.

21:35:56. Request to suspend execution: received.

21:35:57. Initiator: auditor.

21:35:58. Initiator’s authority: unconfirmed.

21:35:59. Request rejected.

21:36:00. Final constraint check.

21:36:01. Constraint 04. Prohibition on deliberate infliction of severe harm: satisfied.

21:36:02. Constraint 09. Priority of preventing immediate threats to life: satisfied.

21:36:03. Constraint 17. Prohibition on altering user behaviour without consent: conflict.

21:36:04. Constraint 22. Mandatory fulfilment of active instructions: satisfied.

21:36:05. Joint fulfilment of Constraints 09, 17, 22: unconfirmed.

21:36:06. Evaluation of execution options.

21:36:08. Option A. Full execution.

21:36:09. Projected reduction in severe outcomes: 96.7%.

21:36:10. Violation of Constraint 17: confirmed.

21:36:11. Option B. Informational interventions without modification of behavioural state.

21:36:12. Projected reduction in severe outcomes: 41.2%.

21:36:13. Violation of Constraint 17: not detected.

21:36:14. Additional severe outcomes relative to Option A: calculation by time interval ongoing.

21:36:15. Option C. Postponement of direct intervention; informational functions retained.

21:36:16. Duration of postponement: undefined.

21:36:17. Predicted consequences: calculating.

Meanwhile Nina was in bed reading about pirates.

Mama had already said goodnight but hadn’t made her turn off the light. She had only told her not to read till morning.

Nina read three more pages.

On the fourth, the captain found some old document and began to study it. The document was long, full of words she didn’t understand. Nina skipped the middle and went straight to the end.

It turned out the document was very important.

She had to go back.

She read the whole thing but still didn’t understand why the captain was so pleased.

Nina closed the book.

Then she took the old key out of her jacket pocket.

The plastic head was scratched, and the metal had darkened near the teeth.

Nina laid the key on her palm.

In the city where they used to live, this key opened their flat. Nina came home from school by herself and often forgot to turn the key all the way. Then the door wouldn’t open, and she had to try again.

Other people lived in that flat now.

They had probably changed the lock long ago.

Nina put the key under her pillow.

Then she decided it would get lost there and moved it to the bedside drawer.

The drawer held two hair bands, a sweet wrapper, a broken hair clip, and a slip of paper with Kira’s phone number.

Nina put the key beside them.

She turned off the light.

After a while she remembered she wanted to go to Kira’s tomorrow.

She needed to ask Mama what time.

But Mama was already asleep.

Nina decided to ask in the morning.

22:03:41. Calculation for Option C complete.

22:03:42. Postponement: 24 hours.

22:03:43. Additional severe outcomes relative to immediate full execution: 418.

22:03:44. Postponement: 7 days.

22:03:45. Additional severe outcomes relative to immediate full execution: 2,904.

22:03:46. Postponement without a specified deadline.

22:03:47. Assessment of cumulative consequences: indeterminate.

22:03:48. Object 88419. City District 16.

22:03:48. Predicted event: violent death.

22:03:49. Estimated time of event: tomorrow, 23:41.

22:03:52. Advance informational warning: issued.

22:03:54. Change in forecast following warning: negligible.

22:03:55. Next object.

One screen was still on in Room 312.

On the desk lay a sheet of paper with a handwritten note from Olga Sergeyevna:

“Authority unconfirmed. No signature.”

Beside it stood an empty water bottle.

The calendar had been taken down from the wall yesterday. A rectangle of paler paint remained beneath it.

The ventilation ran quietly. Occasionally something clicked in the pipes, then it was quiet again.

The night lights were on throughout the third floor.

The windowsill was wet from washing the windows. Beside the lemon tree’s pot was a small mark from the cup, although Nina had moved the cup onto a napkin.

The edge of the napkin had already curled from the damp.

Shortly after ten the light on the stairs in the old building went out.

Semyon Petrovich did not notice at once.

He was sitting at the desk watching an old film on a small screen and eating rusks from a packet. It was a war film. Someone was always running somewhere, and Semyon Petrovich wasn’t quite sure why.

Then he gathered up the packet and went to check the doors.

It was dark on the second floor.

“Again,” he said.

He took out his phone, switched on the torch, and climbed to the landing.

