The old park was shady and cool. The smell of wet grass and damp pine needles lingered among the trees. The sun, periodically hidden by passing clouds, would either pierce through the treetops with its sharp rays or fill everything with soft, diffused light. It seemed that after the usual rain, nature, as if apologizing for the inconvenience, had decided to arrange a second sunny rain.
Alexey ran his hand over the rough surface of the tree and, making sure it was dry, sat down on an improvised bench made from a felled trunk laid on its side. Today he woke up earlier than usual, ate breakfast faster than usual, and left the house ahead of time. All this was significantly different from his daily schedule, and there were quite compelling reasons for that.
Alexey looked through the trees at his house and the windows of his apartment on the fifth floor, then glanced at his watch. To his right, between the trees, appeared the familiar silhouette of a fit stranger. As usual, she ran calmly along the paved path, her hair blowing in the wind, her whole body moving rhythmically, like a magnificent, finely tuned mechanism.
The programmer frantically tried to figure out what first phrase to choose to get the girl's attention. But his thoughts were jumbled, so when the stranger reached the spot where Alexey was sitting, he couldn't say anything. As usual, paying no attention to anything, the girl rushed past him like a bullet, and he only slowly turned his head and looked after her.
Mentally calling himself stupid and cursing himself, Alexey glanced at his watch again, trying to guess when the stranger would finish her lap and run past him again. But time passed, and she still didn't appear... Apparently, she had finished her workout early today. After a while, a bright spot flashed between the trees on the right. Alexey began to peer hopefully at the path disappearing between the dark trunks, but to his disappointment, Mikhail appeared on his gyro scooter.
"Hey!" he greeted Alexey cheerfully, stopping nearby and plopping down on a log.
"Hi," the programmer replied gloomily.
"Why so sad? Been waiting long? I'm right on time..."
"No, everything's fine."
"Why didn't you want to chat online, by the way? You set up a meeting in the park... Now we're sitting here like fags," Mikhail asked with a laugh.
"It's safer this way," Alexey replied, mechanically looking around. "Lately, I'm not sure about the campus security system."
"You're becoming paranoid, Alex... You need to relax."
"I'm not tired. Tell me, what was your idea?"
"Yeah... Remember the last time I got cut by a drunk thug?"
"I remember," Alexey nodded, looking away. "The winch broke on the tower crane."
"Well, here's the thing... I've been thinking... I've been rethinking it creatively, so to speak. What if we suggest that our Voland play with drones?" Mikhail's eyes sparkled with excitement.
Alexey thoughtfully picked up a pine cone from the ground and threw it with a swing at the tree opposite. The pine cone ricocheted off the trunk with a dull thud, leaving a small mark on the bark.
"Something like that," nodded the robotics engineer.
"The weight is enough... But what about accuracy?"
"I've calculated it. At full speed, the webcam aims very well. Plus or minus five millimeters."
"Not bad," nodded the programmer. "We can try it... But at the same time, we need to slow down with the elevators. The news feeds won't calm down."
"Maybe... Talk to the SMM guys and have them clean it up?"
"You know I'm not a fan of such methods. They'll shut down one fuss, and another will start..."
Alexey took a deep breath of the fresh, cool air. It was so quiet now in the park, in the courtyards of the nearby houses, and on the streets. How much stress, how many sleepless nights, and how much intellectual effort had it cost him personally to achieve all this calm?
"By the way, don't you think our little 'order' needs to be expanded?" Mikhail broke the silence.
"Stop romanticizing all this. The project was approved by the GA leadership. We are acting completely officially," Alexey replied calmly.
"Really? And soon we'll post it on GitHub?" the robotics engineer asked sarcastically.
"Enough!" the programmer reacted irritably. "You understand perfectly well why we have to avoid publicity.
"Stay calm..."
"Exactly," Alexey looked around again. "But I think your idea about expanding the working group is right. We need fresh blood. Fresh ideas. What do you think about the new girl?"
"Hmm, so... She's cool. She types fast, doesn't write too much sloppy code... She trained the neural network for buses pretty well last month. She went through a bunch of test data herself. And anyway... You're our project manager for the whole Matrix...
"So, shall we assume you approve?" the programmer clarified.
"Consider it so."
"Okay," Alexey nodded, "then I'll talk to her in a few days... Tentatively. I wouldn't want to fall for another trap from the White Queen."
"Damn, you're definitely becoming paranoid!" Mikhail said with serious concern in his voice. "Are you seeing her everywhere now? It's just a random nickname on the darknet... Maybe your White Queen doesn't even exist."
"I'd like to believe that," Alexey said distantly, got up from his seat, and, without saying goodbye to his friend, walked down the path toward his house.