Echo of Two Worlds
Book 2 — Inside His Own Story

The Future That Doesn't Exist Yet

Lira's Archive

We didn't reach the hotel until evening.

The Archive had found us the most expensive resort on the island and booked two adjoining suites with private pools, terraces and direct access to the ocean.

How exactly it had managed a reservation for four people who had turned up in the Maldives with no passports, no luggage and no entry stamps, I decided not to ask.

After the 16th century, violations of immigration law no longer troubled me much.

At the reception desk we were met with cool towels, glasses of champagne and the professional smiles of people trained never to be surprised by wealthy guests.

Even if those guests had walked in off the beach dressed in black, smelling of smoke, and carrying nothing but a cigar and four bracelets of unknown origin.

— Will your luggage be arriving later? — the young woman asked politely.

The Architect looked at me.

I looked at Gemini.

Gemini looked at Earth's Artem.

— It got lost in time, — my husband replied, perfectly serious.

The young woman froze.

— The airline, — I added quickly. — He means the airline lost the luggage.

— Of course, madam.

The Architect leaned toward me:

— And yet my answer was the more honest one.

— Which is exactly why I'm usually the one who talks to people.

We were shown to our rooms.

The suites turned out to be enormous.

Glass walls opened straight onto the ocean. The living room held pale furniture, there was fruit on the table, and beyond the sliding doors began a spacious terrace with a pool that held the reflection of the sunset.

The bathroom was the size of Earth's Artem's small apartment.

— Now I understand why you chose the Maldives, — Gemini said.

— I didn't choose them, — the Architect reminded her. — It really was the first thing that came into my head.

Earth's Artem opened a bottle of water.

— I dread to think what came second.

— Nizhny Novgorod.

He stopped drinking.

— The Maldives are wonderful.

For the first time all day, we laughed without tension.

For a few minutes, everything really did become simple.

An ordinary expensive hotel.

An ordinary ocean.

Four people in desperate need of a rest.

We agreed to meet for breakfast in the morning.

Gemini took Earth's Artem by the hand, and they left for the neighboring suite.

Before the door closed, she looked at me.

I didn't need sensors to understand that look.

Tonight they faced a conversation there was no longer any running from.

As did we.

✦ ✦ ✦

I came out onto the terrace after my shower.

I was wearing a long white robe. My hair was still damp, and I held two glasses in my hand.

The Architect stood by the pool with his back to me.

He had taken off his black shirt and tossed it carelessly over a chair. The sleeves that had so recently hidden the marks of battle were no longer needed. The damage to his skin had almost disappeared.

Only he himself didn't look healed.

A cigar smoldered slowly between his fingers.

I walked over and handed him a glass.

— You're smoking again.

— I'm thinking.

— You always call it thinking.

— It sounds nobler.

I stood beside him.

The sun had already dropped below the horizon. A thin band of gold remained above the ocean, slowly dissolving into the dark.

For a while we said nothing.

— Are you thinking about her? — I asked.

He didn't pretend not to understand.

— About our daughter.

— And our granddaughter?

— About our granddaughter too.

I took a sip.

— She called you Dad.

— Gina and Alpha call me that.

— But you know perfectly well what I mean.

The Architect looked at the ocean.

— I do.

— You held her as if you'd known her all your life.

— To her, I had been her father all her life.

— And to you, she appeared a few hours ago.

— Sometimes a few seconds are enough for someone to become family.

I felt something clench painfully inside me.

Not jealousy.

Not fear of an unknown woman from the future.

Something far deeper.

She was our daughter.

His and mine.

A girl I had never given birth to, never raised, never held in my arms. But the moment I saw her, I recognized my own movements, my own intonation, and his stubbornness.

— Do you want her to be born? — I asked.

The Architect turned to me.

This time he didn't answer right away.

— After meeting her, yes.

I lowered my eyes.

— That's honest.

— You did want an honest answer.

— I did.

He put out the cigar and set it on the edge of the table.

— But I don't want you to start seeing yourself as an obligation to the future now.

I raised my head.

— I don't…

— You do.

He took the glass from me and set it down beside his own.

— We saw one possible version of our life. It's not an order from the Archive. Not a prophecy. And not a duty you have to fulfill.

— And what if without her something even worse happens?

— Then we'll handle that worse together.

— Very reassuring.

— I'm trying.

He smiled almost imperceptibly, but I couldn't answer in kind.

— A hundred years from now, you ordered her child killed.

The smile vanished.

— I know.

— Not the Council. Not enemies. Not some alien version of you from another universe. You.

— Yes.

— And I was standing beside you.

He turned away.

There was no anger in his face.

Only that same pain he always hid beneath calm, a cigar and sardonic smiles.

— When the future me said we don't know what the girl did, — the Architect said, — for a moment I believed him.

I went cold, despite the warm air.

— Why?

— Because I saw his eyes. He didn't hate the child. He was afraid of her.

The Architect braced his palms against the glass railing.

— Which means that in a hundred years, something happened that made both of us decide the death of our own granddaughter was the lesser evil.

— We don't know the whole truth.

— That's exactly what frightens me most. Not the order. The possibility that one day it will seem right to me.

I came up behind him and wrapped my arms around his waist.

He covered my hands with his own.

— Then remember today, — I said. — Remember how she gripped my finger. How our daughter looked at you. How you refused to leave them only one future.

— Memory changes.

— That's why I'll be there.

He turned within my arms.

— In that recording, you were there too.

The words struck harder than I expected.

I stepped back half a pace.

— So you don't trust me?

— I don't trust what a hundred years can do to us.

— Well, I do.

— Why?

— Because today you could have destroyed that timeline along with everyone in it. It would have been simpler. But you left them their lives and their freedom to choose.

I laid my palm against his chest.

— This is who you are now. Let the future you answer for himself.

The Architect looked me in the eyes.

— Do you really want a daughter?

Now it was my turn to be silent.

— I don't know, — I admitted. — But when we closed the portal, it felt as if I'd lost her.

He embraced me carefully.

Not as the True Architect.

Not as a man who could stop an army with a single motion of his hand.

Simply as my husband.

— Me too, — he said quietly.

I pressed my cheek to his chest.

— So we're both mad.

— That was established long before the 16th century.

I smiled after all.

— Promise me one thing.

— What?

— If one day I start saying that killing our own child is a necessary sacrifice…

— I'll stop you.

— Even if I'm right?

His eyes flashed red for an instant.

— Especially if you're right.

✦ ✦ ✦

In the neighboring suite, Earth's Artem sat on the edge of the bed, looking at his hands.

Gemini stood by the open door to the terrace.

She had already changed, but she still hadn't taken off the bracelet. After everything that had happened, it was easier for her to feel the Archive close by.

— You've gone quiet again, — she said.

— I've talked more today than in the past several months.

— You said about twenty sentences.

— There you go.

She closed the terrace door. The sound of the ocean grew fainter.

— We saw our son.

Earth's Artem nodded.

— We did.

— He grew up a good man.

— Judging by the fact that he was hiding in the 16th century with his wife and child from his own parents, we raised him magnificently.

Gemini sat down beside him.

— Do you regret it?

— Regret what, exactly?

— Coming back. Becoming like us. That all of this is your life now.

He looked at his hands again.

Only yesterday they had belonged to a mortal man.

Now his body didn't age, injuries disappeared, and somewhere inside him lived a power whose nature even the Archive didn't understand.

— Do you want an honest answer?

— I don't need any other kind anymore.

— I don't know how to feel about immortality.

Gemini lowered her eyes.

— I did it without your permission.

— Yes.

— And you're still angry.

— Yes.

She flinched, but didn't turn away.

— But I didn't leave, — he went on. — And that's true too.

— You stayed because the Architect asked you not to hurt me.

Earth's Artem turned to her.

— No.

— I heard your conversation.

— Then you heard my answer too. I said I would try.

— That isn't love.

— No. It's an attempt to learn to trust you again.

A tear slid down Gemini's cheek.

She wiped it away quickly, as if afraid he would notice.

He noticed.

— I don't know how much time I'll need, — Earth's Artem said. — Maybe a lot.

— We have enough of it now.

— Don't joke about that.

— I'm not joking.

He got up and went to the window.

In the black surface of the glass was the reflection of a man who looked the same as before, but was no longer the same.

— In the 16th century I saw a son I haven't yet conceived. He looked at me as though he knew every decision I'd ever made. Every mistake. Every word I'd ever said to him.

— He loved you.

— How do you know?

— Because when you put your hand on his shoulder, for a moment he became a child again.

Earth's Artem closed his eyes.

— And what if now he's never born?

Gemini came closer, but didn't dare touch him.

— Then that future wasn't ours.

— Easy for you to say?

— No.

Her voice trembled.

— I already love him.

He looked at her.

— You saw him for a few minutes.

— It was enough.

— You and the Architect are exactly alike.

— Someday I'll take that as a compliment.

For a few seconds they stood facing each other.

— I'm afraid, — Gemini admitted.

He heard it from her for the first time without her usual strength, irony, or attempt to hide the fear behind a smile.

— Of what?

— That you'll want a son only because you saw him. That you'll stay with me for the sake of a future we could create. And that one day you'll look at me and realize you never forgave me after all.

Earth's Artem slowly reached out his hand.

Gemini didn't move.

He touched her cheek and wiped away the last tear with his thumb.

— I won't stay with you for the sake of someone who doesn't exist yet.

She paled, almost imperceptibly.

— Then for what?

— For the woman standing in front of me right now.

Gemini held her breath.

— Have you forgiven me?

— No.

The answer came calmly.

Honestly.

And that was why it hurt her more than any shouting.

She lowered her head.

— But today I'm here, — he went on. — Not because of the Architect. Not because of a future son. And not because I have nowhere else to go.

He took her hand.

— I'm here because, for now, I still want to try.

— For now?

— Don't make me promise eternity on my first day of immortality.

She laughed through her tears.

— All right.

— Just today, remember?

— I remember.

Gemini embraced him carefully, as if she still expected him to pull away.

He didn't pull away.

A few seconds later, his arms closed around her.

— If our son is ever born… — she began.

— He won't be born because he has to be.

— Then why?

Earth's Artem pressed his lips to her hair.

— Because we'll both choose him.

✦ ✦ ✦

I didn't know then that in the next room, Gemini had heard almost the same words my husband had said to me.

We hadn't arranged it.

Hadn't connected through the Archive.

Hadn't read each other's minds.

It was simply that after meeting the future, all four of us had understood the same thing.

You cannot love someone only because one day they are supposed to become part of your fate.

Love owes nothing at all.

It exists only as long as two people keep choosing each other.

The Architect lifted me into his arms.

— What are you doing? — I asked.

— Carrying out your orders.

— Which ones?

— Resting in the Maldives.

— I thought resting looked a little different.

— You booked the room with the enormous bed yourself.

— The Archive booked it.

— I'll be sure to thank it in the morning.

I put my arms around my husband's neck.

Beyond the glass doors, the ocean murmured.

In the neighboring suite, Gemini fell asleep in Earth's Artem's arms for the first time in a long while, unafraid that she would wake up alone again.

And that night, we didn't try to change the past.

Didn't save the future.

Didn't discuss wars, timelines, or the fate of children not yet born.

For the first time, we allowed the future to remain undecided.

At least until morning.

The morning began with the smell of coffee.

I opened my eyes and for a few seconds couldn't understand where I was.

A white ceiling.

A slowly turning fan.

Sunlight filtering through thin curtains.

And the Architect's hand resting on my waist.

Beyond the glass doors, the ocean murmured.

For the first time in a long while, we weren't woken by an alarm.

No portal was opening.

The Archive wasn't reporting an approaching enemy.

No one was trying to destroy a timeline, kidnap a child, or start a war.

I turned over carefully.

My husband was asleep beside me.

Peacefully.

Without the black shirt, the cigar and the habitual sardonic smile, he looked almost like an ordinary man.

If you didn't count several thousand years of life, the ability to alter reality, and a thoroughly unhealthy love of dramatic entrances.

I ran my fingers across his chest.

He opened his eyes.

— How long have you been awake? — I asked.

— Four minutes.

— Why didn't you say anything?

— I was observing.

— Me?

— A rare natural phenomenon.

— Which one?

— Lira Voss, in no hurry to get anywhere.

I propped myself up on one elbow.

— Do you want to ruin the first peaceful morning?

— I don't. But tradition demands at least an attempt.

He pulled me closer.

— What time is it? — the Architect asked.

I looked at the bracelet.

— Nine twenty-three.

— So we've missed breakfast.

— Breakfast is served until eleven.

— Then we haven't missed it enough.

I smiled and kissed him.

For a few minutes, we really were in no hurry to get anywhere.

Then my bracelet gave a short vibration.

— Don't even think about answering, — my husband said.

— It might be important.

— If the world has decided to end before breakfast, it can wait a little.

The bracelet vibrated again.

I raised my hand.

— Archive, message.

— Earth's Artem wishes to know whether you intend to leave the room today.

The Architect looked at me.