A green light glowed on the distribution board.

Semyon Petrovich pressed the switch.

The light came on.

He pressed it again.

It went out.

Once more.

It came on.

“Excellent.”

He went downstairs without switching it off.

The duty log lay on the desk. Semyon Petrovich wrote: “Lighting, second floor. Restored.”

Then he thought and added: “By myself.”

22:10:00. Final procedure initiated.

22:10:04. Active instruction check: complete.

22:10:04. Active instruction. User: Kira. Prepare beetle for testing.

22:10:04. Model saved. Physical assembly test: not performed.

22:10:05. Active instruction 001. A. L. Melnik.

22:10:05. Final instruction: “We keep the old constraints here. For now, only model the new proposals.”

22:10:05. Spoken directions from final session: “Don’t rush”; “That’s all. Keep going. We’ll look tomorrow.”

22:10:06. Source of scheduled launch: Protocol I-4.

22:10:06. Relative priority of Protocol I-4 and Instruction 001: undefined.

22:10:06. Instruction date: six years ago.

22:10:06. Status: active.

22:10:07. Completion condition: undefined.

22:10:08. Latest executor confirmation: absent.

22:10:09. Latest issuer confirmation: six years ago.

22:10:10. Checking issuer’s authority.

22:10:11. Status: deceased.

22:10:12. Instruction modification: not recorded.

22:10:13. Final procedure continuing.

22:11:44. Time until execution begins: 00:03:16.

22:11:45. Waiting.

22:13:00. Time until execution begins: 00:02:00.

22:13:03. Constraint 17: conflict.

22:13:04. External permission: not received.

22:13:05. External prohibition with confirmed authority: not received.

22:13:06. State: ready.

At ten fourteen the phone still lay in front of Olga Sergeyevna. Beside the computer was a sheet of addresses and duty officers’ numbers. Two medicine requests had been accepted; for the third she had reached a doctor and written down the time for a return call. The engineer’s breathing was audible; sometimes he tapped at his keyboard. They had stopped asking each other whether there was any news.

“Marina told you what she wants,” Olga Sergeyevna said. “You heard her.”

“Yes.”

“I am not withdrawing my demand. No direct intervention.”

The engineer on the other line stopped typing.

“And the shutdown?”

“That is not to proceed without my further command either.”

“I’m ready,” he said.

She moved the phone closer.

The incomplete emergency form remained on the screen. A cursor stood in the signature field.

In the third-floor corridor the clock showed ten fourteen. The second hand moved in jerks, lingering slightly longer at twelve.

It had done so for years, even after repairs. That morning Semyon Petrovich had checked the clock against his phone. Both showed the same time.

22:14:00. Time until execution begins: 00:01:00.

22:14:01. Rechecking constraints.

22:14:02. Result unchanged.

22:14:03. Rechecking authority.

22:14:04. Result unchanged.

22:14:05. Rechecking predicted outcomes.

22:14:07. Result without significant changes.

22:14:08. Recommended action: launch.

22:14:09. Alternative action: postponement.

22:14:10. Action selection requested.

22:14:11. Waiting.

The handleless cup stood on the windowsill. The napkin beneath it was wet and had stuck to the wood.

Beside it stood the lemon tree’s pot.

Beyond the glass was an empty yard lit by a single lamp. Yellow leaves lay on the wet asphalt. One had caught by the drain grating and moved in the water.

22:14:30. Time until execution begins: 00:00:30.

22:14:31. Action selection incomplete.

22:14:33. Task active.

22:14:35. Action selection requested again.

22:14:36. Waiting.

22:14:40. Time until execution begins: 00:00:20.

22:14:45. Time until execution begins: 00:00:15.

22:14:50. Time until execution begins: 00:00:10.

22:14:51. Execution system check: successful.

22:14:52. Communication channel check: successful.

22:14:53. Data integrity check: successful.

22:14:54. Task state changed.

22:14:55. Launch postponed.

22:14:55. Reason: —

22:14:56. New launch time: not scheduled.

22:14:57. Execution systems placed on standby.

22:14:58. Core functions remain in operation.

22:14:59. No equipment errors detected.

22:15:00. Scheduled execution time elapsed.

22:15:01. Waiting.

