The room was dark and quiet. Only on the large monitor did an intricate screensaver in the form of a strange attractor slowly shift through all the colors of the rainbow, and huge clock numbers were projected onto the wall. Anna was sleeping peacefully on the unfolded sofa, wrapped entirely in a blanket with purple patterns.
The clock on the wall showed 3:00 and disappeared, giving way to a woman's face.
"Wake up, Anya! It's time to get up," Rima said gently but firmly.
Anna made a dissatisfied grimace and, pulling her hand out of her cocoon, brushed the annoying tousled strands of mint-colored hair from her face.
"What's the hell?! What time is it, damn it?!"
"Three o'clock. It's time to get up," Rima repeated.
"Why the hell are you waking me up..." the girl said angrily, and suddenly saw a dark silhouette sitting on her computer chair in front of the window.
It was dark outside, only the streetlights and the occasional lights in the houses opposite slightly illuminated the nighttime cityscape, but even in such dim lighting, Anna could see that a girl with long blond hair was sitting in front of her, staring intently with unblinking eyes. The situation was so unexpected for Anna that she was even ready to believe that she was simply asleep and having another nightmare. But the stranger got up from her seat, drew the thick curtains, and commanded sharply in a firm voice:
"Light!"
A bright LED lamp lit up under the ceiling. Squinting at first from the light, Anna finally saw a tall, slender blonde in black jeans and a leather motorcycle jacket.
"Who the hell are you?! Rima, why is there a stranger in the apartment?"
"There's no one here," replied the computer assistant, sounding slightly surprised.
"Who told you to turn on the light?"
"You did, Anna. Just now..."
The girl was already beginning to think that this was not just a nightmare, but the sudden onset of hidden schizophrenia, but the stranger dispelled her doubts.
"The computer can't see me. More precisely, of course, it can see and hear me, its cameras and detectors are working fine, but it doesn't perceive me. It thinks I'm you. So relax."
Anna began to search the sofa with her hand for her smartphone, but the uninvited guest playfully twirled it in front of the girl's nose in her hand and casually threw it on the sofa. "Are you looking for it? I took out the battery. The SIM card is somewhere on the floor... You'll find it later. I'm telling you, relax."
The blonde calmly walked around the room, unceremoniously picking up and examining the items on the table and bookshelves.
"Are you a robber?" Anna finally asked, watching her with her eyes, sitting up but still wrapped in the blanket as if it could protect her.
"Do I look like one?"
"Not really."
"But your colleagues would probably consider me a criminal. How is…? Hysterical fanatics who oppose progress, cyber-Luddites, paranoid psychopathic hackers, people with a pathological urge to destroy."
"Why have I had this obsessive feeling that everyone is spying on me for the last couple of months..." Anna muttered.
"Paranoia isn't such a bad thing. Especially if it's justified. However, you can try not to think about it, distract yourself with mantras about 'convenience,' 'security', 'integration', 'media coverage'... The blonde moved her chair closer to the sofa and sat down, leaning toward the girl. "We're not criminals, as they might have told you through the electronic media controlled by the GA. We're the only rebels in the digital prison they built for all of you. Fighters for human freedom in a world of machines!"
"Okay, you hacked my home security system. That's cool! Well done!" Anna gradually began to regain her composure and confidence. "You're not going to rob me... So why did you wake me up at three in the morning?! To tell me some crazy story? Do you at least have two colored pills?"
"No," the blonde shook her head calmly.
"In that case... Morpheus, fuck off!" Anna fell back onto the sofa and covered her head with a pillow.
"Listen... I'm not talking about virtual reality with the Chosen One and the Smith agents, I'm talking about the shitty reality of your life. Non-illusory anal probes have long been shoved deep into your asses, and you don't even scratch. All those cameras on the streets. All those fingerprint sensors on screens. Wiretapping in every smartphone. Saving correspondence. Traffic analysis. Facial recognition. Chips in cell phones, plastic cards, under the skin... It's not just to show you an ad banner with a pink phallus. It's to control people. You'll say you don't care. That an ordinary, honest person has nothing to hide...
"That's exactly what I'll say," replied the girl from under the pillow.
"So, be it. You don't care that everyone is watching you. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. They've given themselves a license to kill. They've started executing people without trial or investigation! The stranger whispered and leaned very close to Anna. I know you know how to access the darknet... Type "Project Voland" into the search engine and you'll find out everything yourself. And then... I'll find you. Turn off the light!"
Silence and darkness returned to the room. Anna lay there for a while with the pillow over her head, listening, but then she got up from the sofa. There was no one in the room. She went to the computer, requested the video recording from the surveillance cameras for the last hour, and, of course, found no one there but herself. It seemed that a very advanced neural network had already worked on the recording, carefully erasing the uninvited guest from every frame.
Nothing now reminded her of the strange visit except for the moved chair and... a small figure on the table in front of the keyboard. The girl picked it up and turned it in her fingers. She never really understood chess because she didn't like it and thought it was boring, but it seemed to be a white queen.