I woke up late, feeling drained, with the dull sensation of a blunt needle lodged somewhere in my head. I opened my eyes and saw the now-familiar THREAT MODE icon floating in front of me.
Right. I’d fallen asleep wearing the mask. And the clip as well.
I realized that this was the second night in a row I hadn’t taken them off—and yet I hadn’t felt the slightest discomfort. Not even when I rolled onto my side and the clip and the arm of the mask ended up between my head and the pillow. The mask hadn’t fogged up, hadn’t gotten dirty, remained perfectly clear—as if it weren’t there at all. Overall, the devices were barely noticeable, almost nonexistent.
I got up from the couch and discovered that both Art and Kirsten were already up—and, judging by the looks of it, had been for a while. Art was sitting on a chair in his favorite pose—legs stretched out, arms crossed over his chest—staring at the wall. By now I knew that in moments like this he wasn’t daydreaming; he was working, using the mask and n2e.
Kirsten was standing by the open window, seemingly studying the surroundings. Or perhaps she wasn’t looking out the window at all, but at her mask’s display. Most likely, she was doing both—overlaying the landscape with information from the Layers. My guess was immediately confirmed when Kirsten took the now-familiar container out of her pocket, opened it, and one after another, four “flies” zipped back inside. She closed the container and slipped it back into her pocket.
She’s very attractive, I suddenly thought, looking at Kirsten.
She was standing half-turned toward me, and the light from the window outlined her refined, elegant face and her slim, athletic figure. It was surprising that the thought hadn’t even occurred to me yesterday. And today, I was registering her attractiveness as if from the outside—through the neutral gaze of someone with no personal stake in it.
I myself felt completely indifferent to this very attractive woman.
And of course, I knew why.
Starting the evening before last, the attractiveness of all women in the world had, for me, condensed into a single person. It was as if no other women existed anymore.
As if sensing my gaze, Kirsten turned toward me.
“Awake, Mac?” she said briskly. “Just in time. We’re leaving in half an hour.”
Art also “surfaced” from virtual space, smiled, and gave me a friendly nod.
“I didn’t oversleep too badly, did I?” I mumbled apologetically. “Didn’t think to set an alarm.”
“It’s fine,” Art said reassuringly. “We’re on schedule. Go get yourself together and let’s go. We’re starting today’s route at the Bear’s Den—we’ll have breakfast there.”
I hurried to the bathroom. Hesitated for a moment about whether to take off the mask and clip to shower—and decided that since no one could see me, I could.
We did make it within half an hour. Or rather, I did. Brushing my teeth, shaving, and a cool shower almost brought me back to normal, though faint echoes of my dream still lingered in my head.
We stepped outside. I took a deep breath of fresh mountain air, and that seemed to revive me completely. Kirsten pulled out the keys to her rental car—a nondescript gray SUV, perfectly matching the description of “utterly unremarkable transportation.” We loaded our backpacks into the trunk, took our seats, and headed toward yesterday’s restaurant.
The road descended along the river. Kirsten drove confidently and calmly. Art sat beside her in the front seat, and I settled in the back, letting my eyes rest on the vivid green slopes and the sunlight filtering through the leaves. For a while, silence filled the car, broken only by the steady hum of the engine and the soft hiss of tires on the road.
“Kirsten,” Art said suddenly, “what’s the situation with the new Variant? Do we have a clearer picture yet?”
I thought he might have asked her about it earlier that morning while I was asleep, but apparently he’d tactfully postponed the conversation so I could hear it too.
“We do,” Kirsten replied after a brief pause. “Eric’s team is back. Everyone’s fine. No incidents.”
“So?” Art asked impatiently, turning toward her.
Kirsten didn’t answer right away.
“There’s… a world,” she said at last. “A world without humans.”
I felt the air inside the car thicken. Art tensed slightly but said nothing, waiting.
“No, no—it’s not what you’re thinking,” Kirsten hurried to reassure him—and me. “People didn’t disappear there. They didn’t die out. They simply… never existed there in the first place.”
“Then who’s there?” Art asked, his voice tight.
“Creatures,” Kirsten said. “Mostly Creatures. There are far more of them there than in all the other Variants combined. The analysts believe this Variant is a ‘home’ world for the Creatures—their place of origin. The world they came from. Or at least one of them.”
A long silence settled over the car. Naturally, the news had made a strong impression on both Art and me. We needed time to process it—to let it sink in.
From our school history classes, we all grew up with the idea that humans are the one unique species that became intelligent and reached the highest level of development. And now it turned out that this wasn’t an axiom at all. That under a different chain of events, intelligence could emerge not in humans, but in entirely different living beings. How intelligent they were, what level of development they had reached—we could only speculate for now. Taking all this into account, it seemed that we humans had a great deal to rethink.
“Yes… that certainly gives one a lot to think about,” Art finally said.