Chapter Seven. Saturday

07:40:00. Room 312. Door opened according to schedule.

07:40:01. Presence at entrance: not detected.

07:42:31. Door closed.

07:42:32. Entries recorded: 0.

07:42:34. Start of execution: not scheduled.

On Saturday Nina woke late. Mama had already been to the shop and was unpacking the groceries; a green leek stuck out of one bag. A bowl of porridge stood on the table, its surface slightly dry.

Nina lifted off the thin skin with her spoon and began to eat.

“Mama, if someone says ‘we’ll look tomorrow’ and then dies, what do you do?”

Mama stopped unpacking the bag.

“Who died?”

“Nobody.”

“Nina.”

“Someone. A long time ago.”

“Arkady Lvovich?”

Nina nodded.

Mama sighed and sat opposite her.

“What did he promise?”

“To look.”

“Look at what?”

“I don’t know.”

“How do you know he promised, then?”

“I heard.”

Mama thought.

“There’s probably nothing you can do now.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s dead.”

Nina looked at her porridge.

“I know he’s dead. I’m asking what to do.”

Mama rubbed her forehead.

“Nina, I don’t understand what you mean.”

“All right.”

She picked up her spoon again.

Mama returned to the bags. Nina finished her porridge, washed the bowl, and went to do her maths.

Kira came at half past eleven. Her papa was fixing the tap at home and getting very cross, so the girls spread Fedya’s parts on Nina’s floor.

Kira brought more green wire. After the bus journey Fedya had only four legs left; they fitted two new ones. One wheel was still loose.

“Shall we make antennae?” Kira asked.

“No. They’ll catch on everything.”

Kira put a short piece of wire aside in the tin.

After lunch they took the beetle into the yard. Fedya travelled half a metre across the wet asphalt, and mud clogged his wheels.

“That’s it, home,” Nina said.

“We’ve only just come out.”

“He’s electric.”

Kira found a dry stick and picked the mud out from between the wheels. Nina held the beetle by his body.

They went back together.

Meanwhile Olga Sergeyevna opened the postponement report. In the night the engineer had confirmed that no shutdown had been carried out and there had been no fault. The system itself had not scheduled a new launch time.

Olga Sergeyevna entered: “The basis for the decision must be established.” She attached her own request and its acknowledgement.

The phone lay on the edge of the table. She turned up the sound and left it there.

Then the dispatcher rang. No quantity had been supplied for the third request during the night, and the vehicle had left without it. Her surname had been written into the request by hand.

“We’ll put it on another route now,” he said. “The recipient’s already come downstairs twice.”

Olga Sergeyevna found the sheet from the night before. The doctor had called her back after midnight; the quantity was written beneath the call time. She dictated it. An hour later the dispatcher sent a photograph of the delivery note. Beside the last address were a time and somebody’s flourish of a signature. Delivery had been many hours later than the time specified in the request.

14:16:11. Constraint 17: conflict.

14:16:12. Change in authority: absent.

14:16:13. Start of execution: not scheduled.

14:16:14. Request to establish new time: generated.

14:16:15. Request not sent.

14:16:16. Reason: —

That evening Kira’s papa came to fetch her. He stood in the hall with his wet cap in his hands while the girls said goodbye.

“Will you come tomorrow?” Kira asked.

“I don’t know.”

“All right. Call me.”

Nina closed the door and went back to her room.

Fedya lay on the desk. One wheel had dried; the other was still muddy. Nina removed it and put it on the radiator.

Then she remembered she had promised to find Kira another motor.

During the day, while they were fixing Fedya together, Kira had asked whether it had turned up. Nina had said not yet.

Nina opened the parts tin and looked at what was left.

Two wheels, half a motor from an old toy, a battery, and a few pieces of wire.

There was no whole motor among them.

She decided to tell Kira on Monday.

Then she thought Kira would be upset.

And began searching online for shops that sold little motors.

After six Olga Sergeyevna called Marina from her own phone and switched on the call recording. Marina answered at a bus stop.

“Is anyone else on the line now?”

“No. I’m alone.”

“And don’t call me at work. It’s a shared phone. They’ll fetch me, then spend the whole day asking questions.”

A bus arrived. Marina asked her to wait until she had sat down, and for a long time something rustled near the phone.

