Hacking Einsteiner (Einsteiner, Book 2) Read online

  It was already some time since he realized that he was not dreaming and that Eva, his beloved Eva, for whose sake he had downloaded his creativity, was not with him for two whole years. It would be wrong to say that he did not remember his Veggie period very well. Rather, that period didn’t seem to have taken place at all. His memory stopped dead at the moment when he downloaded his OE. When he woke up he was the same as “yesterday”, a twenty-something-year-old guy, head-over-heels in love with his girl. “Yesterday” she hugged him and kissed him, they made love, he cracked jokes and she laughed vibrantly in response. It was impossible to grasp that she had left and was living with someone else, eating breakfast with someone else, having supper with someone else, sleeping with someone else, screwing someone else. The pain was appalling. Pascal flung his unfinished glass at the mirror above the fireplace. A spray of glass and liquid flew across the sitting room and the mirror tilted over and cracked right across, with a gaping hole at its center as if from a gunshot.

  Monstrous cubic pictures goggled down at him from the unfamiliar walls of his luxurious home. A few old photos on a chest of drawers, only one photo of Eva, but before, in the little old apartment, there had been lots of them.

  Pascal picked up the photo. Eva was so dear to him, so precious, so unbearably beautiful. That smile of hers… Pascal poured himself another glass.

  Isaac told him she has been seeing a doctor for a year already and had moved in with him. That gave Pascal a strange feeling. Betrayal? Almost. Something like betrayal, probably. His rational mind understood that a lot of time had gone by, that it was really all in the distant past. But for him it was all as if she had dumped him just yesterday. Yes, dumped him! That was the way it was for him. Yesterday he had hugged Eva, said goodbye cheerfully and promised to get rich before the evening came. He wanted to surprise her.

  That bastard of a doctor! The Count of Monte Cristo and his Mercedes surfaced from the depths of Pascal’s memory. His Eva did not wait for him either. The feeling of hurt consuming Pascal was amplified sequentially by love, hate and a whole slew of other emotions. He compared himself to an abandoned cripple, a missing person, a shipwreck survivor cast away on an uninhabited island, whose love had left him for someone else. His heart refused to accept that he had been a living vegetable with no chance of experiencing emotions and mutual affection.

  How long had she waited for him, how long had she been with that doctor? Why? Where did they meet? These pointless and agonizing questions were literally eating Pascal. The bottle was empty. His body, not used to alcohol, had struggled to get through it. Pascal suddenly felt sick, and he went dashing to find the toilet.

  After taking a shower, Pascal went back to the sitting room. He felt dizzy and he did not want to drink any more. He would not be able to get a drink down. There was a foul, bitter taste in his mouth. And in his soul.

  For a while Pascal pondered over whether he would get her back, even though she was with someone else. In his despair, he had decided that he wanted and was able to forget. But the alcohol had embittered him. No, she used to be his woman, only his. Now he couldn’t say that anymore, remembering that lousy, rotten doctor all the time. His mind conjured up pictures of her in passionate embraces. Her and that creep of a doctor. No, he could never come to terms with that, he could not live with it, he was too self-respecting. If he has lost her, then let it be. An egoistic inner voice whined despairingly: you’re a smart, attractive young guy, you have money now and you will forget and find yourself another one, lots of others. The voice of reason argued: forgive her, she is not to blame! It is all your fault! His feelings muddled reason, he wanted only her, he wanted to turn time back and delete this period from his life. A kaleidoscope of love, hate, grief and alcohol…

  Pascal fell asleep in an armchair in the sitting room. He had a dream that had no torments or love in it. But it was still some kind of a nightmare. He dreamed of airplanes, crashes and wrecks, a conflagration. All in color, and all so lifelike. His brain could not blank out the anguish, but it had blocked out the original cause, in an effort to protect his nervous system the best it could.

  Isaac came to wake Pascal at half past seven in the morning, half an hour before the arrival of the administrator. He had to help his friend to convincingly imitate a Veggie. They have not yet decided what to do next, so for the time being it was best to keep everything secret. The door was not locked, so Isaac walked in and saw the terrible mess in the room.