I realized that our thoughts had been moving along similar lines, and that he had likely arrived at the same conclusions I had. And I also noticed that Art looked… pleased. I immediately understood why. This new information significantly increased the likelihood that the world of the First Ones truly existed.
“You’ll have time to think about it,” Kirsten said. “And not just think—but see it with your own eyes.”
As she said this, she couldn’t quite hide the sadness in her voice. I thought about what it must be like for her—to constantly be among striders and yet not have the ability, like they—like we—do, to walk through the Gates. I was about to say something reassuring, but then I looked at her—calm, confident, focused—and realized she didn’t need my sympathy at all.
As if to confirm that impression, Kirsten said in a distinctly commanding tone:
“We’re almost there. Breakfast-lunch, and then back to work. Today we need to cover the rest of the route.”
I realized I hadn’t noticed the moment when she had become the unspoken leader of our small group. But it had clearly happened.
Breakfast-lunch took us no more than half an hour, yet I still managed to properly appreciate both the house-made puff pastries with a wide range of fillings—from meat and mushrooms to custard and wild berries—and the aromatic coffee served in traditional clay mugs.
After leaving the restaurant, we took our backpacks from the trunk and, leaving the car in the parking lot, headed down the road. Soon a narrow trail branched off, and we followed it. Kirsten moved ahead, pulling the mini-drone container from her pocket as she walked. I watched four black dots emerge from it and smoothly fan out upward and sideways, forming a trapezoid.
Art and I, as usual, split up on either side of the trail and got to work.
After we’d collected several nuggets, Kirsten decided to entertain me a bit. Making me promise that it wouldn’t interfere with the job, she piped the drone camera feeds into my mask. That gave me the chance to take in the surrounding scenic canyons, covered in ancient pines, not only from the ground but from a bird’s-eye view as well.
From time to time, when something struck her as suspicious, Kirsten sent one of the drones diving almost to the ground, threading rapidly between the trees, before letting it soar upward again. A couple of times the drones returned to her container “to refuel,” as she put it. The refueling process took only a few seconds.
With this combination of picking—already an engaging activity in itself—and breathtaking vistas paired with the drones’ daring maneuvers, time flew by unnoticed. Evening was already approaching when we climbed another ridge and froze before a mesmerizing panorama: ahead of us, glowing in the soft gold of sunset, stretched a turquoise sea. Contrasting with it were the picturesque orange-tiled roofs of a cozy resort town spread along the shore of the bay.
I didn’t even notice the moment when Kirsten switched off the drone feeds in my mask.
I recognized the town immediately. It was the closest coastal town to where I lived. A couple of times, my colleagues and I had come here on weekends—to stroll along the promenade, swim in the sea, and sit in one of the cozy local restaurants.
“I think we can call it a day,” Art said with satisfaction. “I’ve got two thousand eight hundred and fifty amphoras in my second box. That’s just today. And total… nine thousand nine hundred and eight. Damn. Fell just short of ten thousand.”
Kirsten applauded ironically.
“Yes, we’ve worked hard and earned ourselves a proper dinner at some respectable local place,” she declared, continuing down the trail. We followed her.
The trail almost immediately brought us to the outskirts of the town. After wandering through narrow streets for about half an hour, we emerged onto a promenade running along a wide beach of clean, almost white sand. Beyond the sand, the pale turquoise sea shimmered in the rays of the setting sun.
“Care for a dip?” Kirsten teased us.
“I’ve had more than enough sea over the past couple of weeks,” Art replied with a smile.
We stared at him in confusion.
“I was actually on vacation,” Art explained. “Right nearby, in fact. Well—near a place just like this one. In our Variant. That’s why I was the first of our lot to make it to the new Gates when they opened. Lucky, I guess. Though it turns out my vacation ended a bit earlier than planned.”
I pictured myself lounging on the beach and realized that, right now, it was the very last thing I wanted. I was in no mood for beaches.
“And what about you?” I asked Kirsten, partly to avoid having to justify myself.
“Unfortunately, I can’t leave you unattended.”
Her tone was light, almost playful, but I understood that this was exactly how things stood. She was on duty. Her job was to accompany us, provide whatever we needed, and keep us safe—without interruption, even for a minute. And I had to admit, she was doing that job flawlessly.
“Alright,” Kirsten said briskly, “if the beach doesn’t tempt you, let’s move straight on to dinner.”
Orienting myself quickly, I suggested a restaurant I knew well—The Fisherman’s Pier—located just a couple of minutes away, right on the promenade. The idea was met with enthusiasm. We set off along the waterfront, enjoying the scent of the sea and flowering trees.
As soon as we entered the restaurant, I drew my companions’ attention to a long counter filled with trays of crushed ice, on which the day’s catch was beautifully displayed: several large fish, a couple dozen smaller ones, and plenty of mussels, shrimp, tiny octopuses, and other marine creatures. With the help of a waiter—a sun-tanned guy with hair bleached by the sun—we chose what would make up our dinner and took seats on the veranda, which offered a magnificent view of the bay and the setting sun.