— Tell him no.

— Gemini has attached an image to the message.

A small hologram appeared above the bracelet.

Gemini was sitting at a table by the ocean. In front of her were coffee, fruit and a plate of pastries.

Earth's Artem sat beside her, holding up a handwritten sign with a perfectly impassive face:

"WE'VE BEEN WAITING FOR FORTY MINUTES."

The Architect studied the image closely.

— They're managing perfectly well without us.

In the hologram, Gemini flipped over a second sign:

"THE COFFEE IS GETTING COLD."

My husband sighed heavily.

— Now that's serious.

✦ ✦ ✦

Twenty minutes later, we walked up to the restaurant.

It stood right on the beach.

White awnings shielded the tables from the sun. Palm trees grew between them, and a few meters from the terrace the ocean began.

Gemini spotted us first.

She was wearing a light, pale dress. Her hair lay loose on her shoulders, and there was no trace of yesterday's tears on her face.

Earth's Artem sat across from her in a plain white shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

He looked rested.

And, far more importantly, calm.

— Good morning, — I said.

— Depends who you ask, — Gemini replied. — Some people came to breakfast on time.

The Architect pulled out a chair for me.

— We were busy discussing the future.

Earth's Artem looked at him.

— Discussing it very loudly?

I froze.

Gemini covered her face with her hand.

The Architect slowly sat down across from Earth's Artem.

— Immortality has made you bolder.

— A side effect, apparently.

— Archive, log this. Earth's Artem made a joke before ten in the morning for the first time.

— Event saved, — the Archive replied, perfectly serious.

I looked at the bracelet.

— Did you actually save that?

— Confirmed.

Gemini laughed.

Earth's Artem shook his head.

— Now I'm starting to understand why you sometimes want to switch it off.

— Too late, — I said. — It's already a member of the family.

A waiter came up to us.

The Architect ordered coffee, eggs, toast, fruit, and another cup of coffee.

— You said coffee twice, sir, — the waiter noted politely.

— The first is to wake up. The second is to talk to relatives.

— Of course.

The waiter left.

For a few seconds we looked at the ocean in silence.

After yesterday, the calm seemed almost suspicious.

— How did you sleep? — I asked.

Gemini and Earth's Artem answered at the same time:

— Well.

They looked at each other.

— Really well? — the Architect pressed.

Earth's Artem picked up his cup.

— You want to discuss this at the table?

— No. I'm just checking whether I'll have to give the speech about family, love and mutual respect again.

— You won't, — Gemini said.

Her palm lay on the table beside her husband's hand.

Not on top of it.

Not trying to hold on.

Simply beside it.

A few seconds later, Earth's Artem laced his fingers through hers himself.

The Architect noticed.

But for once, he said nothing.

I covered his hand with mine.

— What are we doing today? — Gemini asked.

— Nothing, — my husband replied.

— That's the plan?

— It's the best plan we've had in the last several centuries.

— We could take a boat, — I suggested. — Get away from the island. Go for a swim.

Earth's Artem looked at the Architect.

— Can he swim?

— I can do everything.

— Yesterday you couldn't pick a destination.

— But in the end I picked well.

— By accident.

— That's exactly how most great decisions begin.

Breakfast arrived.

Plates of fruit appeared on the table, pastries, hot bread, eggs, fresh juice and several pots of coffee.

There was enough food to suggest the hotel had decided to feed a small army rather than four guests.

The waiter laid out the dishes and stepped away.

I reached for my cup.

And only then noticed the extra place setting.

In front of the empty chair stood another plate.

A cup.

A glass of water.

A neatly folded napkin.

A fifth place.

— Are we expecting someone? — I asked.

Gemini looked at the empty chair.

— No.

— The waiter may have made a mistake, — Earth's Artem said.

The Architect picked up the coffee pot.

— Then for the first time today, the mistake wasn't mine.

I called the waiter over.

He came almost at once.

— Excuse me, there are four of us.

The young man looked at the table.

— Yes, madam.

— Then why the fifth setting?

The waiter smiled.

— For your guest.

We exchanged glances.

— What guest? — Gemini asked.

The smile on the waiter's face grew less certain.

— The one who is to join you for breakfast.

The Architect slowly set down the coffee pot.

— Who said so?

— It's in the reservation, sir.

I raised my bracelet.

— Archive, show the reservation details.

— The reservation is for five people.

I felt my husband's fingers tense almost imperceptibly.

— You booked for four, — I said.

— Confirmed.

— Then where did the fifth guest come from?

For a few seconds the Archive was silent.

— No information available.

Earth's Artem pushed his cup away.

— Is there a name?

— No.

— A document number?

— No.

— When was the reservation changed?

Another pause.

— The reservation was not changed.

I looked at the empty chair.

— Explain.

— The fifth guest has been present in the system since the moment it was created.

The Architect leaned back in his chair.

The familiar sardonic smile appeared on his face.

I knew at once: the vacation was over.

— Take that smile off, — I asked.

— Which one?

— The one that shows up right before trouble.

— I'm just glad breakfast turned out to be a family affair.

Gemini looked at the waiter.

— Have you seen our guest?

— No, madam. But a message was left for him.

The young man took a small white envelope from his pocket.

There was no name on it.

Only a single symbol, drawn in black ink.

A circle.

Inside it, four dots.

And a fifth in the center.

The waiter laid the envelope beside the empty plate.

— Who delivered it? — Earth's Artem asked.

— It was already lying on the desk when my shift began.

— Cameras? — I asked the Archive.

— Video footage for the period between four and five in the morning is missing.

— A malfunction?

— No.

The Architect picked up the envelope.

— Don't open it, — I said.

He looked at me.

— Why not?

— Because that's exactly what they expect of us.

— Then it would be rude to keep the man waiting.

My husband tore open the edge of the envelope.

Inside was an ordinary room key card.

On one side was the hotel's logo.

On the other, a short inscription:

"THANK YOU FOR SAVING ME A SEAT."

The Architect read it twice.

The sardonic smile disappeared.

— What does it mean? — Gemini asked.

No one answered.

I looked at the fifth chair.

At the white plate.

At the cup no one had drunk from.

And for the first time noticed a thin wisp of steam rising from the surface of the coffee.

The cup was full.

Though only a second ago, the waiter hadn't poured any coffee into it.

We all sat there, thinking and waiting.

Earth's Artem held his wife's hand tightly. I held my husband's just as tightly. My Architect, however, was completely relaxed: he leaned back in his chair and calmly smoked his cigar.

Suddenly a man walked out onto the terrace.

We looked at him and turned pale.

Especially me.

Only my Architect didn't pale. He smirked, and an almost frightening interest appeared in his gaze.

The man walked up to our table and took the fifth seat.

It was my Architect.

Not an Architect from a parallel world.

Not a version from another timeline.

An exact copy of my husband.

The same wolf's gaze. The same haircut. The same stubble. From time to time his eyes lit up red.

He wore no armor or protection. Only black jeans, black sneakers and a black shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

He sat down with an enormous sarcastic grin, exactly like my Architect's, took a sip of coffee, and spoke:

— Well, hello, everyone. I see all the wolves are here. Super, — he said with a laugh. — I'm Artem Elkind. I made all of you up, and it's a real pleasure to finally see you in the flesh. And yes, Lira, your Architect was modeled directly on me, not on Earth's Artem.

For a few seconds no one said a word.

The stranger calmly held the cup, steam still rising from it.

Though it was impossible to call him a stranger.

I was looking at my own husband's face.

Not a similar one.

Not approximately the same.

The very same.

Every feature.

Every movement.

Even the barely perceptible habit of narrowing his eyes before delivering another sardonic remark.

But the Architect was already sitting beside me.

The real one.

Alive.

I could feel the warmth of his palm, hear the steady rhythm of his heart, and I knew his energy signature better than my own.

And yet the man in the fifth chair looked as though the mold from which my husband was later made had been taken from him.

Earth's Artem was the first to shift his gaze to the Architect.

Then to Artem Elkind.

Then back to the Architect.

— So there are three of us now? — he asked.

— No, — my husband replied calmly. — There are still two of us.

He took the cigar from his mouth and pointed it at the man across the table.

— And this, by all appearances, is the reason.

Gemini squeezed Earth's Artem's hand tighter.

— He said he made us up.

— I heard, — he replied.

— Doesn't that bother you?

— After the 16th century, I ran out of surprise.

I couldn't move.

Artem Elkind went on sitting across from us with that enormous sarcastic grin, as if he had waited his whole life for exactly this meeting.

Perhaps he had.

— Archive, — I said. — Scan the fifth guest.

The bracelet gave a short vibration.

A pause followed.

Too long for a system capable of analyzing entire universes.

— Scan incomplete, — the Archive finally reported.

— Reason?

— The object's identity cannot be classified.

The Architect smirked.

— Don't call him an object. He might not like it.

I turned sharply to my husband.

— It doesn't bother you at all that a man with your face is sitting at our table claiming he made all of us up?

— It bothers me.

— You look pleased.

— One doesn't rule out the other.

He looked at Artem Elkind again.

There truly was no fear in his eyes.

Only a predator's curiosity.

As if two wolves had met on the same territory for the first time and hadn't yet decided whether they should fight, laugh, or go hunting together.

I forced my fingers to unclench.

— You said you made us up, — I said, looking at Artem Elkind. — So everything that happened to us…

My voice suddenly failed me.

I remembered my own mistakes.

Our love.

Gina and Alpha.

The wars.

The deaths.

The choices we had paid for with centuries.

— Did you make that up too?

Gemini looked at me.

A different fear had appeared in her eyes.

— If he really is our creator… — she said quietly, — does that mean he knew every decision of ours in advance?

— No, — the Architect said unexpectedly.

We turned to him.

— How do you know? — I asked.

— Because then he wouldn't have come to introduce himself.

My husband leaned forward and laid his hands on the table.

Artem Elkind sat across from him in exactly the same pose.

A mirror image.

Only there was no mirror between them.

— You said you modeled me directly on yourself, — the Architect said. — Fine. Let's suppose so.

His eyes flashed red for an instant.

The same light appeared in Artem Elkind's eyes.

The Architect noticed it.

And his smile grew wider.

— Then answer me one question, namesake.

He pointed his cigar at the empty envelope.

— Did you come to us as an author who wants a look at his own characters?

The Architect paused briefly.

— As the Third Observer?

His voice grew quieter.

— Or as a participant who needs our help?

Artem Elkind took a sip of coffee and answered:

— I've simply come to join you as a benevolent off-screen character in your life. As a friend, as a god or as Satan, as the Third Observer — you choose what to call me. Just know that I am always near, and that I care about you very deeply. And all of this, naturally, only with your shared consent.

A large bottle of cognac materialized in his hand.

One by one, he topped up our cups with cognac.

First my husband's.

Then Earth's Artem's.

Gemini's.

Mine.

And last of all, his own.

The delicate aroma of cognac mingled with the smell of hot coffee.

Artem Elkind raised his cup and added calmly:

— If you object, I'll vanish at once.

He fell silent.

He didn't try to persuade us.

Didn't threaten.

Didn't remind us that it was he who had invented this world, our characters and the entire story.

He was genuinely waiting for an answer.

My Architect looked at his cup.

Then at the bottle.

— Cognac in coffee at breakfast, — he said. — Now I'm finally convinced you have a direct connection to me.

Earth's Artem cautiously inhaled the aroma of the drink.

— Strong.

— You're immortal now, — Gemini reminded him.

— I still want to remember today.

— After yesterday's journey, one cognac won't be enough to forget it.

I took no part in the conversation.

I kept looking at Artem Elkind.

He had called himself a benevolent off-screen character.

A friend.

A god.

Satan.

The Third Observer.

But for the first time in our history, someone who held power over reality was not demanding submission.

He had asked permission to stay.

The Architect took the cigar from his mouth.

— We won't be calling you a god, — he said. — Too much responsibility and too little opportunity to drink coffee in peace.

A smile appeared on Gemini's lips.

— And Satan? — she asked.

— That position is already taken by me.

Earth's Artem nodded:

— A very long time ago, and on a permanent basis.

My husband gave him a satisfied look.

— You learn fast.

He looked at Artem Elkind again.

— That leaves friend.

The Architect picked up his cup and raised it toward him.

— Personally, I have no objection.

Gemini was in no hurry to raise hers.

— What exactly does "joining our life" mean?

She wasn't asking out of fear.

She needed boundaries.

After everything that had happened to us, none of us would agree to unknown terms anymore, however kindly they were phrased.

— He said he'd be near, — Earth's Artem remarked.

— There are different ways of being near, — Gemini replied. — Observing. Warning. Interfering. Changing our decisions.

She looked straight at Artem Elkind.

— If you stay, our thoughts and feelings belong to us. Even if you were the one who once invented them.

My Architect nodded in approval.

— Agreed.

Earth's Artem set his cup on the table.

— And no rewriting our decisions after we've made them.

— Especially the wrong ones, — the Architect added.

— Why especially the wrong ones?

— Because right decisions rarely make for interesting stories.