  “Pascal, what have you done? Get up, your nanny will be here soon! Where do you keep the vacuum cleaner? God, you reek of stale whisky, like an alcoholic. You’ll give yourself away and all the rest of us too. Veggies don’t drink!”

  Pascal jumped up and looked around. A completely unfamiliar pad. He remembered absolutely nothing about living here for more than two years. All this electronic gear everywhere. He didn’t have any clue where the vacuum cleaner was, or even the mop.

  Ten minutes later the mop had been found, the broken glass removed and the bottles thrown into a garbage can in the street. Isaac poured half a liter of strong coffee into Pascal and forced him to eat two cheese sandwiches to make the smell of alcohol disappear.

  The administrator was five minutes late. Walking into the sitting room, she stared in surprise at Isaac, then turned her eyes toward the broken mirror and Pascal’s slightly puffy face.

  “Hello! I broke that, I’m sorry,” Isaac said confidently. “How are you doing?”

  “Hello, Isaac. I’m doing fine. But what are you doing here so early?” The administrator’s voice was thick with suspicion.

  “Pardon me, but I came to see Pascal, not you,” Isaac snapped back. “We’re going out for a stroll. Will be back this evening. Or tomorrow morning.”

  The administrator glanced at Pascal in surprise, but he nodded in confirmation.

  “Let’s go, Pascal. You wanted to visit Vicky, right?”

  And before the administrator could ask another question, they left.

  Commissioner Pellegrini read the report on the call that Pascal Din’s administrator made to the Agency reporting his overnight disappearance. Strange that she haven’t called the police. Pellegrini already knew that Pascal reappeared.

  “This is getting very interesting,” he thought. “He didn’t spend the night at home, and that smell of liquor. Veggies don’t drink. This needs to be figured out. I’ll have to talk with this Pascal and the administrator, too. And with that liar Isaac, of course. These events could all be connected.”

  The commissioner rummaged through the summary police reports for the last few days, and everything seemed normal. A couple of broken windows and a stolen scooter. He checked the Collective Mind’s records just in case. All quiet there, too. There’d been a minor computer glitch at the Paris storage server, probably an electrical surge, nothing of interest. He only had to wait for the report from their mobile provider to see the routes of Isaac and Bikie, where they were and where they went.

  The leather couch which Pascal was sitting on all alone seemed to sway from side to side. He poured himself another whisky. The upholstery stuck annoyingly to his arms, legs and back. His entire body, outside and inside, was turning flabby and unresponsive, but not his brain that carried on erupting, neuron by neuron. Alcohol is a conductive medium and its thoughts are the electric current. Even if you get as drunk as a skunk, it can’t be helped, as your brain still keeps working.

  Pascal felt as if he had offended Eva so he gave in and called her. He was not able to control his contempt and fury and tried not to give himself away, but he slipped into barbed, acrid sarcasm and tossed from one extreme to another. In the end they quarreled. He could tell Eva was relieved to end the conversation. They agreed to keep in touch. Eva said they’d better not see each other just yet, Pascal’s absurd grievances were too fresh and there were too many emotions. She did not feel guilty at all and was not prepared to listen to any reproaches, which she did not think she deserved. At the end of the conversation
Pascal had almost said what his aggrieved ego wanted, that he was not a Veggie any longer but he had checked himself with a struggle and limited himself to simply saying: “OK, see you, talk to you soon!” Eva had wished him all the best and hung up.

  The phone fell out of his hands, clattering loudly on the tiled floor.

  “Hey you, lush, who did you just call?” Pascal heard Bikie’s menacing voice ask.

  “No one.”

  Bikie picked up the dropped phone and looked up the last number dialed.

  “Fu-uck it, are you totally mad? You idiot! We’re risking everything here for your sake! Want to go back to being a Veggie?”

  “You risked my life, too,” Pascal protested weakly, already quite tipsy.

  “We have to keep an eye on this jerk! Isaac!” Bikie was in a violent fury.

