The Makers (СИ)

"As a matter of fact, I've got an offer for you," he said, sitting down in a large armchair and looking up at Lukasz. "You see, gentlemen... Do you hear me, Mr. Vandarli?"

"Definitely," Robert gave the nod to the bathroom mirror.

"I'm afraid that your stay here would be associated with some eh... inconveniences. You and I... we are reasonable people and naturally totally get it all. I can't speak for all humanity, but it seems to me, that as a whole they are still... ungrateful and incapable of tolerating any Makers in their own house... or something."

He took a sip and turned the glass, admiring the glare running along it. "But humanity as a whole is humanity as a whole, it have never really been good at thinking. I"m glad to inform you that the government of the United States not only asks you to feel here at home, but also is ready to provide transport and security at your disposal in case of unforeseen circumstances. Anyway, you have a week."

"Then let's start with the Grand Canyon and then I'd like to visit the parents," said Robert, who appeared in the doorway.

***

The road between the hills was rusty, deserted and monotonous.

Hoover Dam had remained far behind, and now on both sides of the road for several hours had been going Arizona.

"It seemed to me earlier that there was no choice at all," Gilels speculated benignly.

One of his hands lay on the steering wheel, the elbow of the second one was sticking out of the open window. "Physics, philosophy ... and even common sense itself - they all unanimously say that anything doesn't come out of nowhere, that everything has a cause. But now I understand that it's not that simple. Reality is always outside your head. And the one who deals with this reality is inside. And often it turns out that you get exactly what you are striving for so much. You longing to despair and irresponsibility - well, there you have it. If you want the opposite - bada-bing, we're good. And without any approximations, assumptions and surrogates. In fact, both the length and the scenery of your life may not be the same as that you imagined. Eh... as a reality. The one that there is outside. But it's always only something to deal with. What you can deal with. This is definitely not who deals. And, by the way, the question immediately arises about this "who". So who? Who chooses those or other circumstances? How do we know if this "who" are we or does someone else do it?"

"The key word here is the word "we"," said Lukasz, who was sitting next to him and looking in the opposite direction at the passing landscape. "We are the same material, only painted in other colors. We are the same clay. Formed, burnt, but the same. With the same necessity to be in need. And our choice depends not so much on the number of days we have been here and on our scars, but on our intention. Well, you must agree: in order to make the right choice, you need no less than to calculate all the consequences of your actions to the very point when the days of the universe will be numbered. And this sounds not unrealistic, it sounds anecdotal. So any choice is just a firm commitment to do in one way or another not because it will be better, but because it's just so."

Robert listened to them only half paying attention because there was actually a fascinating exercise - to pick up the drawn butterflies from Lara's white dress and let them out of the window of the Cadillac. The wind was tearing the butterflies from his fingers and carrying them away somewhere far back.

"What do you calculate all this stuff for? On such a large scale?" he was surprised. "Take the amount of data accessible to you and focus on them. It's simple. O my God, I've really missed people. Or maybe I've just grown up."

"You just have an acute need to be a link in the evolution," Lukasz grinned.

"But I don't at all feel the need to be a link in the evolution," said Robert, while letting out another butterfly to the air stream. "In general, I believe that someone's local progress differs little from someone's local regress. This is about expectations."

"Then why this longing for the weight?" Lukasz grinned again. "Look, there's your Canyon."

Far on the horizon Arizona turned out to be serrated.

***

The four of them were standing on the very edge of a chasm, staring at the large abyss below. The setting sun turned the cliffs and crags into scarlet and ocher colors.

The transparent viewing platform with tourists was now far behind them. Gilels took off his jacket and stayed in a white shirt, and Lara was now in a white dress without any butterflies, - already there, on the edge of the cliff, Lukasz picked up and let out the last one.

Robert pulled off his sneakers, socks and shirt, squared his broad shoulders, and two enormous wings unfolded from nowhere behind his back.

The first bullet entered his head exactly at the moment when he stepped off the cliff.

The second caught up with him two meters below.

That he was mistaken, the sniper realized a couple of seconds later, when his finger, pulling the trigger, has numb. It was necessary first to take the one who remained standing on the rock, he thought, while he was being covered by the hot wave, and then I'd have a time to pick off the second one, while his attention was captured by the stream coming from under the cliff.

But these thoughts were languid and inconclusive.

At this time, somewhere in one of the parallel universes, Lara screamed. She was covering her bleached with horror face with her hands, and Gilels has been fussing over her - he, in his snow-white shirt, has been falling on the ground and pulling out the almost useless gun, that was stuck in the almost inaccessible holster.

And somewhere in another parallel universe at this time the sunset was being reflected on the Lukasz's eyes, while he has stubbornly and concentratedly been weaving the new reality.

In this new reality, there was no place not only for the third bullet that had (or hadn't?) time to exit the barrel of a gun and dissolve halfway between the temple, which now didn't belong to it, and the sniper, who was melting in paralysis: there was no place for the first two too.

In this new reality, Robert was still falling, spreading his powerless wings wide, but death first stepped back from him one small step, and then, when somewhere halfway to the sparkling far away Colorado he threw open his eyes, she finally gave up him fully.

"Oh, what a crazy idiots ..." whispered Gilels.

***

In this new reality, a Polish group called "Ludzie", six men who set out to liquidate both Makers, ceased to exist.

The pilot of the white-blue "Robinson", which was standing at the transparent viewing platform, blacked out and put his dull head on the helm, as if he had not slept for a week and now was making up for lost time. The mechanic, sitting next to him, who once was brisk and vivid, a couple of seconds ago dropped his cigarette from his mouth to his own pants, and the saliva slowly trickled down from the corner of his half-open mouth.

And as for the tracker, who just an instant ago nervously was walking around, pretending to be a tourist, he now was unable to stand on his wobbly feet - he laid down in the middle of the road, leading to the cliff, and looked up at the grand sinking orange sun.