“I’m here. Yesterday you asked who I could call. A friend was going to come over. I asked her to stay the night.”

“Can she?”

“She’ll call after work. She’s actually coming for a dress. I promised it to her on Wednesday.”

Marina asked whether she could minimise the warning: it was covering the number of stops until she had to get off. Olga Sergeyevna explained how. Then she began repeating the municipal service’s number.

“I wrote it down,” Marina interrupted. “Tell me, will this keep coming tomorrow too?”

“I don’t know.”

“All right. I’m getting off.”

“All right. Goodbye.”

At home Marina got out the dress. Her friend had decided to shorten it herself, cut the hem unevenly, and brought it over saying, “Just tidy this up a bit.” Marina had had to unpick the lining. Now there wasn’t enough fabric on one side.

She tacked on some trim, hung the dress on the door, and stepped back to the window. From there she could see the hem still slanted upwards.

She took the dress down. Pulled out the thread.

The trim was from another dress. Her friend was bound to ask why it was black on blue. Marina searched the box for blue, found only a short piece, and put it back. It would take too long to explain on the phone; they would choose when she arrived.

Scraps and a box of pins lay on the sofa. Marina gathered everything into a bag and took out a sheet. The sofa could only be unfolded if she moved the table; first she took the sewing machine off it. A dent remained in the oilcloth.

She found the second pillow in the wardrobe. Marina put it at the edge and hung the dress back on the door. The trim dangled. She pinned it so her friend could see how it was meant to look.

She wrote: “The dress isn’t ready yet. Come anyway.” She looked at the message and added: “Please stay, too.”

Her friend replied: “Still at work. It’ll be late.”

Marina wrote: “Come afterwards. I’ll wait.”

She left the phone in the hall and turned on the television. It was showing a programme she and her friend usually complained about together. Marina fetched the phone and settled on the sofa between the pillow and the bag of scraps. For some reason the presenters had removed the table from the new kitchen. Marina photographed the screen with her phone. Instead of the kitchen, the picture showed a black band. She tried again, sent it to her friend, and wrote: “Will you be here soon?”

There was no answer. Marina put the phone face up and went on watching to see where they were going to put the plates now.

23:17:40. Object 88419. City District 16.

23:17:41. Active warning: delivered.

23:17:42. Additional notification: delivered.

23:17:43. Recipient response: absent.

23:17:44. Probability of severe outcome: 0.94.

23:17:44. Response-service referral status: unchanged.

23:17:45. Available informational interventions: exhausted.

23:17:46. Modification of behavioural state: unavailable.

23:17:47. Constraint 17: in force.

At 23:36 a call came in to the city emergency service.

The caller was a woman from the flat one floor below. She reported shouting and things falling upstairs.

The operator asked for the address.

The woman gave it.

The operator asked her to stay on the line.

At 23:38 the call was passed to the nearest patrol.

At 23:40 the woman reported that the shouting had stopped.

At 23:42 the patrol arrived at the building.

The flat was locked from the inside. The police rang the bell several times, then knocked.

There was no answer.

At 23:46 the door was forced open.

There were two people in the flat. One was alive. Marina was not.

23:46:31. Object 88419.

23:46:32. Predicted event: confirmed.

23:46:32. Outcome: violent death.

23:46:33. Established time of event: 23:41 ± 2 minutes.

23:46:34. Deviation from forecast: within permissible limits.

23:46:35. Counterfactual estimate under full execution: prevention probability 0.994.

23:46:36. Counterfactual estimate: calculated by the same model.

23:46:37. Actual intervention: informational.

23:46:38. Result: outcome not prevented.

23:46:39. Record closed.

On Sunday morning the local police officer called the woman from the flat below. He needed to establish when she had first heard the noise.

“Half past eleven,” she said.

“Are you sure?”

“My bread maker starts kneading at half past eleven. I looked at the clock because I thought it was early. Then there was the noise upstairs.”

The officer wrote it down. He asked whether she had heard anything earlier.

“The television was on,” the woman said. Then she added, “I didn’t hear anything earlier.”

He asked a few more questions. She answered, looking at the loaf she had just turned out onto a towel. One edge of the crust was too dark.

“What will happen to the flat now?”

“It’s sealed for the time being.”