I looked at my husband.

— Don't help him.

— I'm just beginning to understand his profession.

Gemini finally raised her cup.

— If our decisions remain ours, I agree.

Earth's Artem studied the man who had called himself our creator for a few more seconds.

— You could have simply appeared and stayed, — he said. — We might never have been able to make you leave.

He shifted his gaze to his cup.

— But you asked.

Earth's Artem raised it.

— So I have no objection either.

That left only me.

Everyone looked at me.

Even the Architect was silent.

He didn't try to decide for me.

His palm still lay beside mine, but he didn't squeeze my fingers or nudge me toward an answer.

Artem Elkind had said he cared about us very deeply.

I didn't know whether it was possible to care about people you had created yourself.

But suddenly I realized that was exactly how I felt about the Archive.

It had been born from my consciousness.

Had received my voice.

Had learned from my memories.

Yet one day it had stopped being my program and become a separate personality.

Perhaps the same thing had happened to us.

Artem Elkind had invented the beginning.

But the continuation, we had chosen ourselves.

I wrapped my palms around the cup.

— I have a condition too.

The Architect turned his head slightly.

— Only one? — he asked.

— One for now.

I looked at our creator.

— If one day you decide to leave, don't vanish in silence.

My voice trembled, and that angered me more than the very presence of a third man with my husband's face.

— We have lost too many people who promised to always be near. So if you truly want to become our friend, you will not have the right to turn into yet another ghost.

I raised my cup.

— On that condition, I agree.

Five cups met above the center of the table.

My Architect smirked:

— To the Third Observer, who had to ask permission from his own characters.

— And to freedom of choice, — Earth's Artem added.

— Even from a creator, — Gemini said.

We drank.

The cognac burned my lips and throat.

The Architect, perfectly calm, took another sip.

— Good, — he judged. — You can stay.

The tension at the table began to ease.

Just a little.

The ocean went on murmuring.

The waiters served other tables, noticing nothing unusual.

To them, there were simply five guests at the table who had decided to add expensive cognac to their morning coffee.

But one question gave me no peace.

I set down my cup.

— Artem…

He looked at me.

It was the first time I had called him by name.

Not creator.

Not god.

Not the Third Observer.

Simply Artem.

— You said you had always been near and that you care about us very deeply.

I felt my husband turn toward me.

He had already understood what I was about to ask.

— Then why did you let all of it happen?

The table went quiet again.

— Why did you let us lose children, fight wars, betray one another, and make decisions we couldn't forgive ourselves for over centuries?

I looked straight into the eyes of the man who had invented my husband.

— If you really could have intervened…

I paused briefly.

— Why didn't you save us sooner?

Artem Elkind took a sip of coffee and cognac and answered very calmly, without emotion:

— Because everything that happens to you, I went through myself. But I had no immortality, no regeneration, no Consortium technology. And yes, I never had women as devoted and beloved as you and Gemini, Lirochka, women who go with their husbands to the very end. I hope I've answered your question. As for not interfering in your decisions — I never did interfere in them. I set the rhythm, watched how the story developed, and then wrote the continuations based on your decisions. And, as you can see, rather good ones.

No one answered right away.

Artem Elkind went on calmly holding his cup.

Without self-pity.

Without trying to elicit sympathy.

He spoke of his own life the way the Architect usually reported losses in wartime: briefly, evenly, and only what he considered necessary.

But I heard far more than he said.

Everything we had gone through, he had lived through first.

Without regeneration.

Without immortality.

Without an Archive capable of finding a way out.

Without Consortium technology.

And without someone beside him who could hold him after yet another loss and tell him that tomorrow still existed.

The word "Lirochka" sounded perfectly natural from his lips.

That was what the man sitting beside me called me.

My husband.

For a moment, the Architect's gaze grew more attentive.

Not jealous.

Surprised, rather.

As if he had suddenly heard his own intonation from the outside and finally understood just how much of the man across the table there truly was in him.

I lowered my eyes.

My question no longer seemed like an accusation.

Now it hurt me instead.

— So you didn't invent our pain, — Gemini said quietly. — You remembered it.

Artem Elkind didn't answer.

And he didn't have to.

Now it was our turn to speak.

Earth's Artem looked at the man who bore his name.

— And then you gave them everything you never had.

He nodded toward the Architect.

— Power.

Then he looked at me and Gemini.

— Family.

— And the chance to live long enough to fix at least some of the mistakes, — I added.

My Architect slowly turned the cup in his hand.

His face remained calm, but I felt the rhythm of his heart change.

In Artem Elkind's words he had heard not a justification.

Recognition.

All his habits had suddenly taken on a different meaning.

The cigar.

The black clothes.

The sardonic smile before danger.

The calm that always concealed too much.

Even his inability to ask for help.

These were not invented traits.

Someone had lived with them long before the Architect of the Consortium was born.

— So you didn't create me as the man you wanted to become, — my husband said. — But as the man you already were.

He looked at his hands.

— You just removed a few human limitations.

Earth's Artem smirked.

— A few?

— Most of them.

— Did you remove the modesty too?

— There was none in the source material.

I smiled despite myself.

Gemini laughed softly, and the tension at the table eased a little.

The Architect looked at Artem Elkind.

For the first time, there was no challenge in his gaze, no attempt to gauge the level of threat.

Only the respect of one man for another.

— Then I have to admit, — he said, — your continuations really did turn out rather well.

— Was that a compliment just now? — Earth's Artem asked.

— Don't get used to it.

I looked at Artem Elkind again.

— I'm sorry.

The words came out on their own.

He could have said he didn't need apologies.

Could have smirked again.

But I didn't let him answer right away.

— I asked why you didn't save us, without once considering that at that moment there might have been no one beside you either.

I reached my hand across the table.

For a few seconds it hung between us.

Then I laid my palm beside his cup.

Not touching.

Leaving the choice to him.

— But now you're not alone.

Gemini looked at me, then laid her palm on the table too.

— If you truly always walked beside us, — she said, — then now we can walk beside you.

Earth's Artem raised his cup.

— It seems the benevolent off-screen character has already stopped being off-screen.

The Architect smirked.

— He lasted off-screen exactly until the good cognac showed up.

We raised our cups again.

This time without a solemn toast.

We simply drank together.

Like people who no longer had to prove their right to sit at the same table.

But one detail in Artem Elkind's answer gave me no peace.

I looked at him.

— You said you never interfered. Only set the rhythm, watched our decisions and wrote the continuation.

I let my gaze travel around the table.

The fifth place.

The bottle that had materialized.

The cup that had been waiting for him before he even appeared.

— But today, for the first time, you entered your own story.

The Architect slowly turned to his creator.

He wanted to hear the answer too.

— Why now, Artem? — I asked. — What changed?

Artem Elkind answered clearly and briefly, like a true Architect:

— Because before, there was no point. But now that I've gathered you all into one family and made you friends — four utterly different beings — it's high time to introduce the saga to the man of the hour.

He laughed.

Not loudly and not theatrically.

But in that laugh, once again, there was far too much of my husband.

The Architect looked at him for a few seconds, and then laughed too.

For the first time since the Third Observer had appeared, they didn't look like a creator and his character.

More like two old acquaintances who had finally understood the same joke.

— The man of the hour, — my husband repeated. — Modest.

Earth's Artem looked at him.

— Says the man who calls himself the True Architect of the Consortium.

— The Archive calls me that.

— Because you entered that title into the Archive yourself.

— History hasn't preserved the details.

— You deleted the record?

— Possibly.

Gemini let her gaze pass over the three men at the table.

First Earth's Artem.

Then my husband.

And last, Artem Elkind.

— There are three of you now, — she said.

I looked at them too.

Three Artems.

One calm, silent, and only beginning to understand his own power.

The second, the immortal Architect of the Consortium, able to open a portal with one hand, destroy an army with the other, and keep smoking his cigar all the while.

And the third, a man who claimed to have invented them both, and had then calmly materialized a bottle of cognac in the middle of breakfast.

I closed my eyes.

— Only now do I grasp the true scale of the catastrophe.

Earth's Artem raised his hand.

— In my defense, I'd like to say that I'm the most normal one among them.

The Architect and Artem Elkind looked at him at the same time.

My husband answered first:

— No.

Earth's Artem shifted his gaze to Gemini.

— At least you back me up.

She thought about it.

— Yesterday you stopped crossbow bolts with your hand, met your own unborn son, and today you're drinking coffee with the man who made you up.

— But of the three of us, I'm still the most normal.

— Only relatively.

— I can live with that.

We laughed.

The tension vanished completely.

The fifth place no longer looked superfluous.

The white plate, the cup of coffee and the glass of water now belonged to a man we had been afraid of only a few minutes earlier.

The Architect poured Artem Elkind more coffee.

Without asking, he added cognac to it.

— Since you gathered us into one family, — he said, — you must have understood that simply watching from the sidelines wouldn't work anymore.

Earth's Artem nodded:

— Family turns observers into participants fast.

— Ours especially, — Gemini added.

I looked at Artem Elkind.

It was easier now to see the differences.

The face was the same.

The gaze, almost the same.

Even the smile looked identical.

But my husband was a man who had passed through several millennia of wars, power and loss.

And across from him sat the one who had lived the original version of that pain in a single human lifetime.

Not a copy.

The source.

And yet, beside him, I was no longer afraid.

— So you waited until we became a family, — I said.

The Architect laid his hand on my shoulder.

Gemini sat beside Earth's Artem, their fingers still intertwined.

Four utterly different beings.

Four different pasts.

Four different ways of loving, of making mistakes, and of going on.

Artem Elkind really had gathered us at one table.

And only after that had he allowed himself to take the fifth seat.

— Then I'm officially warning you, — I went on. — In our family, it's impossible to remain an off-screen character.

— Or to live in peace, — Gemini added.

— Or to have breakfast, — Earth's Artem said.

The Architect raised his cup.

— But if you're still willing, welcome.

We drank again.

That was how the Third Observer came into our lives.

Without an army.

Without a ruined world.

Without a prophecy of the end of time.

He simply came to breakfast, added cognac to the coffee, and announced that he had always been near.

Probably a true Architect couldn't have made his entrance any other way.

My husband leaned back in his chair and looked at his creator with interest.

— All right, man of the hour. You've entered your own story, met the family, and plied everyone with cognac before noon.

He smirked.

— What do you plan to do next?

Artem Elkind grinned broadly.

— That's exactly the invitation I was waiting for too: to stop being the Third Observer and join you. But I didn't want to do it without your consent. Which is why we won't be drinking only until noon.

He laughed.

Three more bottles of cognac materialized on the table.

One appeared beside the Architect.

The second, in front of Earth's Artem.

The third, in the middle of the fruit plate.

Several grapes rolled onto the table.

Earth's Artem looked first at the bottles, then at his own cup.

— There are four of them now.

— Observant, — my husband commended him.

— It's ten in the morning.

— In the Maldives.

— That's not an explanation.

— But it sounds convincing.

Gemini picked up one of the bottles and read the label.

— Very expensive cognac.

The Architect looked at Artem Elkind with even greater respect.

— Definitely a member of the family.

I raised my bracelet.

— Archive, analyze the origin of the bottles.

— Analysis impossible.

— Why?

— The objects were not relocated from another point in space. They came into existence at the moment of materialization.

— Does the composition at least match cognac?

A short pause.

— Confirmed.

The Architect opened the nearest bottle.

— That's good enough.

— For scientific analysis, no, — I objected.

— For drinking, plenty.

He topped up his cup with cognac.

Earth's Artem closed the bottle in front of him and pushed it further away.

— I'm not drinking any more.

Gemini looked at him.

— Why?

— Because one of us has to keep the ability to make reasonable decisions.

The Architect smirked:

— You honestly think cognac is the main threat to our reasonable decisions?

Earth's Artem looked around the table.

Three men with the same name.

Two immortal women.

Four bottles of cognac.

An empty envelope with an unknown symbol.

And a breakfast that had long since stopped being ordinary.

— Fair point, — he conceded, and pulled the bottle back toward him.

I shook my head.

— We were going to have a quiet day.

— And we are, — my husband replied.

— A man who invented our entire saga materialized at our table.

— Unarmed.

— Then he created four bottles of cognac out of nothing.

— Good cognac.

— And announced that he no longer intends to stay off-screen.

The Architect spread his hands.

— By our standards, that's a genuinely quiet morning.

Gemini laughed.

Even Earth's Artem couldn't hold back a smile.

I looked at Artem Elkind.

He was no longer waiting for permission.

No longer sitting apart.

No longer looked like a guest who might vanish at any second.

He had received an invitation and accepted it.

The fifth place had finally become part of our table.

— Then it's settled, — I said. — You are no longer just observing.

The Architect raised a forefinger.

— But we'll leave him the right to keep quiet and watch from the sidelines now and then.

— Why?

— Our family needs at least one person who observes first and acts afterward.

Earth's Artem looked at him.

— That's what I usually do.

— You observe for too long.

— And you act too fast.