  He dashed to fetch Isaac, who was tidying up his room in preparation for his sister’s imminent arrival. Isaac rushed back with his infuriated friend, tried to calm him down, said he would sort everything out and sat down beside Pascal.

  “Old buddy, hold out for just a little while. Soon you’ll be able to drink as much as you want whenever you want. You’ll get to see Eva whenever you want…but not right now. We’ve got a lot to do, and you can help. I’ll make a quick trip to the hospital to see Vicky, have a word with the doctor, then come back and I promise you we’ll booze. Today. Just the two of us, like in the old times.”

  With a sigh, Isaac dialed Michelle. Silence. Even the messages were not delivered... Called the Concierge of her building – Madame Blanche did not return. Bikie, seeing that Isaac is too sad, dug up her e-mail online. Isaac did not dare to write in the mail what happened, just apologized, made excuses. He wrote that when she finds out, she will understand and forgive.

  Isaac realized long ago that he completely messed it up. But didn't want to admit it, didn't want to give up, did not want to return to the gloomy solitude in which he lived the last years. Michelle was so cool, how did he manage to lose her? Was he just a hookup for her? Even in Sardinia they are constantly called each other and she sent a ton of messages.

  This put him in a stinking bad mood. Even the fact that they had finally paid for Vicky’s surgery couldn’t make him feel any better. In the end, he and Pascal started getting drunk together at lunch by the pool. Just the two of them, drinking sincerely, going the whole hog. And both out of love. Even Bikie stopped being angry, seeing how pitiful they both were.

  “The thing is, Pascal, all this whisky, vodka and rum doesn’t help. On the contrary. At first, you drink and you feel better, but then the heartache only gets worse, so deep that you think all the problems you had before were bullshit. Nothing runs as deep as heartache. Feelings are infinite and nothing compares with heartache except more heartache. You think you still have everything ahead of you and life goes on. Your reason suggests all sorts of solutions but everything collapses again. Heartache is a mudslide that smothers your heart and your soul.”

  “This mudslide sweeps away the flowers of love. But they grow back again, even on rocks, even in the desert, even in a nuclear dump! The flowers of love are the most resilient ones in the world. They grow out of your heart, out of nowhere, they build beautiful castles in the air, and your reason immediately moves in there. You live within an illusion and hope moves in there, too.”

  “Right, hope never dies. It’s immortal!”

  “So right! Faith and love can die, but not hope. It survives again and again and resurrects love.”

  “I don’t have hope any more. Only despair. I lost everything. I lost Eva. I did it myself!”

  “But you can get her back. Or, at least, try.”

  “I don’t want to. It’s disgusting. She betrayed me in any case. And she’s a bitch.”

  “No, she didn’t. It wasn’t her who forced you to download, was it? You went on your own. What do you blame her for? You’ve seen the video of yourself. Can anyone live with that?”

  “Looking for support from you is like treating a wound with brine. It only gets worse. Her hope died kind of quickly. She abandoned me.”

  “You’re just selfish. A great, narcissistic egotist, who won’t admit his own mistakes.”

  “Ah, to hell with her! And you can fuck off, too!”

  “Pascal, it is quite possible that she still loves you. Why else would she talk to you on the phone for so long when you’re drunk? I’d be only too happy to get Michelle back, only I don’t believe it would work. I’ve screwed things up so hopelessly. And she’s so… totally unbelievable! I just got lucky, didn’t I? Like, once in a blue moon. But I blew it all.”

  “I’m sorry, that was because of me. I blew everything too. But I’m not going to admit it!”

  They clinked glasses again and drank. A pause ensued, then Bikie arrived with beer.

  “I wonder, does it even matter to them that we are suffering like this, Bikie? Or don’t they give a shit?”

  “No clue. What I’m sure about is that chicks don’t like crybabies. Watching the way you two have been whining is disgusting.”

  “Michelle told me to go to hell. Haven’t heard from her in the last three weeks. Not a word! Not even:’get lost’. She just disappeared from my life like she’s never been there on the first place.”