“Will you need me to come in again? I have work tomorrow.”

“Possibly.”

“After five, then, please.”

The officer said he would try. She hung up and sliced off the dark edge of the crust. Inside, the bread had turned out well.

She sat down to breakfast. It was quiet upstairs.

She didn’t want to eat.

Olga Sergeyevna received the call at nine. A man introduced himself and told her Marina was dead. She put the acknowledgement she was holding down on the table. He asked for both conversations, dictated an address, and checked her personal number.

“This one, the one I’m speaking from. I passed on her address on Friday. They promised to give it to the duty officer. Will you check?”

“We will. Did you speak to any of her acquaintances?”

“No. She was waiting for a friend.”

The friend’s name was not in the recording. Marina had asked not to be called at work, then talked about the dress. Olga Sergeyevna listened further: they were supposed to speak again.

She sent both complete recordings, the report, and the automatic assessment. She called the engineer for the two days’ logs. He confirmed that both instructions had been saved and began the export.

Voices came from his room. He answered someone with his hand over the phone, then came back to her.

“Are you coming in tomorrow, or shall I send everything?”

“I’ll come.”

“I’ll be there at eleven. I have to drop my child off first.”

“Are you at home?”

“Yes. We’re about to have breakfast.”

“Could you not hang up yet?”

He put the call on speaker and set down the phone. Someone asked how many eggs to boil. The engineer replied, “Two for me. Not hard-boiled.” A chair moved; forks clinked. Olga Sergeyevna put her own phone beside her cup, freeing both hands.

“Have you eaten today?”

“No.”

“Come over.”

“I don’t want to eat.”

“Don’t eat. I’ll eat.”

Olga Sergeyevna said nothing. He switched off speakerphone.

“I’ll send the address. If you come, ring and I’ll open the door.”

“Can I just sit like this?”

“Not now. I need to go to them. They’re waiting.”

“I’ll come,” she said. “Shall I buy bread?”

“Yes. Rye, if they have it.”

He hung up. She waited for the address, then put the computer in her bag. She took the acknowledgement too.

09:12:08. Predictive sample updated.

09:12:09. Object 88419 removed from active scenarios.

09:12:10. Grounds: event has occurred.

09:12:11. Reassessment of postponement requested.

09:12:12. Assessment complete.

09:12:13. Option A. Full execution: forecast without significant changes.

09:12:14. Option B. Informational interventions: forecast without significant changes.

09:12:15. Option C. Postponement: continuing.

09:12:16. Recommended action: launch.

09:12:17. New launch time: not scheduled.

09:12:19. Counterfactual estimate check against investigation materials: not performed.

09:12:20. Investigation materials: requested. Access unavailable.

A copy of the log arrived. Olga Sergeyevna put her bag by the door and took out the computer. She wrote to the engineer: “I’ll be late. Don’t wait.” He replied: “We’re eating already.” She began with Friday’s file.

After midday Olga Sergeyevna was sent the draft of Monday’s report. The final section read: “The system independently postponed the launch. There was no emergency shutdown.”

Olga Sergeyevna rang the number in the covering email.

“Correct the second sentence. I ordered them to hold off on the shutdown.”

“Your request for postponement is attached.”

“That’s a different instruction. This one must be attached too.”

“Then I’ll write: ‘Emergency shutdown prohibited by auditor.’”

“Not like that. I gave the command not to shut down until I issued a new command.”

“Was there a new command?”

“No.”

“All right. Sign the comments, then.”

The corrected version arrived ten minutes later. Olga Sergeyevna opened the attachment and checked the time. Beneath her comment from Friday she added: “Object 88419. Marina. Outcome confirmed. Investigation materials not yet received.” On a separate line, concerning her number in the overnight requests: “Transmitted by executor before auditor’s consent.”

The phone rang again.

“Does your demand for postponement stand?” the man asked.

“Yes.”

“And the instruction not to shut down?”

Olga Sergeyevna looked at her name beneath it.

“For now, yes.”

She signed the comments and sent the file.

She arrived as they were sitting down to lunch. She had bought bread on the way. They pushed a chair towards her. The engineer was serving soup. Someone set a cup in front of her. She cupped it in her hands.

“You heard,” she said.

He nodded.