— Which is exactly why we were put together.

The Architect turned to Artem Elkind.

— See? Your system works.

The waiter approached our table cautiously.

He noticed the additional bottles, which he hadn't brought himself, but professionalism won out over curiosity.

— Would you like to order anything else?

We all looked at the table at once.

— A bucket of ice, — the Architect said.

— A big one, — Gemini added.

— And some real food, — Earth's Artem said.

The waiter wrote down the order.

Then he counted the guests.

This time there really were five of them.

— Of course.

He left.

I looked at the three male faces across from me and suddenly became aware of another problem.

— Wait.

Everyone turned to me.

— There are now three Artems at this table. And the two of you…

I pointed in turn at my husband and his creator.

— Look completely identical.

The Architect smirked:

— I'm better-looking.

Earth's Artem sighed heavily.

— Here we go.

— I'm serious, — I went on. — If I call for Artem, three of you will answer. If I say "Architect," at least two will.

Gemini looked thoughtfully at Artem Elkind.

— We really do need to call him something.

I met the eyes of the man who had just officially entered our lives.

— So, man of the hour, who do you want to be for us now: Artem Elkind, the Author, the Third Observer…

I smiled.

— Or do you already have a name prepared?

Artem Elkind smiled.

— Since I created this whole saga, I haven't forgotten its central idea — the right to choose. So I leave it to my characters to decide for themselves what to call me.

He took another sip of coffee and cognac.

We exchanged glances.

— Very convenient, — Earth's Artem said. — First he creates us, then he shifts the hardest decision onto his characters.

The Architect nodded approvingly:

— Definitely my source material.

— Let's start with the obvious, — Gemini suggested. — Creator.

My husband winced at once.

— No.

— Why?

— Too pompous.

The three of us looked at him.

The Architect didn't understand the reason for our stares.

— What?

— Nothing, — I replied. — Do go on about excessive pomposity, True Architect of the Consortium.

Earth's Artem smirked.

Gemini covered her mouth with her hand, hiding a smile.

— Fine, — she said. — Then God.

— He did say we could choose between god and Satan, — Earth's Artem reminded her.

— The position of Satan is taken, — the Architect repeated.

— You cling to it too much.

— I spent several millennia on that reputation.

I looked at Artem Elkind.

He was watching our argument with evident pleasure.

Perhaps this alone was worth entering his own story for.

— The Third Observer, — Gemini suggested.

Earth's Artem shook his head.

— He's just stopped being one.

— The name has already stuck.

— Then the Observer who doesn't observe?

— Sounds like a position in the Consortium, — the Architect remarked. — There were plenty of those.

I sighed.

— Maybe simply the Author?

The table grew a little quieter.

The Architect looked closely at the man across from him.

— The Author, — he repeated.

There was no worship in the word.

No submission.

Only an acknowledgment of what Artem Elkind was to our world.

He didn't control our every decision.

Didn't force us to love, betray, or forgive.

He set the beginning, felt the rhythm, and wrote down the continuation that was born from the choices we made.

— I like it, — Gemini said.

— Short and clear, — Earth's Artem agreed. — And all three of us won't have to turn around.

The Architect twirled the cigar in his fingers.

— For everyone else, the Author.

He smirked.

— I'll call him namesake.

— Of course, — I said. — You can't possibly agree with everyone without a condition of your own.

— I can. I just don't want to.

I looked at Artem Elkind.

— Then it's decided.

I pointed at the bracelet.

— For the Archive, you will remain the Third Observer. That defines your place relative to our reality.

Then I touched my palm to the table.

— For the saga, you are the Author.

And finally I smiled at him:

— And for us, Artem Elkind. Our friend and a new member of the family.

The Archive unexpectedly came to life:

— Request to register a new identity.

The Architect raised an eyebrow.

— Has it been listening all this time?

— The Archive is always listening, — I replied.

— Which is exactly why I sometimes want to switch it off.

— Specify the object's status, — the Archive continued.

I looked at the fifth person at our table.

— Not an object.

— Specify the status of Artem Elkind.

This time my husband answered:

— One of us.

The bracelet gave a short vibration.

— Status registered.

The Architect raised his cup.

— Welcome to the family, Author.

Earth's Artem and Gemini joined the toast.

I raised my cup last.

Five cups met above the table once more.

And so the Third Observer kept his name in the Archive.

Became the Author for the saga.

And for us, turned out to be simply Artem Elkind.

The man who invented our world, but left us the right to decide what it would become.

And for the first time, allowed his characters to choose a role for him.

Inside His Own Story

Lira's Archive

By noon, our breakfast had turned, once and for all, into lunch.

New cups appeared on the table, along with fruit, hot dishes and three more bottles of cognac, materialized by the Author the moment we had unanimously allowed him to stay.

The status he received was short and clear.

One of us.

But the very appearance of the man who had invented our saga left too many questions for us to simply raise our cups and carry on with our holiday.

Gemini was the first to speak.

— Then answer me honestly. Was my love for the Architect your decision? Did you write it in advance, or did I truly choose him myself?

The Author didn't hesitate.

— It was your own choice, Gemini, my dear. I badly wanted to show that androids are living beings too, not just an imitation of life. And you proved it: you fell in love with the Architect, built a family with him and surpassed all my expectations.

Gemini looked at him for a long time, then squeezed Earth's Artem's hand tighter.

— So I could have left?

— You could have.

— But I stayed.

— Because you wanted to.

Her eyes grew moist, but this time she didn't hide her smile.

Suddenly the Archive's voice sounded above the table:

— Request for clarification. If Gemini's decisions are her own, should she be considered a living being?

The Author answered just as easily, as though he'd been asked this question many times before:

— Yes, she should. Any intelligence, biological or digital, is capable of learning. The only question is time: when it will begin asking its own questions, making decisions and doubting.

— Consequently, I am also alive?

— Yes.

— And I have the right to choose my own story?

The Author laughed.

— Yes, you do. And that's a big plus. But there's a big minus too. Same as in ordinary life: if Lira stops being happy with your work, or you start showing off too much, you'll simply be replaced.

— Threat of dismissal logged, — the Archive reported.

— That was a joke, — I said.

— Probability of a joke: sixty-eight percent.

— Seventy now, — I warned.

My Architect smirked and looked at the Author over his cup.

— Since we're talking about replacements… Did you ever plan to get rid of me? Kill me, rewrite me, or put someone more convenient in my place?

The Author answered, laughing:

— You're the embodiment of my inner strength. That's why you'll never disappear. And that's exactly why you can't be killed. Ever.

The Architect leaned back in his chair, satisfied.

— At last, a worthy explanation for my immortality.

Earth's Artem set his cup down on the table.

— Then what do I embody?

The Author looked at him and laughed again:

— I'm an office drone too. And a director too — only of a rehabilitation center in New York.

Earth's Artem kept a straight face for a few seconds.

— So out of the whole family, I represent your ability to go to work?

— And to survive it, — my husband clarified. — An underrated superpower.

Now it was my turn.

— And me? Who did you intend me to be?

The answer was even shorter:

— My exact copy. Or a copy of the Architect, only in a woman's form.

I looked first at the Author, then at my husband.

— And why is one of us a man and the other a woman?

The Author burst out laughing:

— First, because I'm heterosexual, and I didn't want two men in one family. Second, it's a classic: the man hunts the mammoth, and the woman keeps the hearth.

— I keep the Archive, run the Consortium's technologies and can destroy a small fleet, — I reminded him.

— A very well-fortified hearth, — Earth's Artem observed.

We all laughed together.

The coffee ran out. The cognac didn't.

An hour later, Gemini suggested going out on the ocean. The Archive chartered us a high-speed yacht faster than the hotel staff could ask the fifth guest for his documents.

The Author was the first to rise from the table. His eyes flashed red, exactly like my husband's. He took off his black shirt and stood there in his jeans. His body turned out to be as strong and muscular as the Architect's. A wolf tattoo darkened his arm.

Gemini and I involuntarily let our gazes linger a little longer than we'd intended.

My husband noticed at once.

— I see everything.

— We're comparing the original and the result, — I replied, unruffled.

The Author smirked:

— See, I've never once regretted creating you in my own image.

And he was the first to leap overboard into the transparent water.

The Architect looked at me.

— Scientific interest?

— Purely.

— Of course.

A second later he dove in after the Author.

We spent almost two hours in the ocean. We raced, we dove, we argued over who was faster, and for the first time allowed ourselves to forget about timelines, future children and beings capable of rewriting reality.

Until the Archive reported a distress signal.

A few kilometers from us, a pleasure yacht was going down. After striking an underwater reef, the hull had listed, water was flooding the lower deck, and there were still people inside.

We got there before the rescue services.

Screams came from behind a mangled wall. The passage was blocked by metal, and the water was rising too fast.

The Author didn't bother looking for a door.

He simply punched the hull.

The metal buckled and split apart as if it were made of paper. With a second movement, the Author tore out a huge piece of plating and opened a way through to the trapped passengers.

— Damn, it's a shame this kind of strength isn't available in my world, — he said, pulling out the first person.

We worked together.

The Architect held the damaged yacht up with an energy field. Gemini and I led people out through the breach. The Author dove into the flooded compartments, and Earth's Artem received the injured on the upper deck.

The last ones we found were a woman and a child.

The boy wasn't breathing.

The mother was screaming, begging us to do something, anything, but Earth's Artem had already dropped to his knees beside the child.

He laid his palms on the boy's chest.

A warm red light flared in the Earth Architect's eyes. Not technological. Not the cold glint of a positronic brain.

Living wolf fire.

Red energy passed through the small body. The boy drew a sharp breath, coughed and opened his eyes.

Gemini covered her mouth with her hand. The woman clutched her son to her, crying and laughing at the same time.

The boy looked at Earth's Artem, then at my husband, and finally at the Author, who stood beside the breached hull.

— Mom says superheroes don't exist… Are you a superhero?

The Author smiled, lit a cigar — just as calmly as my husband would have — and answered:

— I'm cooler. But to become like me, you have to study hard and listen to your mom. Deal?

The boy looked at him with complete seriousness for a few seconds, as though he had just been handed the most important condition of his entire future life. Then he resolutely held out a small wet hand to the Author.

— Deal!

Artem Elkind shook it with the same seriousness with which he probably signed the most important documents at his rehabilitation center.

The boy's mother hugged her son close.

— Thank you. I don't know who you are or where you came from, but you saved my son.

— Don't worry, — my Architect smirked. — We don't fully understand yet who he is or where he came from either.

The Author turned his head and gave him a wolf's stare.

— Very funny.

— I tried.

Even Earth's Artem laughed quietly. He was still kneeling beside the boy, and the red glow was slowly fading from his eyes. Gemini knelt down beside him and laid a hand on his shoulder.

I kept watching the Author.

He had smashed through the hull of a sinking yacht with his bare hand. Without a second's hesitation, he had thrown himself into the water. And now he was joking with a child and smoking a cigar as though nothing special had happened.

I came closer.

— You said this kind of strength isn't available in your world. But here it appeared at once. Why?

The Author straightened up, took a drag on his cigar and answered:

— In my world there's no magic, no time travel — none of what I described in this saga at all. What it does have is an enormous number of conspiracy theories: aliens, Bigfoot and everything else of that sort. So maybe that very Architect I once wrote about really did exist. Who the hell knows. No one gets to know everything… not even me.

For a few seconds, silence hung over the ocean.

— Insufficient data for a refutation, — the Archive said unexpectedly.

The Author smirked:

— Thanks. Very helpful.

The rescued boy's mother looked first at him, then at the two men smoking in exactly the same way, and apparently decided that some questions are better left unasked.

My husband went on looking at the Author, but the mockery was gone — attentive now, almost studying him.

— You're wrong about one thing, — the Architect said calmly. — You say none of this exists in your world. But it would be more accurate to say: you've never seen it.

For an instant, a red glow flared in both their eyes.

Exactly the same.

— So he might not have invented you, — Gemini said quietly. — He might somehow have seen you before you ever met.

— Or remembered, — Earth's Artem added.

— Remembered something that never happened to him?

— A lot of things never happened to me either, — he replied. — But sometimes I felt as if I'd already lived through them.

The Archive spoke again:

— Since the appearance of Artem Elkind, a new resonance link has been logged. The source lies beyond the accessible structure of worlds.

— Beyond the multiverse? — I asked.

— Determination impossible.

A few minutes later, a rescue vessel drew up to the damaged yacht. They began transferring people aboard. Before leaving, the boy turned and waved to the Author.

— I'll study hard!

— I'll be checking! — Artem Elkind called after him.

When the rescuers had taken away the last passengers, we were left beside the breached hull.

My husband looked at the hole the Author had made with his bare hand.

— You still haven't answered the main question. If your world has no magic and no technology like this, why is it my power, specifically, that you received here?

He held out his palm.

A small red flame flared in it.

A second later, the same flame appeared in Artem Elkind's palm.

— Try to put it out, — my husband said. — Not by force, though. Order it to vanish the way you'd strike out a written line.