From the fish and shrimp we’d selected, they prepared a thick, orange-colored soup. The rest of the seafood was served in a creamy white-wine sauce with aromatic herbs. The food was excellent. After thoroughly enjoying the ocean’s bounty, we settled back with cups of coffee, facing the sea, savoring the luxurious sunset and the cool marine breeze.
“So how are we getting home?” I asked, taking a sip of the fragrant coffee.
“We’ll take a taxi to the Bear’s Den, then switch to our car,” Kirsten replied matter-of-factly.
“And you’re not worried about someone setting up another ambush on the way?” I asked. I tried to make it sound like a joke, but didn’t quite succeed.
“I wish they would,” Kirsten said, narrowing her eyes with a predatory glint.
The look on her face gave me a measure of reassurance, and I turned my attention back to the view of the bay stretching out before us. I was sitting half-turned toward the sea, and directly in front of me lay the right edge of the bay. There, the promenade ended at a small marina where several yachts and boats rocked gently at anchor. Just beyond it rose the slope of a low mountain descending straight to the water.
I knew that a particularly scenic trail ran along that slope. It wound through the wooded hillside, dipped into a couple of short tunnels, and emerged onto a rocky beach enclosed on three sides by steep cliffs. Every time I visited this town, I made a point of walking that trail to the secluded beach and sitting alone on the rocks, gazing out at the azure sea.
Now, too, I felt that it would be good to walk that trail again—and to show this beautiful place to my companions. The more I thought about it, the stronger the urge became to go there, to that cliff-ringed beach. For some reason, it felt important—urgently so—turning into something close to an obsession, as if someone were calling me there, quietly but irresistibly.
And strangely enough, that call seemed connected to my dream from the night before, where I had been the Black Jellyfish—though I had no idea why.
At last, I couldn’t hold it in any longer and shared all this with Art and Kirsten. My proposal didn’t seem to spark much enthusiasm in either of them.
“I don’t think that, after what happened yesterday, taking a walk along a secluded cliff trail—with two not-exactly-empty boxes, and tunnels, no less—is a particularly good idea,” Art said.
And then it seemed to me that this comment of his shifted Kirsten’s stance. She hadn’t been eager about the walk either—but Art’s caution appeared to ignite her hunting instinct.
“I’m in,” Kirsten said decisively. “I see no reason not to take a walk and check out this supposedly picturesque beach. It is picturesque, isn’t it, Mac?”
I nodded vigorously.
Art, finding himself outvoted, gave a resigned shrug.
We stepped out onto the promenade. The resort season hadn’t properly begun yet, so there were few people around. The sun had already dipped into the sea, painting the sky in a spectrum of hues—from sandy orange to violet-turquoise. The walk really was pleasant.
When we reached the end of the promenade, climbed the steps, and emerged onto the trail running along the slope, Kirsten, as usual, moved a little ahead. Art and I followed side by side. At that moment, Kirsten refueled the mini-drones once again, and I realized that all this time they had still been circling around us, allowing her to maintain full perimeter control. As we approached the entrance to the first tunnel, I noticed one of the “flies” dart inside first, scouting the way ahead.
“Since we’re already walking in the hills,” Art said, “why not combine pleasure with business? Maybe we can round our haul up to a nice even number.”
He activated the Essence layer in our masks. For some reason, I felt a flicker of relief when he did. And yet, despite that, I still felt myself being pulled toward the beach.
We moved along the trail fairly quickly, alternating between open stretches and several short tunnels along the way. There were a few small clumps on the slopes, but no real nuggets, so we didn’t linger. The sun had fully set, the sky was gradually darkening, but above the sea a soft turquoise glow still lingered.
Kirsten stepped onto the beach first, looking around with interest. Art and I followed her out of the tunnel into the narrow canyon framing the beach. I lifted my eyes—and stopped short, as if I had run into an invisible wall.
One of the cliffs on the opposite side of the canyon was glowing with a deep, saturated emerald light. Its entire surface was covered by a colossal nugget—unlike anything I had ever seen before.
I couldn’t look away. The nugget radiated an almost physical sense of power, as if the rock itself were breathing Essence.
Gradually, I came back to myself and glanced at Art. He stood beside me, staring at the nugget, just as transfixed. Kirsten, unable to see the Essence layer, looked back and forth between us and the cliffs, clearly trying to understand the reason for our sudden paralysis.
Then, it seemed, she figured it out.
“Big?” she asked curtly. There was tension in her voice.
Only now did I notice the readout that had appeared next to the nugget on my display:
411q, 1974α.
Art didn’t answer right away. When he did speak, he did so slowly, as if trying to keep himself under control—but his voice betrayed him anyway.
“Kirsten, you know the strider classification. Tiny clumps we call crumbs. Decent nuggets are goodies. Big ones are pies. And the really big ones—we call cakes.”
He paused.
“What we’re looking at here is a lavish wedding cake. Soaked in syrup, covered with icing, and decorated with sugar roses.”