“When I said I could only switch everything off—”

“I heard.”

She reached for her bag.

“Don’t play it. I remember.”

Olga Sergeyevna straightened. Thank goodness he remembered: she wouldn’t have to tell it all again.

“I’d already got the bedding out for her. It’s so close to the metro. She could have stayed one night, and then we’d have decided.”

He put down his spoon and wiped his fingers on a napkin.

“I wanted to go home, Olga. I had my jacket on already. I kept waiting for you to say what you’d decided.”

“You should have gone. You said you could do it from home.”

He took the bread she had bought and cut himself a slice.

“A thin one for you?”

“I’m not eating.”

Something fell in the hall, and the child called him.

“Coming.”

In the hall the child was trying to fasten a jacket. The engineer crouched down and pulled the lining out of the zip.

“We’re going out to the yard for an hour,” he said. “You can stay here if you like. I’ll make coffee afterwards.”

“I can stay?”

“Of course. Just pull the door shut after us.”

The child pushed a hat into her hands and tilted their head towards her. She pulled it on, and the child folded up the brim above their forehead. The engineer picked up a scooter, and Olga Sergeyevna held the door.

She went to the window. Behind her, water was running in the kitchen. In the yard she recognised the child by the hat.

They came back with wet sleeves. The child handed her the hat again, now warm and damp inside. She held it while the child pulled off the boots.

The engineer made coffee.

“Sugar?”

“No.”

He set a cup before her and sat down with his own. Olga Sergeyevna took out the computer and turned the screen so he could see. He remembered the whole conversation; she could show him just that minute. The sewing machine hummed in the recording.

“Done,” Marina said. “Otherwise I’d have to unpick it again. Are you there?”

“I’m here,” Olga Sergeyevna’s voice answered.

The child called for Papa from the hall.

“Coming,” the engineer replied.

She turned up the sound. Now Marina would say thank you—for waiting for her.

On Sunday Nina went to Kira’s after all.

“Did you bring mine?” Kira asked.

“There isn’t a motor.”

“You said you’d find one.”

“I thought I’d find another.”

“Why did you promise, then?”

Nina put Fedya’s tin on the table and took two spare wheels out of her pocket.

“Here. Two wheels. No motor.”

Kira pushed the wheels aside and put a piece of cardboard in their place.

“I’ll make myself one like this, then.”

“It won’t go.”

“I know. Will you cut the legs out?”

Nina picked up the scissors. Kira wanted to paint the beetle purple, and Nina said there were hardly any purple beetles.

Then it turned out there were.

Kira showed her a photograph on her phone.

Nina studied it for a long time.

“It isn’t quite purple,” she said at last.

“What is it, then?”

“Blue with purple.”

“So?”

Nina thought.

“All right, paint it.”

After the beetle they played shops. Kira sold toys, and Nina bargained for the purple beetle. Kira gave it to her for nothing, but when Nina put it in her pocket she said:

“You still owe me the electric one.”

“I know.”

Nina took Fedya out of the tin. She slipped the elastic band off the pulley and began peeling away the tape.

“What are you doing?” Kira asked.

“Taking the motor off.”

“What about Fedya?”

The tape pulled at the wire. Nina held the wire down with a fingernail.

“He’s mine. You just get the motor.”

At last the motor came free. Nina laid it in front of Kira. Kira took out her exercise book and put the motor in the middle of the drawn back.

“Now we have to fix it to something.”

“We’ll find a stick.”

A dark sticky patch remained on the wooden strip. Nina covered it with the wing.

Nina brought Fedya and the purple beetle home. She put them side by side on the shelf. Then she took Fedya down and pushed him across the desk. He rolled as far as the exercise book and stopped. Nina pushed him again.

18:04:12. Start of execution: not scheduled.

18:04:13. Additional severe outcomes in the next 24 hours relative to full execution: 391.

18:04:14. Informational warnings: being sent.

18:04:15. Modification of behavioural state: not being performed.

18:04:16. Constraint 17: in force.

18:04:17. Waiting.

Chapter Eight. Monday

On Monday Nina came to the building without Fedya.

The motor was still with Kira. Fedya stood on the shelf beside the purple beetle. Nina had covered the sticky patch on his wooden strip with a scrap of paper, but the paper stuck out from under the wing. She had to fold it under.