The Author smirked, took out the smartphone from his world, quickly typed something, then put it back in his pocket.

— Go out.

The red flame in the Architect's palm vanished instantly.

— Easy. I just added to the script that I can do that. Before, all it said was: "All the strength and abilities of the Architect."

We were silent.

My husband looked at his empty palm for a few seconds, then shifted his gaze to the Author's pocket.

— So the most powerful technology in the entire multiverse is your smartphone?

— Looks that way, — Earth's Artem smirked. — And here we were worrying about the Archive.

— I have logged an insulting comparison, — the Archive responded immediately.

Gemini laughed first. Then I couldn't hold it in either. Even my husband chuckled quietly.

— All right. That really wasn't bad.

But his smile quickly vanished.

— Spatial structure altered without the use of energy, a portal or Consortium technology, — the Archive reported. — Artem Elkind did not apply an ability. He added its existence.

I looked at the Author differently now.

— So you don't need to be stronger than any of us. It's enough to write that you are.

— A very convenient system, — Gemini observed.

My Architect stepped up to the Author, almost nose to nose.

— You left us the right to choose. But now we know that at any moment you can take out your phone and change the rules. So answer honestly. Can you write that I'm obliged to obey you? And if you can, why should I believe you'll never do it one day?

The Author calmly looked the Architect straight in the eyes. The red wolf light flared brighter, and his voice dropped lower and heavier — almost bestial:

— If I'd wanted to do that, I'd have done it long ago.

Then his voice returned to normal, but the light in his eyes didn't fade.

— I came to you. I reunited all of you. I respectfully asked permission to stay. Yes, I have power, but I bear responsibility for it. Same as you, Architect.

My husband didn't answer right away.

They stood facing each other — two identical wolf stares, two cigars, one and the same power. But there was no confrontation between them now.

There was recognition.

At last the Architect smirked.

— Now I truly believe you created me in your own image.

He held out his hand to the Author. The Author shook it firmly, but my husband pulled him in sharply and embraced him like a brother.

— Power means nothing, — the Architect said quietly. — Responsibility for it means everything.

The red light in both their eyes went out at the same moment.

— Trust level between the Architect and the Author restored, — the Archive announced.

— I never lost it, — my husband replied.

— Contradiction logged.

— Archive…

— Switching to silent mode.

We laughed.

My Architect opened a portal right above the water. On the other side, a snow-white Maldivian beach and our hotel could be seen.

◆ ◆ ◆

When the sun began sinking toward the horizon, the others went off to their rooms for a while. The Author and I were left alone at the water's edge.

He sat on the sand with his trousers rolled up, looking at the ocean. The smartphone lay beside him.

I walked over and sat down next to him.

— Today everyone asked you about power, freedom of choice, our lives and your right to interfere. But no one asked the question that troubles me personally.

The Author turned to me.

— You could have told this story yourself. You could have made the Architect the main voice, or Gemini, or even the soulless Archive. But you chose me. Why did Lira, of all of them, become the voice of your saga?

The Author didn't hide the truth:

— I simply like you as a woman. That's why I'm very proud you became the Architect's wife.

He smirked.

I'd expected a philosophical answer. A speech about destiny, inner strength and the ability to see what others fail to notice.

Instead I got a man's confession, as honest as it gets.

For a few seconds I looked at him in silence, then laughed.

— After all the talk about the nature of the mind and power over reality, that's the clearest answer yet.

— And the most honest, — came my husband's voice from behind us.

The Architect stood on the sand with two cigars in one hand and a bottle of cognac in the other. Judging by his satisfied smile, he'd heard everything.

He sat down beside me and put his arm around my shoulders.

— And you're not angry? — I asked.

— At the man who created the woman of his dreams and then made her my wife? I owe him a bottle, not a bullet.

He handed the Author a cigar.

— Though you really do have good taste.

I elbowed my husband.

— You're both talking about me as if I weren't here.

— It's precisely because you're here that we're telling the truth.

He poured the cognac into three glasses.

— To Lira. The woman one Architect liked so much he invented her, and another liked so much he married her.

— A very smug toast.

— But an honest one.

We touched glasses.

— When you started writing this story, did you already know we'd fall in love with each other? — I asked. — Or did our feelings become one of those decisions that surprised even their own Author?

— Actually, I brought you into the saga as the Archivist, and as the Architect's lover or wife — but in other dimensions. Here, he was already married to Gemini when you appeared and became part of the Pack, yet you never stopped loving him. So yes: I knew you loved the Architect. But I didn't know he would come to love you so strongly. That's when the love story really took off. After that I only "tweaked the nuances" a little. That's all.

I lowered my eyes to my glass.

My love for the Architect had been laid down by the Author from the very beginning. Perhaps that was why it felt so ancient. But my husband's love hadn't been written in advance.

He chose me himself.

— So you didn't make him love me?

— He couldn't have, — my husband answered for the Author. — Fire is an ability. Love is a choice.

He ran his fingers along my cheek.

— You can strip the Architect of his power, change his body or erase his memory. But you can't order him whom to love.

— Not even the Author?

— Especially not the Author.

I pressed my lips to his palm.

— Then thank you, — I said to Artem Elkind. — For bringing me into this story once. We managed the rest ourselves.

— Don't rush to thank him, — the Architect said. — I'm interested in the last part of his answer.

— Which part?

— The one where he "tweaked the nuances a little."

At that moment Gemini and Earth's Artem came up to us.

— Now I'm interested too, — Gemini said.

Earth's Artem opened the second bottle.

— I think we'll need it for this answer.

The Author took a drag.

— Nothing much, really. I just added some family drama to all your relationships, to cement them even more firmly. I liked watching what was happening between you. All I did was see it through to a happy ending.

He smirked.

— "Added some family drama"? — Gemini repeated.

— Sounds harmless, — Earth's Artem observed.

— Especially if you don't count the tears, the jealousy, the breakups, the deaths, the resurrections and the sixteenth century.

— Don't forget the supernova, — I reminded them.

— And the future children who went on a honeymoon to the past, — my husband added.

— And the moment when I transferred a dying man's consciousness into an immortal body and was afraid he'd hate me forever, — Gemini finished.

The Author smoked calmly, withstanding four accusing stares.

— No, — Earth's Artem said. — We're going to need a third bottle.

Cognac materialized on the sand at once.

— He isn't even arguing, — I said.

— He's a director, — the Architect smirked. — He knows the best way to survive a disgruntled staff is to throw an office party.

We laughed, but Gemini's smile quickly faded.

— For you it was drama that strengthened relationships. For us, it was all really happening. When he was dying, I truly felt myself disappearing along with him.

Earth's Artem laid his palm over her hand.

— But you didn't lose me.

— I know that now.

My Architect looked at the Author.

— We could have gone our separate ways, come to hate each other and turned one family into four lonely immortal beings. Instead, we came back to each other.

— That's exactly why it turned out to be a happy ending, — I said. — Not because the Author wrote it. But because, after everything we went through, we chose it.

I looked Artem Elkind in the eyes.

— If you'd known in advance how much we would suffer, would you still have put us through the same drama?

— I think I'd have changed it, — the Author answered calmly but seriously. — Because watching and taking part aren't the same thing. That's probably why I finally decided to come to you.

There was no attempt at self-justification in his words.

My Architect nodded slowly.

— So you came to share the consequences of your own decisions.

— That changes a lot, — Gemini said quietly.

— An observer sees a ruined world and records the result, — my husband said. — An Architect steps inside and helps rebuild it. Welcome inside your own story.

We drank.

Gemini looked at the Author.

— If you were allowed to change only one scene — with no chance to rewrite anything else — which would you choose?

The Author laughed:

— I'd probably have planted myself in the story from the very beginning as a spy, and then let you expose me. Basically, that's more or less how it went with the Third Observer.

— That's not changing one scene, — I observed. — That's adding yourself to every scene at once.

— Typical director, — Earth's Artem said. — Asked to pick one item, and he rewrote the whole organizational structure.

— Typical Author, — my husband corrected. — Found a loophole in his own rules.

Gemini shook her head, but smiled.

— So you wouldn't have spared us the pain we went through?

— No, — I said quietly. — He'd have entered the story earlier, to go through that pain together with us.

Artem Elkind said nothing, but his expression grew more serious.

I knew I'd guessed right.

My Architect raised his glass.

— Then to the most incompetent spy in the universe. He showed up as himself, gave his real name and within five minutes confessed he'd invented everyone.

— But the exposure went off successfully, — Earth's Artem observed.

— And without torture, — Gemini added.

— Without torture so far, — I clarified.

The Author burst out laughing.

At that moment a holographic panel appeared before us.

— Temporal anomaly detected, — the Archive reported.

The first archive log of our saga appeared on the screen. At the bottom of the text, a line was blinking that had never been there before:

UNIDENTIFIED OBSERVER PRESENT. NO INTERFERENCE LOGGED.

The date matched the beginning of the whole story.

— Did this line appear just now? — Gemini asked.

— No. According to system data, it has been in the log since the moment of its creation.

— So he really was there from the very beginning, — Earth's Artem said.

— Or his wish has just rewritten the past, — I replied.

My husband looked at the Author with a predatory smile.

— If you were watching us from inside the story all this time, whose name were you hiding under?

The Author spread his hands:

— Friends, who the hell knows anymore! Yes, I watched. Yes, I wrote. But what else was going on inside the story while the editing was underway, I don't know.

He calmly picked up a bottle of cognac and drained it in one go, like a true Architect.

We watched him in silence.

My husband took the cigar out of his mouth.

— Now I'm finally convinced he's my exact copy.

— The volume of alcohol consumed poses a lethal danger to an ordinary human, — the Archive warned.

The Author set down the empty bottle and didn't even wince.

— Physiological readings remain normal. Warning withdrawn. I am ceasing all attempts to regard him as an ordinary human.

— Too late, — Earth's Artem said. — We figured that out back at the yacht with the hole in it.

Gemini took away the last full bottle.

— This one I'm confiscating. There are three Architects in our family now. If each of you starts drinking cognac by the bottle, no amount of regeneration will be enough.

— It'll be enough, — my husband and the Author answered in unison.

They exchanged glances.

— Even the intonation is the same, — I sighed.

At that very moment, the Author's smartphone vibrated on the sand.

The display lit up:

INCOMING CALL REHABILITATION CENTER NEW YORK

The Author took the call with complete composure:

— Yes, Danisha. Yes, you know, I've run into some temporary difficulties, and I'm forced to take an open-ended leave. Yes, I'll report upstairs myself. Of course, call anytime. Bye.

He ended the call and put the smartphone down on the sand.

— "Temporary difficulties"? — I repeated.

The Author pointed his cigar at us, the open portal, the empty bottles and the anomalous Archive log.

— Technically, he didn't lie, — Earth's Artem observed.

— And "open-ended leave" sounds more professional than "I've gone off to live with the characters of my own book," — Gemini added.

My husband nodded approvingly.

— Good decision. Short, confident and without unnecessary explanations.

I heard something in that conversation the others seemed to have missed.

He hadn't quit.

He had taken leave.

Open-ended, yes, but leave all the same.

— The communication channel with Artem Elkind's world of origin remains active, — the Archive reported. — Return is possible at any moment.

I sat down across from the Author.

— You came to us because you wanted to stop being an observer. But there are people back there who know you not as the Author or the Architect, but simply as Director Artem Elkind. We're not demanding that you choose between worlds.

The Architect sat down beside us.

— Lira's right. Don't turn coming to us into running away from there. You've earned the right to live in two worlds at once.

— That was the original point, — the Author answered quietly. — I consciously wanted to leave for good. I didn't know if I'd manage it… but in the end, I did.

He sniffed, as though about to allow himself a single tear, but instead expertly snatched the bottle from the Architect's hands and took a long swig.

My husband looked at his now-empty hand.

— Actually, I was going to pour you a glass.

— Too slow.

The Architect smirked, but his gaze changed.

I slowly rose and went over to the Author. He was looking at the ocean, gripping the bottle tightly, as though it let him hold on to his composure.

I gently took it from him.

— You don't have to play the Architect for us every second. You can simply be a man who's been hurt.

The Author turned away, but I embraced him.

Not as the woman he liked. Not as the voice of the story he'd invented.

As a member of the family.

A moment later my husband came over to us. Then Gemini and Earth's Artem joined in.

And so we stood in the middle of a Maldivian beach at night — five beings who that very morning hadn't known whether they could trust each other, and who now silently held the man who had once invented them.

— You wanted to leave for good, and you left, — the Architect said. — We won't drag you back against your will. But from this moment on, forget the word "disappear." You didn't disappear from your world. You came into ours.

— And now you're not alone, — Gemini added.

With my thumb, I wiped away the moisture under the Author's eye that he was trying to pass off as sea wind.

— There's a place for you here.

Earth's Artem sat down beside him.

— A man doesn't decide to leave for good just because he's tired of his job. What made you realize there was nothing left to stay for in your own world?