  “Don’t fret, Isaac, it’ll be fine. Just don’t bother her too much, don’t annoy her and don’t send her too many messages. She clearly likes you, that’s obvious.”

  “Oh, well done, you’ve set everything out neatly on the shelves. Like in a supermarket.”

  “Have you told her even once that you love her?”

  “No.”

  “Well, you’re a fool. Though it seems to me she took a liking to you precisely because you are such a fool, an unusual cretin. Spaced out.”

  Bikie was strumming the strings of his guitar, Pascal was falling asleep, and Isaac tried to write something in his phone.

  “Michelle, I miss you so badly,

  Forgive me for being such a fool.

  You are the happiest time of my life.

  I’m terribly afraid that I have lost you,

  That I’ll never be able to hug and cuddle you.

  I love you, I love you, I love you.

  You are a miracle that happened in my life.

  I will always love you.

  I want to take care of you,

  My hopes and thoughts of you are my life.

  Let’s see each other again, darling, please give me a chance.

  I need you very, very much.”

  Isaac read the message through obtusely several times, and then deleted it without sending.

  “Morning. I’m desperate for water. Lousy sunlight blinding my eyes. Why aren’t the damn curtains closed? The phone is ringing, but it is easier to put up with it than get up. It is calling again! What do they want so early the morning? I don’t want to get up at all. I have to try to get some more sleep.” Isaac turned his face to the wall and fell asleep again.

  At the other end of the line was displeased Pellegrini. He decided to summon Isaac for another interview, so he wanted to make sure that he was not going for another journey to his pseudo-Spain. “Never mind, I’ll call later,” the commissioner thought as he got ready to leave for the airport. He planned a three-day trip to Monaco; besides Isaac, he had to talk to Pascal, Pascal’s administrator and the staff at the hospital. He knew that the operation for Isaac’s sister had been paid for out of Pascal’s account. Formally, there was nothing wrong with it, but too many strange coincidences came together around this Leroy-guy, who according to the report from the mobile company, dragged down to the Pascal’s all those days.

  Formally still a Happy, Pascal was a very rich young man. His brains had come back and the money was still there. The disappearance of his orange energy must have gone unnoticed. Even though the amount retrieved was substantial, dozens of other people downloaded their OE on the same day, so the overall level of energy in the server shouldn’t have fallen. It would take t
hem a week to figure out the exact details of creativity transactions on a given day.

  People love statistics, and the data on the aggregated intellect of the planet was reported every Monday in the weekly magazine “Science and the People”. No one on the team really knew how the system of statistics worked, but it was clear that even if someone noticed a deviation, they would not immediately realize where the leakage had taken place or whose brains the energy was from or – most importantly – how it happened.

  In any case, the law had no provisions for the theft of OE, and it was not possible to compel Pascal to download his creativity again. At least, it was impossible to do it quickly. The legislation included quite a lot of ideas from downloaders, and among them presumption of innocence prevailed.

  Even if the police or the Collective Mind officials came after him, Pascal could play the fool pretty adequately – Bikie had him watch dozens of videos of Happies and socialize with his neighbors at the settlement. He learned their habits pretty well so it would not seem too difficult to imitate them. But Pascal’s imagination worked excellently by now, and he thought out dozens of ways how he could be outed by a serious investigator.

  Or what if they made him check his OE level again…

  He had both his brains back and the money although now it was no longer his money, but an operating fund, the team’s fund, which was just sitting in his account. He had offered that himself. But it was not so easy to spend it: if a Happy came in to buy a transistor and not a teapot, the salesman’s jaw would drop…

  The Professor has firmly concluded that he did not have amnesia, but the absence of memory, resulting from the downloading of creativity. They all agreed to get together that evening and decide what to do next.

  The next day the preparations for Vicky’s surgery began. Isaac arrived at the hospital, accompanied by Pascal and Bikie. The girl at the reception smiled at them, asked the names of the patient, the relative and the other guests and entered them all in the visitor’s book. She was clearly nervous, but Isaac took no notice. His mind was focused on other things.