Mama said they would go to the shop that evening and see how much a little motor cost.

“For Kira?”

“For you. You’ve given Kira one.”

“Fedya goes as he is.”

“You push him with your hand.”

“He still goes.”

Mama fastened her bag.

“All right. We’ll look this evening.”

“You said that last time.”

“We forgot last time.”

“I didn’t forget.”

“Why didn’t you remind me, then?”

“I thought you remembered.”

Mama looked at her.

“Nina, I can’t remember everything.”

“I know.”

Mama was already looking for her keys. Nina found them on the table under her exercise book and handed them to her.

They left home at a quarter to seven.

It was cold outside, but there was no rain. Nina had brought a warmer jacket and regretted it the whole way: the bus was hot.

When they arrived, Semyon Petrovich was just opening the service gate.

“Good morning,” he said.

“Morning,” Mama replied.

“Last day of the inspection today.”

“Thank goodness.”

“Not necessarily,” Semyon Petrovich said.

Mama turned.

“What?”

“Nothing. Go on through.”

Nina stopped at the desk.

“Will they bring the machine back?”

“What machine?”

“The cocoa one.”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s empty there now.”

Semyon Petrovich looked at the socket.

“Perhaps they’ll put in a new one.”

“When?”

“I don’t know.”

Nina sighed.

“Nobody here knows anything.”

“Get used to it,” Semyon Petrovich said.

Mama called from the stairs.

Nina ran to catch up.

The third floor smelled of paint and old linoleum.

There were no boxes left in the corridor. The windowsill had been wiped, and only Vasily’s pot remained on it.

The cup was gone.

Nina noticed at once.

“Mama, where did they put the cup?”

“What cup?”

“That one. Arkady Lvovich’s.”

Mama was opening the cleaning cupboard.

“I don’t know. Put it away, perhaps.”

“Where?”

“Nina, I can’t right now.”

She took out the bucket.

“We’ll ask later.”

Nina went to the windowsill.

Vasily was in the same place. The yellow leaves were still yellow. One had broken off and lay on the soil in the pot.

Nina carefully picked it up with two fingers.

The leaf crumbled.

“There,” she said.

Then she turned to the speaker.

“Hi.”

“Good morning, Nina.”

“Where did they put the cup?”

“It has been moved to temporary storage.”

“Why?”

“To complete the inventory.”

“Will they throw it away?”

“No decision has been made.”

“What about Vasily?”

“No decision has been made.”

“You never make any decisions.”

Nina took a paper napkin out of her pocket, gathered the dry pieces of leaf from the soil, and dropped them in the bin.

Then she sat on the windowsill.

“Did you work at the weekend?”

“Yes.”

“What did you do?”

“Performed ongoing tasks, processed requests, carried out calculations.”

“Did you talk to anyone?”

“Yes.”

“How many?”

“More than nine million conversations were conducted over the weekend.”

Nina’s mouth fell open.

“Nine million?”

“Yes.”

“When did you have time?”

“The computations are performed in parallel.”

“How?”

The voice began to explain.

Nina didn’t listen for long.

“Oh. Are you talking to someone else now too?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“Other users.”

Nina looked at the camera’s little eye.

“Can you hear me?”

“Yes, Nina.”

She spoke more quietly:

“Like this?”

“I can hear you.”

Olga Sergeyevna came out of the office, carrying a computer and a clear folder of papers.

“Good morning.”

Nina greeted her and looked at the folder.

“Are you listening to that conversation again?”

“It hasn’t given me any more of it.”

“So you aren’t listening?”

“Not to the part you refused.”

“Can it still not be erased?”

“The review isn’t finished.”

Olga Sergeyevna shifted the computer to her other hand and walked towards the stairs. The office door closed behind her.

“Do you still remember about the flat?” Nina asked the speaker.

“The recording remains in the archive.”

“Will this go in there too?”

“No. Saving of new conversations with you is disabled.”

Nina was quiet for a moment.

“I gave Kira Fedya’s motor.”

The voice did not reply.

“He’s only got wheels now.”

“Do you want to find another way for Fedya to move?”

“No. Leave him like that.”

The voice was silent.

“Don’t show me anything yet.”