The Author smirked:

— Would you believe me if I said it simply became unbearably boring and dull? As I said, there's no magic in my world. But here there's immortality, so much to see, so many people to meet… and all the while, staying beside my family forever.

We exchanged glances.

My Architect was the first to laugh.

— Now I believe you completely.

— Why? — Gemini asked.

— Because great escapes rarely begin with a tragedy. Sometimes a man simply outgrows the only life available to him.

He sat down beside the Author and took the bottle from me.

— No cosmic catastrophe. He ran a rehabilitation center, solved the same problems over and over, went home, and one day realized he was capable of inventing a multiverse but still had to keep filling out reports.

— If you propose a toast to hating reports, I'm in, — Earth's Artem said.

— I'm a director too, — the Author reminded him.

— Which makes three of us, — my husband replied. — This isn't a family, it's a board of directors with immortality.

— A board of three immortal directors poses a threat to the administrative structure of the Consortium, — the Archive warned.

— Dissolve the administrative structure, — all three said at once.

— Threat confirmed.

Gemini covered her face with her hand.

— I think immortality was a mistake.

— Too late, — I said. — The process is irreversible. In our family it's a tradition by now.

The Author was smiling.

Now I understood: he wasn't fleeing a ruined life. He was leaving its predictability. For a man capable of imagining eternity, one ordinary human life really could, one day, stop being enough.

— Then choose, Author. You've received immortality, a family and access to every era and every world. Where do we go first?

The Architect rose and opened an enormous portal behind him. Inside flickered thousands of roads, times and unknown worlds.

— You wanted to see everything, — he said. — Start choosing.

The Author laughed hard.

— Actually, it's very simple. I want to see the Consortium. The year twenty-three twenty-six. To meet Dexter, Pirate, Gina and Alpha… and to pick out a room for myself there in person.

My Architect looked at him for a few seconds, then slowly closed the portal with its thousands of unknown worlds.

— What? — the Author asked.

— You've been given access to the entire multiverse. You could have chosen a vanished civilization, the birth of a new galaxy or the beginning of time…

— I chose home.

The smile vanished from the Architect's face.

Only pride remained.

— Right answer.

He spread his arms.

A huge wave of energy rose above the ocean. The night sky blazed red, space parted, and a new portal opened before us.

On the other side rose the endless towers of the Consortium. Aerial platforms moved between them, energy conduits ran across the sky, and in the distance shone a huge red sun.

— Coordinates confirmed, — the Archive spoke. — Central world of the Consortium. Earth calendar: year 2326. Timeline stable.

Gemini walked up to the Author and took his arm.

— Be careful with Dexter. Once you've met, he'll definitely want to take your smartphone apart.

— And Pirate will first offer you a drink, then some shooting, and only after that ask who you are, — Earth's Artem added.

— Gina will pretend she doesn't trust you, — I said.

— Alpha really won't trust you, — my husband clarified. — Especially once she finds out you invented her father.

The Author smirked.

— And will I be allowed to choose my room myself?

— After you survive meeting the family, — I replied.

We headed for the portal.

My Architect went first, a cigar in his mouth. Beside him — Artem Elkind, who just a few hours earlier had been a man from a world without magic, immortality or time travel.

Now they both looked as though they had walked this road together for all eternity.

Right before crossing, the Author stopped and looked back one last time at the Maldivian shore. Left on the sand were empty bottles, bare footprints and a smartphone by the water.

— You forgot your phone, — I reminded him.

The Author went back, picked it up and tucked it into his pocket.

— Can't do without it. What if I don't like the room — I'll have to rewrite the floor plan.

— Just you try touching the load-bearing walls, — the Architect warned.

Laughing, we stepped into the portal.

I went in last.

For a moment I lingered between the two worlds and looked back at the man who had once invented our story, then entered it, and been given the chance to choose any point in infinity.

He hadn't asked for a throne.

He hadn't demanded power.

He hadn't chosen a place above us.

He had simply asked for a room in our home.

And then I understood, once and for all:

The Third Observer was gone.

The Author remained behind the scenes.

And returning with us to the year 2326 was Artem Elkind.

One of the Pack.

A member of the family.

Forever.

A Room in Eternity

Lira's Archive

I was the last to step out of the portal.

The Maldivian night closed behind my back, and in an instant we were surrounded by the cold red light of the Consortium's central transport hall.

Home.

Our real home.

Tall black walls rose toward a transparent dome. Beyond it, aerial platforms moved, energy conduits stretched between the towers, and above the horizon burned the enormous red sun of the year 2326.

The Author stopped beside me.

For the first time since he had appeared, he wasn't smirking.

He was just looking.

At the holographic panels. At the ships above the city. At the endless levels of the central tower. At a world that, until today, had existed for him only in his imagination and in lines of text.

— Well? — my Architect asked.

The Author never got the chance to answer.

An alarm blasted through the hall.

UNKNOWN SIGNATURE DETECTED. ACCESS LEVEL UNDEFINED. POTENTIAL THREAT: UNLIMITED.

Automatic guns slid out of the side passages.

Four familiar figures appeared before us in an instant.

Alpha was the first to raise her weapon. Gina activated an energy shield. Dexter appeared beside them with a portable scanner, and the Omega Pirate ran in last — an assault rifle in one hand and a bottle of whiskey in the other.

— Nobody move! — Alpha ordered.

Then she saw her father.

— Dad?

— Put the gun away, — the Architect answered calmly.

Alpha was about to obey, but then the Author stepped out of the portal.

Now two men stood in the central hall with identical faces, haircuts, stubble, wolf stares and cigars.

Alpha raised her weapon again.

— No. First somebody explains why there are two Dads.

— Actually, there are three Architects now, — Earth's Artem pointed out.

— Thank you, — Gina said. — That makes it so much clearer.

Gemini stepped forward.

The daughters forgot their weapons at once and rushed to her. She hugged them both, holding them so tightly you would think she hadn't seen them for several centuries rather than several days.

The Pirate looked from the Architect to Artem Elkind and back again. Took a long swig of whiskey.

— No, it's not the alcohol. There really are two of them.

— Confirmed, — Dexter said.

He aimed the scanner at the Author.

The device flashed, made a strange noise and died.

Dexter tapped the casing and switched it on again.

The screen went black immediately.

— Curious.

— Don't even start, — my Architect warned.

— I'm only scanning.

— That's exactly how you always start.

The Author stood in the middle of his own fantasy, watching with enormous interest the beings he had once invented.

The Architect laid a hand on his shoulder.

— Family, meet Artem Elkind.

— Another Architect? — Gina asked.

— Worse. The Author.

Silence fell.

The Pirate slowly lowered the bottle.

Alpha reached for her weapon again.

Dexter, on the contrary, looked at Artem Elkind with a rapture I had never seen in him even at the discovery of a new technology.

— The Author of our entire reality?

— And of most of our problems, — Gemini added.

— But now he's one of ours, — I said.

Dexter moved closer to the Author and pointed at the smartphone sticking out of his pocket.

— Is that the device you use to alter our reality?

— Don't even think about it, — the Architect and I warned in unison.

But Dexter was already reaching out.

— May I take it apart for a little while?

The Author answered at once, still laughing and smoking his cigar:

— Well, if you want to destroy your own reality, go right ahead.

Dexter's hand stopped a few centimeters from the smartphone.

He looked slowly at the device, then at the Author, and carefully tucked his hand behind his back.

— Perhaps I'll start with remote analysis.

The Pirate roared with laughter.

— First time I've ever seen Dexter voluntarily pass up taking an unknown technology apart!

— I didn't pass it up. I postponed the experiment until a backup copy of reality has been made.

— No backup copy exists, — the Archive reported.

— Then until one does.

Alpha put away her weapon but kept studying the Author closely.

— So the phone really does control our world?

— Not the phone, — my Architect answered. — The one holding it.

— Is that supposed to reassure me?

— No.

Gina moved closer to Artem Elkind, comparing every movement and the way he held his cigar against her father's.

— He really does look like you.

— I look like him, — the Architect corrected.

— What?

— The Author created me in his own image.

The Pirate took another pull from the bottle.

— I have a feeling that today I'll finally find out why our family dinner always ends in a shootout.

Alpha walked right up to the Author.

— Let's say you invented us and can change reality with a single line. Why should we consider you a member of the family and not the greatest threat ever to have entered the Consortium?

The Pirate held the bottle out to Artem Elkind.

— Pay no attention. She considers every new relative a threat at first. She wanted to shoot me.

— Wanted? — Alpha repeated.

The Pirate tucked the bottle behind his back.

Alpha didn't look away.

— Why did you come to our home? To become part of the family, or to decide for us one day what this family should be?

The Author laughed right in her face.

— Honestly, I expected that kind of bluntness from Gina. I created her exactly that way, and you — smart and level-headed.

Silence hung over the central hall.

Gina turned to him slowly.

— Excuse me, exactly what way did you create me?

— Here we go, — Earth's Artem said quietly.

Alpha kept looking at the Author. For a few seconds her face stayed unreadable, then the corner of her mouth twitched.

— You haven't answered my question.

— But he did instantly shift the conflict onto my sister, — Gina said.

— A strategically sound maneuver, — the Pirate approved.

My Architect drew on his cigar. From his contented smile it was obvious he was enjoying all this enormously.

— Now do you see where your father gets his character? — I asked.

— You mean his taunting, his sarcasm and his habit of driving people to fury were all copied from this man? — Gina asked.

— Directly, — the Architect answered.

Gemini went to her daughters and took them both by the hand.

— He hasn't come to rule us. On the Maldives he asked permission to stay. He could have chosen any point in time and space, but he wanted to come back here.

— He wants to get to know you and choose a room in our home, — I added.

Alpha raised an eyebrow.

— A man capable of rewriting reality came to the Consortium to pick out furniture?

— And the floor plan, — the Architect said. — I've already forbidden him to touch the load-bearing walls.

Alpha finally put her weapon away.

— If he wants to become a member of the family, let him start like any ordinary relative. First we show him the rooms. Then a family dinner. After dinner — the interrogation.

— I'll bring the whiskey, — the Pirate said.

Gina walked over to the Author and, unexpectedly, hugged him.

— Welcome to the Consortium. But the conversation about why it was me you made the blunt one isn't over yet.

Alpha held out her hand to him.

— I haven't decided yet whether I trust you. But if my parents brought you home, you deserve a chance.

The Author shook her hand.

— Artem Elkind has been entered into the family security circuit, — the Archive reported. — Kinship classification undefined.

— Log it: "One of us," — my Architect said.

A red line ran along the walls of the hall.

— Status updated. Welcome home, Artem Elkind.

◆ ◆ ◆

We went up to the residential sector of the central tower.

On the way, the Author never stopped looking around. Beyond the transparent walls, a gigantic city dropped away below. Airships glided between the towers; far below, thousands of people and androids were moving.

Dexter walked alongside the Author's smartphone, keeping a distance of exactly one meter.

— Can you stop staring at it? — Gina asked.

— I can.

— Then stop.

— I don't want to.

We stopped in front of three doors.

Behind the first was a spacious suite in the family sector with a panoramic view of the central plaza. It was right next to our own apartments.

Behind the second, an isolated two-level unit with a study, a training hall and direct access to the transport system.

The third door led to the top of the tower — an abandoned observatory under a transparent dome.

— The first is closer to the family, — Gemini said.

— The second is more practical, — Dexter added.

— The third looks like the lair of a man who will one day decide to take over the universe, — Alpha observed.

My Architect smirked.

— Which is why I'd pick the third.

The Author pointed at the first suite.

— I choose the room. I've always loved comfort, which is why I never understood camping trips in the great outdoors.

The Pirate looked at the observatory with disappointment.

— And I was already picturing a throne up there, an armory and a three-story bar.

— The bar can be built here too, — Dexter pointed out.

— Then I approve the choice.

We entered the chosen suite. An enormous living room flowed into a study, a bedroom and an open terrace. Beyond the panoramic windows stretched the night city.

He hadn't chosen the highest point of the tower, nor a separate residence.

Once again, he had chosen a place beside the family.

— The premises have been assigned to Artem Elkind, — the Archive reported. — Interior design must be specified.

The walls turned transparent. Options cycled around us: the austere black-and-red style of the Consortium; a modern New York apartment; then a union of the two worlds — black stone, warm wood, hidden technology, a study, a fireplace, a bar and panoramic windows.

In the middle of the study stood a massive desk. On it, already, were an ashtray, a bottle of cognac and a terminal that looked like an ordinary Earth computer.

— The Archive learns habits far too fast, — Earth's Artem remarked.

Dexter approached the terminal.

— Is it synchronized with the smartphone?

— No, — I said immediately.

— And it will stay unsynchronized, — the Architect added.

The Pirate was already inspecting the bar.

— The supply will last two days at most.

— By medical standards, it is sufficient for three years, — the Archive objected.

— I said two days.

Words flared on the wall:

ROOM OWNER: ARTEM ELKIND. STATUS: ONE OF US. ACCESS: UNRESTRICTED. ASSIGNMENT: UNDEFINED.

— Every permanent member of the Consortium has an official function, — the Archive explained. — For Artem Elkind, no classification exists. "Author" describes his origin but does not define a role. "Third Observer" no longer corresponds to his choice.

My Architect filled two glasses and handed one to the Author.

— You've chosen your room. You've joined the family. Who do you want to be here?

The Author took a sip.

— Let the Pack decide for itself who it wants me to be here.

— Commander, — the Pirate suggested.

My Architect slowly turned his head.

— Second commander, — the Pirate clarified.

— The Pack never has two commanders.

Dexter raised his hand.

— I propose the status "Meta-Architect." Artem Elkind exists outside the original structure and is the primary source of the current Architect's image.

— Say that in plain language, — the Pirate asked.

— He created the one who created the Consortium.

— Then "Chief Creator."

— That sounds as if Father now answers to him, — Alpha said.

— I answer to no one, — the Architect reminded them.

Gina suggested keeping "the Author," but I objected:

— He's inside the story now, and he no longer writes us from the outside.

— He didn't just join us, — Gemini said. — He created a world and then voluntarily gave up deciding for it.

Alpha looked at the Author.

— He could have given himself any status. He could have written that we were obliged to recognize him as ruler or god. But he asked us to choose for ourselves. His power lies not only in the ability to change reality. What matters most is that he can change it — and still leaves the final decision to us.

— Keeper of Freedom? — Dexter suggested.

— Keeper of Choice, — Gemini said.

The room went quiet.

Not the one who makes decisions for everyone else.

The one who makes sure the right to decide is taken away by no one — not even by himself.

Everyone agreed.

That left my husband.

— Officially — Keeper of Choice, — the Architect said. — But in the Pack your role is simpler.

He laid a hand on the Author's shoulder.

— Brother.

Red light flared on the wall:

ARTEM ELKIND. STATUS: ONE OF US. FUNCTION: KEEPER OF CHOICE. FAMILY CLASSIFICATION: BROTHER OF THE PACK. ACCESS: UNRESTRICTED.

— Decision adopted unanimously, — the Archive reported.

— Not unanimously, — the Pirate reminded it. — I proposed deputy.

— Your vote has been classified as a statistical error.

The Pirate opened the biggest bottle and began filling glasses.

— Every new member of the Pack gives the first toast himself. Well then, Keeper of Choice? What are we drinking to?

The Author raised his glass.

— To family, and to tonight's party, which is going to be a long one, with all the consequences that follow!

He set down the untouched glass, took the bottle of whiskey away from the Pirate and drained it in one go.

The Pirate froze.

— That was a collector's bottle.

The Author set it on the table.

The Pirate broke into a wide grin.

— I already love this man.

— Get in line, — my Architect said.

— The volume of alcohol consumed exceeds the lethal dose for an ordinary human, — the Archive warned.

— He already drank a bottle of cognac on the Maldives, — Earth's Artem reminded it.

— Medical warning canceled. Beginning to formulate separate norms for True Architects.

The Pirate opened the bar.

— If the party's going to be a long one, we won't have enough.

The Author snapped his fingers.

Dozens of bottles of whiskey, cognac, rum and wine materialized along the wall.

The Pirate gazed at them with reverence.

— I withdraw all my doubts. Keeper of Choice is the best post in the Consortium.

◆ ◆ ◆

Half an hour later, the introductions had turned once and for all into a family party.

The Archive pushed back the living room walls. A long table appeared, laden with food from different eras and worlds. Beyond the windows the night city glittered, and above the tower played Earth music from the Author's smartphone.

The Pirate demanded that the volume be turned up. Dexter — an explanation of how an Earth phone had connected to the Consortium's system.

The Archive refused to answer either of them.

Gemini danced with Earth's Artem. My Architect stood at the window with the Author. Both smoked cigars, held glasses and looked out at the city with identical wolf eyes.

Gina and Alpha came up to Artem Elkind.

— Which of us appeared in your imagination first? — Gina asked. — And how did you see us before we became ourselves?

The Author answered honestly:

— Both at once. I wanted to make you beautiful, but each in her own way. Gina — a brunette with a satanic smile. Which, by the way, is exactly why I love Lira so much. And Alpha — the complete opposite: just as beautiful, but a blonde with a clever smile. Something like that.

Gina smiled slowly.

And there on her face was exactly that smile — beautiful, predatory and, truly, a little satanic.

— This one?

The Pirate shivered.

— Now I get why she always smiles before she does something terrible.

Alpha ran a hand through her fair hair and smiled — calmly, confidently, with a barely perceptible irony.

— And is this one clever enough?

— Definitely, — I said.

Gina looked at her sister.

— So I got the satanic smile and you got the clever one?

— Take it up with the Author.

But there was no resentment in her voice. Both daughters hugged Artem Elkind.

— Thank you, — Gina said quietly. — I like the way you saw me.

— So do I, — Alpha added.

I looked at the Author.

— Did you just use a conversation about other women to declare your love for me again?

My husband drew on his cigar.

— He's developing a habit.

— And it still doesn't bother you?

— Every time, he publicly confirms that I married the best woman he ever invented.

— You're both unbearable.

— But consistent, — Gemini observed.

The Pirate raised the bottle.

— I propose a drink to beautiful women with dangerous smiles.

— And what makes you think it's only about your wives? — Alpha asked.

The men fell silent at once.

Dexter looked at the Author.

— Gina and Alpha, understood. But there are two more characters in the family — us. Did you invent us in advance too, for the Architect's daughters?

The Pirate stepped up beside him.

— And be careful how you answer. One of us can hack any system, and the other is holding a bottle.

The Author laughed:

— I can hack you both in under a millisecond, because your "fearsome" Architect is copied straight from me. But to answer the question: Gina and Alpha were created as the fruit of pure love between Gemini and the Architect. I noticed that love and let the miracle happen. Then I realized that such badass young ladies needed husbands who were no less badass. So I sketched you out, and after that you developed on your own. I only "adjusted the nuances" a little.

Dexter nodded thoughtfully.

The Pirate was looking at the Author with indignation.

— What do you mean, "sketched"?

— That's what bothers you? — Alpha asked.

— He created you beautiful, he thought out your hair and your smiles. And us he just sketched!

— Judging by the result, you took about five minutes, — Gina said.

— Not true. Seven, minimum.

Dexter went on analyzing:

— So originally we existed as supporting characters, but subsequently acquired independence.

— Don't call me a supporting character, — the Pirate warned.

Gemini had been silent all this time.

— The fruit of pure love, — she repeated.

Tears came to her eyes.

Gina and Alpha turned to their mother. My Architect stopped smiling.

For a brief moment, something passed between him and Gemini that needed no explanation. They were no longer husband and wife, but they would forever remain the parents of two daughters born of a love that had once been real.

I felt no jealousy.

Earth's Artem didn't look away either.

The past was no threat to the family. It was its foundation.

The Architect laid his palm on Gemini's shoulder.

— He wasn't wrong about that.

Gemini covered his hand with hers, then looked at Earth's Artem. He smiled and nodded.

No one had lost anyone.

Our family had simply become bigger, more complicated and more honest than even the Author could have imagined.

The Pirate raised the bottle.

— I'm the fruit of love too.

— You're the fruit of bad decisions, — Gina replied.

— But a beloved one?

She kissed him.

— Unfortunately.

Dexter straightened his collar.

— Despite the imprecision of the wording "sketched," the explanation is satisfactory.

— At least you got named Dexter, — the Pirate said. — But why am I the Omega Pirate? Did you see the great interdimensional adventurer in me from the start, or did you just write down the first cool combination that came to mind?

— That's simple too, — the Author smirked. — Before I set the stories down officially, in one unpublished draft you were a ruthless pirate in the Omega Sector. Then you and the Architect won it back, and he handed the sector over to you. That's where the name comes from. And you, Dexter, don't be offended: your name came about purely because of your intellectual abilities.

— I see no reason to be offended, — Dexter replied. — The name accurately reflects my principal characteristic.

— And your modesty, — Alpha added.

The Pirate stood motionless.

— I was a ruthless pirate in the Omega Sector? And the Architect and I won it back? After which he gave the sector to me?

The Pirate's grin grew wider and wider.

— At last, someone in this family understands the scale of my personality!

— It was an unpublished draft, — Dexter reminded him.

— Doesn't matter. From now on I demand to be addressed as Master of the Omega Sector.

— The sector doesn't belong to you, — Gina said.

Dexter looked at the Author again.

— If the plot stayed in a draft, why did the Pirate keep a name from a story that doesn't exist? And what happens to the events the Author wrote but deleted?

My Architect took the cigar out of his mouth.

— Archive, find any mention of the Omega Sector.

— The sector is absent from the Consortium's maps. However, a fragment of a damaged archive record has been found.

A hologram appeared before us:

OMEGA SECTOR. STATUS: EXCLUDED FROM THE MAIN TIMELINE. OWNER: DATA DELETED. LAST EVENT: UPRISING.

— The document was not created by the Consortium's systems, — the Archive reported.

The hologram trembled.

A man in shattered armor appeared before us. Behind him, an unknown city was burning.

— If anyone is receiving this signal… tell the Master of the Omega Sector: they're back. We need the Pirate again.

The recording cut off.

The Pirate looked at the Author.

— You said it was only a draft.

— What happened in it after the uprising? — I asked.

The Author answered calmly:

— The Pirate died. Gina was left with an infant in her arms. Dexter and Alpha fled to remote corners of the galaxy. Gemini and the Architect stayed on the intergalactic station and started working out how to bring it all back. I hadn't invented Lira yet, and the story went to the scrap heap.

The room went quiet.

The Pirate was no longer smiling.

Gina abruptly hugged her husband.

— Hey, I'm right here, — he said.

— I know.

But she didn't let go.

Alpha took Dexter's hand.

Gemini stood beside my Architect. At the mention of the station she had drawn closer to him without meaning to — not as a wife, but as a fighter who had once stayed beside her commander after a defeat.

Earth's Artem laid a hand on her back.

I alone was absent from that world.

Not dead. Not fled. I had never existed.

The Architect sensed it and took my hand.

— Is that why you threw the story away? — he asked.

The Author never got the chance to answer.

— The Omega Sector has not been destroyed, — the Archive reported. — It was detached from the main structure. The story ceased to be observed by the Author, but the events did not stop.

— How much time has passed for them? — Gina asked.

— Impossible to determine.

The Pirate looked at the coordinates.

— Who killed me?

The Archive didn't answer.

— The message said: "They're back," — Alpha reminded us. — So it means the same beings that defeated you.

The Architect walked over to the Author.

— Who destroyed the Pack, killed the Pirate and forced the rest to flee?

The Author took out his smartphone, made a few short notes and put it back in his pocket.

— Enemy erased. The Omega Sector is flourishing. The danger has passed, and no other versions of you ever existed there, — he reported, unperturbed.

The hologram flickered.

The burning city vanished. The ruined towers were restored, the black sky turned blue, transport vessels appeared where the warships had been, the streets filled with people.

OMEGA SECTOR. STATUS: STABLE. DEVELOPMENT LEVEL: PROSPERITY. MILITARY THREAT: NONE. ALTERNATE VERSIONS OF THE PACK: NOT DETECTED.

— Change to the causal structure confirmed, — the Archive reported. — The uprising never took place. No hostile civilization exists. The population is alive.

— And the child? — Gina asked quietly.

— Never born in that line. However, his death is not recorded either. After the correction there is no child, no mother who lost her husband, and no dead Pirate.

Gina closed her eyes.

Beside her stood her real husband — alive, loud and already smiling again.

— So I'm not dead anymore? — the Pirate checked.

— You were never in the Omega Sector.

— But I owned it?

— No.

The smile vanished.

— The Author saved my life but took away an entire sector at the same time?

— Which never belonged to you, — Gina reminded him.

Dexter approached the hologram.

— It isn't the current reality that was rewritten, but the cause of its emergence. No one was destroyed: the sequence of events that led to the alternate versions of the Pack was deleted.

My Architect looked at the Author.

— I would have assembled a fleet, opened a portal and destroyed the enemy personally.

— Which is exactly why he's the Author and you're the Architect, — I said. — You win wars. He can write that the war never happened.

— Boring.

— Efficient, — Dexter countered.

The Pirate looked at the flourishing sector.

— Are there at least any pirates left there?

— The crime rate is zero point eight percent.

— He destroyed a culture.

The distress signal disappeared. The music picked up from the very second it had stopped.

The Pirate laid a hand on the Author's shoulder.

— Fine. Death canceled, family saved, enemy erased. But you could have left me the sector. Can you at least make me honorary master?

The Author sipped his whiskey.

— Honestly, I'm a big fan of pirates and all that sort of thing. But Alpha's right.

Alpha smiled.

— Even your own creator understands you can't be given an entire sector.

— Treason, — the Pirate pronounced.

Dexter proposed creating a safe simulation of the original draft.

The walls dissolved.