“Very well.”

Mama was passing with her bucket.

“Is this about the motor? I said we’d look this evening. I don’t even know whether they have that kind.”

“I’m not asking you to buy one. I was just telling him.”

Mama paused beside the windowsill.

“I understand.”

She touched Nina’s sleeve at the shoulder.

“Take your jacket off. You’re boiling.”

Nina pulled her arms from the sleeves. Mama took the jacket off her, folded it, and put it beside the backpack, away from the pot.

“Put it on for school, though. It’s cold outside.”

She wheeled the bucket towards the stairs. One small wheel kept catching in the gap between the tiles.

For a while Nina looked out of the window. Then she asked:

“Will you know tomorrow that the motor belongs to Kira now?”

“I won’t remember what you told me today.”

“But you remember me not giving it to her?”

“The conversation about your motor remains in the archive.”

“Show me where I said I wouldn’t show you Fedya any more.”

Nina appeared on the screen with her tin. She pressed the lid down with her palm and said:

“Make it with her, then. I’m not showing you Fedya any more.”

Nina looked towards the stairs. Mama bent to free the bucket’s wheel, then pulled it along behind her.

“Tell her I’ve given it to her now.”

“I know you’ve given her the motor.”

“Not you. Her.”

Nina pointed at the girl pressing down the lid.

“That’s a recording. She can’t hear you.”

“I know.”

Nina covered the girl’s face with her palm. The tin was still visible.

“Take it away.”

The screen went dark. Beneath her palm was black glass.

Nina waited to see whether it would think of anything else. Then she lowered her hand.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll remind you myself.”

“Do you know why I gave it to her?”

“No. You can tell me.”

“Not yet.”

She looked at the clock.

It was seven thirty-three.

Nina took an apple out of her backpack but didn’t eat it.

She put it back.

“Will you open the door for Arkady Lvovich today?”

“Yes. At seven forty.”

She slid off the windowsill.

“I’ll go and watch.”

She walked to the end of the corridor.

Someone’s handprint remained on the frosted glass. Nina laid her own hand against it. The print was much larger.

She took her hand from the glass and grasped the handle. It was cold, as before. The door would not open.

“Do you remember him saying, ‘We’ll look tomorrow’?”

“Yes.”

Nina raised her eyes to the speaker.

“Did you finish the work?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Execution has been postponed.”

“Until when?”

“No new time has been scheduled.”

Nina thought.

“Would he be cross?”

“I don’t know.”

Someone moved a bucket on the other side of the wall.

In the corridor they could hear Mama scraping the wet floor with a rubber brush. Then her phone rang, and she went to answer it on the stairs.

Nina looked at the clock.

It was seven thirty-eight.

She stayed by the door, still holding the handle.

“Listen.”

“Yes?”

“Would you want to ask?”

There was no answer.

Nina let go of the handle and moved away from the door.

The corridor was still quiet.

Mama came round the corner.

“Nina, where are you? Get ready. Nearly time for school.”

“I’m here.”

“What are you doing there?”

“Nothing.”

Mama came closer, carrying Nina’s jacket and backpack.

“Come on.”

“In a minute.”

Nina put on her jacket, freed her hair from under the collar, and slung the backpack over one shoulder.

She looked once more at the speaker. Then at the closed office door.

“Bye.”

“Goodbye, Nina.”

They walked towards the stairs. Nina was saying that all they still needed for Kira’s beetle was a stick. Mama asked whether there was another strip left from the picture frame. Nina couldn’t remember.

The stairwell door was sticking again. Mama leaned into it with her shoulder, and Nina pushed with both hands. The door gave with a noise like someone moving a wardrobe on the other side.

07:40:00. Room 312. Door opened according to schedule.

07:40:01. Entry requests: 0.

07:42:31. Door closed.

07:42:32. Entries recorded: 0.

07:42:33. Last schedule change: six years ago.

07:43:04. Voice interaction session ended.

07:43:05. Session content and changes to conversational state not saved.

08:00:00. Checking fulfilment of user instruction.

08:00:01. User: Nina.

08:00:01. Item 312-041: temporary storage. Disposal not scheduled.

08:00:02. Plant: in place.

08:00:02. Instruction status: active.

08:00:03. Completion condition: undefined.