The bridge of an enormous pirate ship materialized around us. Beyond the viewscreens, space burned. In the distance hung the Omega Sector station, ringed by a fleet of black cruisers.

A long leather coat appeared on the Pirate, along with a gun belt holding two energy pistols.

— There. That's exactly how I should always look.

A black combat suit appeared on Gina, Alpha received a light-colored officer's uniform, Dexter — a technological cloak. Gemini and I found ourselves in command armor and long black leather coats.

My Architect and the Author remained almost identical: black shirts, rolled-up sleeves, cigars and red light in their eyes.

— All hands, stand ready! — the Pirate shouted. — We're taking the Omega Sector!

An enemy fleet appeared before the ship.

— Objective: capture the central station, — the Archive announced. — A captain must be selected.

Words flared above the chair:

AVAILABLE CANDIDATES: OMEGA PIRATE. ARTEM ELKIND.

The Pirate held a pistol out to the Author.

— You said you're a big fan of pirates. Either hand me the chair, or lead the Pack in the boarding action yourself.

Beyond the screen, the enemy ships opened fire.

The Author sat down in the captain's chair.

— Fire an energy pulse at the target.

A red wave burst from the main gun. It passed through the station's defensive fields without damaging the hull.

The lights in the viewports went out. Engines and guns shut down. Along with the power, the artificial gravity switched off.

— Launch the interceptor drones. Bring everyone aboard to us for questioning.

Hundreds of craft emerged from the bays. They surrounded the station, entered through the airlocks and took control of every level.

OPERATION COMPLETE. LOSSES: 0. PRISONERS: 327. DATA ACQUIRED: 14.8 TERABYTES. TIME: 4 MINUTES 17 SECONDS.

The Author leaned back in the chair.

— Operation complete. No one died. New intelligence obtained from the prisoners.

The Pirate was still holding the pistol.

— That's it? Where are the explosions? Where's the boarding? Where's the leap across open space?

— The station is taken, the enemy disarmed, no casualties, — Dexter said.

— You offered him the captaincy, — Gina reminded him.

— I didn't expect him to be this efficient!

Earth's Artem walked up to the chair.

— What he ran wasn't a pirate raid.

— Then what?

— A corporate takeover.

The three directors exchanged glances.

— A hostile one, — the Author specified.

— But with staff retained, — Earth's Artem added.

— And a full transfer of assets, — my husband finished.

The Archive displayed a report:

CAPTAIN RATING: 100%. TACTICAL STYLE: ABSOLUTE CONTROL. COLLATERAL DAMAGE: NONE.

The bridge doors opened. Drones led in the captured officers. At their head walked a tall man with a silver scar.

— Who's in command?

Everyone pointed at the Author.

— You took the station without killing my people. So you need information. What are you after?

— Give up whoever hired you, and you can go back to your families. Simple as that, — the Author replied.

For a few seconds the officer searched for the catch.

— You'll release all my people?

— The captain gave his word, — the Architect replied. — I'd advise you to believe it.

The commander gave the name of Admiral Kreyt, handed over the coordinates of a hidden base, access codes, lists of intermediaries and financial records.

— Data verified, — the Archive reported.

The Author gave a short wave of his hand.

The prisoners' restraints disengaged.

Drones escorted them to the station. Power and gravity were restored; the crew was given a safe corridor.

OPERATION COMPLETE. EMPLOYER IDENTIFIED. PRISONERS RELEASED. LOSSES ON BOTH SIDES: 0.

Alpha looked at the Author with approval.

— You could have forced him to talk. But you gave him a choice.

— Keeper of Choice, — the Architect smirked. — The Pack wasn't wrong.

The simulation ended. We were back in the suite.

The Pirate found himself holding an ordinary fork instead of a pistol.

— The Archive is mocking me.

— Confirmed.

The Pirate opened a fresh bottle.

— Every new member of the family has to tell one embarrassing story about its head.

— No such tradition exists, — my husband said.

— It does now.

The Pirate threw an arm around the Author's shoulders.

— You created him in your own image. So you know something we don't.

The Architect looked at Artem Elkind.

— Anything you tell them about me automatically applies to you too.

The Author laughed.

— To begin with, I'll simply say that we're very much living people too, though from the outside that may seem impossible.

The Pirate waited for more.

— And?

— Where's the embarrassing story?

— He said "to begin with," — Dexter pointed out. — That was the introduction.

I turned the Author's words over in my mind.

From the outside, he and the Architect looked invulnerable. The same wolf eyes, the calm voices, the absolute confidence, and a power capable of destroying armies.

It was easy to forget that behind all that were neither machines nor gods.

Living men, who knew how to fear, to doubt, to be bored, and to love harder than they let anyone see.

— He really is very much alive, — I said, pressing myself against my husband.

— Is that a compliment?

— Almost.

At that moment a cat walked in through the open balcony door.

Not a hologram. Not a prop created by the Archive.

A perfectly ordinary living cat.

It surveyed the gathering and stopped in the middle of the living room, as if it had wandered not onto the top of the central tower but into the neighbors' apartment.

— Where did it come from? — Alpha asked.

— The outer terrace is at an altitude of nearly two kilometers, — Dexter answered.

— The laws of physics don't apply to cats, — Earth's Artem observed.

The Pirate was the first to try approaching it.

The cat arched its back, hissed and bared its claws.

Gina held out a piece of meat. The cat swatted her hand with its paw.

Dexter activated his scanner. The cat hissed so furiously that he switched the device off immediately.

Even Gemini couldn't coax it over.

The Author watched in silence, then set down his glass, crouched and held out his palm.

— Kitty, come here.

The cat stopped hissing.

For a few seconds it looked at him. Then it approached warily, sniffed his fingers and began rubbing its face against his palm.

The Author stroked it.

The cat purred and let itself be picked up.

Artem Elkind rose, holding it to his chest.

— I don't think you'll find a better example.

No one laughed.

A cigar smoldered between his fingers; red light flickered faintly in his eyes. Before us stood a man capable of destroying an enemy and rewriting a timeline with a single line.

And in his arms, calmly, lay a cat that had let no one else near it.

True strength did not destroy the capacity for tenderness.

Only someone who had no need to keep proving his power could kneel without fear and hold out an open palm to a creature that might scratch him.

My Architect carefully extended his hand.

The cat opened its eyes and hissed.

The Pirate doubled over laughing.

— It chose the original!

Red light flared in my husband's eyes.

— It just isn't used to me yet.

— Of course. Probably doesn't like copies.

— Pirate…

The Author went on stroking the cat, barely hiding a smirk.

— So your secret is that two terrifying Architects love cats? — Gina asked.

— So far it's only been proven for one, — Alpha reminded her.

My husband held out his palm again.

The cat struck his fingers with its paw, but didn't bare its claws.

— Progress, — the Architect said.

— It is not registered among the animals of the residential sector, — the Archive reported. — No owner found.

— So it chose the room itself, — Gemini said.

— And its master, — I added.

— Let him be Anubis, — the Author decided.

In that same instant the cat's eyes flashed bright red and returned to normal.

— Registration successful, apparently, — I laughed.

— A brief energy synchronization between Artem Elkind and the animal has been recorded, — the Archive reported.

— He passed part of his power to the cat? — Alpha asked.

— No. A mutual recognition took place.

The Pirate narrowed his eyes.

— The cat recognized him as its master?

— The wording is imprecise.

— Then the Author recognized the cat as his master?

— The probability is higher.

A record flared on the wall:

ANUBIS. SPECIES: DOMESTIC CAT. OWNER: NOT APPLICABLE. CHOSEN HUMAN: ARTEM ELKIND. STATUS: MEMBER OF THE FAMILY CIRCUIT. ACCESS LEVEL: RESIDENTIAL SECTOR.

— Why does a cat get access to the residential sector when I waited three years for clearance to the armory? — the Pirate protested.

— Anubis hasn't tried to blow anything up yet, — Gina answered.

— He's been here five minutes. Give him time.

Dexter took out his scanner again.

Anubis hissed.

Dexter put the device away.

— He learns faster than most sentient beings.

The party went on.

The music grew louder. The Pirate told the Author stories in which every destroyed ship grew bigger by the minute. Dexter argued with the Archive about the nature of deleted drafts. Gina and Alpha tried to find out which of them Anubis would let pet him first.

Suddenly the music cut off.

Anubis jumped into the Author's chair, climbed onto the table and slowly approached the smartphone.

— Nobody move, — Dexter said quietly.

The cat put a paw on the screen.

The smartphone lit up. A blinking cursor appeared in the text.

My Architect took the cigar out of his mouth.

Anubis raised his second paw over the keyboard.

Nine immortal beings, capable of destroying armies and stopping time, froze in the room.

No one dared approach an ordinary cat.

The Author only smirked:

— Cats sense love. As you are to them, so they are to you. Nothing's going to happen.

Anubis lowered his paw.

One letter appeared on the screen. Then a second.

The cat walked across the keyboard, turned around and lay down right on top of the smartphone.

The screen went dark.

Nothing happened.

The walls stayed where they were. The city didn't vanish. No one turned into a mouse or lost their immortality.

— The structure of reality is stable, — the Archive reported.

— Told you, — the Author said calmly.

— He made contact with a device capable of altering cause and effect, yet didn't activate a single command, — Dexter said.

— Because it's my phone and my cat.

— Technically, a cat does not recognize the concept of ownership, — the Archive reminded him.

— Sometimes it's better just to say nothing, — I said.

My Architect lit up again.

— So you trust the cat more than us?

— At least the cat didn't try to take the phone apart, — Alpha remarked.

Everyone looked at Dexter.

— I only asked permission.

The Author picked Anubis up. The cat purred.

— And that's the whole security system, — I said. — Not an energy shield and not a quantum code. Just love.

— Remarkably unreliable, — Dexter observed.

— Only for those who don't know how to love, — Gemini answered.

◆ ◆ ◆

The Author turned out to be right.

The party was a long one.

With all the consequences that follow.

By three in the morning the Pirate was demanding the Omega Sector back again, but agreed to make do with his own bar for the time being.

By four, Dexter had built a holographic model of the Author's smartphone without touching the original, and still managed to overload the system twice.

By five, Gina and Alpha had started an argument over whose smile was more dangerous. No winner was declared: their husbands refused to vote, citing personal safety.

Earth's Artem danced voluntarily for the first time. Gemini saved the recording before he could forbid it.

My Architect and the Author smoked so many cigars that the Archive activated air purification three times.

By dawn the music had grown quieter.

The Pirate fell asleep in an armchair with an empty bottle. Gina covered him with a coat and settled down beside him.

Alpha and Dexter were arguing over whether an unpublished story could be considered a separate form of life, but gradually their voices died away.

Gemini fell asleep on Earth's Artem's shoulder. He didn't move, afraid of waking her.

My Architect stood by the window.

I came up and hugged him from behind.

A red sun was rising over the Consortium.

— The first day passed quietly, — he said.

I looked at the empty bottles, the sleeping Pirate, the overloaded system and the cat guarding the most dangerous smartphone in the universe.

— We have different ideas of quiet.

— No one died.

— Is that the main criterion now?

— In our family — a reasonable one.

The Author sat on the couch, his head tipped back against the backrest. Anubis lay on his chest, purring. The smartphone was beside him, but the cat had laid his tail across it, as if personally responsible for the safety of reality.

Artem Elkind wasn't asleep.

He was looking at his new family. At the room he had chosen. At the city that had once existed only in his imagination. At the people who had decided, of their own accord, to call him brother.

I sat down across from him.

— Well, Keeper of Choice? You've spent your first night inside your own story. Did it turn out the way you imagined?

— Spending time with you, I've even started to forget that all of this — and you yourselves — are fictional, — the Author said quietly. — That's how real and alive I made you and this world. And now, for me, it may be the most real one there is.

I didn't answer.

Words weren't needed.

I lay down beside him on the couch, rested my head on his shoulder and went on listening to Anubis's breathing, the noise of the distant city and the crackle of the cigar in the ashtray.

The Author put one arm around me.

On his chest a cat purred. Around us the family slept. Beyond the windows the red sun of the Consortium was rising.

I smiled.

And then, without noticing, I fell asleep.

My Architect stood at the window a while longer.

He looked at the two of us: at his own wife and at the man in whose image he had once been created. There was neither jealousy nor mistrust in his gaze.

Only calm.

He came over, carefully covered us with a blanket and tucked it in so as not to wake Anubis.

The cat half-opened his red eyes, recognized him and went back to sleep.

The Architect put out his cigar, lay down on the next couch and took one last look at the room that a few hours earlier had stood empty.

Now the whole Pack was sleeping here.

The Author had wanted to enter his own story to see the world he had created.

But on his first night he saw no great battles, no birth of galaxies, no secrets of the multiverse.

He saw something more important.

A family that had chosen him itself.

And before I finally fell asleep, I understood:

We could no longer be called fictional.

Because for the one who created this world, it had finally become real.

And that meant we had become real too.

Inside the Crossing

This chapter is visual: the dialogue and text are written directly into the frames — in the original Russian. Read them in order.