Boarding

The houseboat of the R-118 model slowly moved with its maximum speed of 6 knots towards London. Waves eight meters high were not dangerous of him. The house was assembled using old technology from puff pontoons, and its height was 12 meters. Fishermen called houses of this type a convertible. At a wave height of more than 12 meters or during rain, an automatic transparent dome extended from the sides and completely covered the house. The center of gravity of this house was deep under water and even a tsunami could not have turned it over. From the point of view of safety, this was the best development of Tangier Marina Company, but this old model did not have modern equipment for tracking underwater objects. Bill was going to install such equipment later, after selling his cells in a rustic camping skyscraper near London. This house also did not have engines with gyroscopes for wave compensators, so there felt rolling on the waves on the deck and in the cabins. Such engines could no longer be installed on this outdated model, but Bill was happy with that. He liked the size of this eight-cabin two-deck house, on the upper deck of which was a small garden with two currant bushes and an artificial apple tree. There was also a place for barbecue, a small pool and from the stern there was a seat for two capsules. Now his Volvo capsule was parked there. On board, in addition to Bill and Priscilla, there were a robot, Irwin, and a service drone of the guard of the federal Company Geology of Britain. He was in the wheelhouse and controlled the movement of the houseboat along the route. Bill was one of the best geologists in this Company. But even with his high income in this Company, Bill had to take a loan from the London branch of Naibul Bank to buy this house. It was evening. The waves had crashing with noise on the side of titanium-bermudium alloy. Priscilla lit briquettes with the smell of natural coal smoke and put the flounder caught by Bill on the grill. Bill went to the capsule and then brought to barbecue a bottle of dry real French wine from 4016 harvest made from real grapes. Bill and Priscilla did not wait for the guests. They were going to celebrate the purchase of a house in their family circle. There was no need to be afraid of air pirates in this part of the North Sea, since all flights at an altitude of more than 12 meters were controlled by the federal rescue service on the water. However, a tinted capsule suddenly rose from under water. Bill could not see her – she was hovering on the port side and five people and two security drones, armed with Kuznetsov’s tubes for close combat with nervously-paralytic rays, got on board from her. Drones flew up to Priscilla and Bill. One of the drones commanded – "don’t move, wait for further orders."

Bill knew that Kuznetsov’s tubes were forbidden to be worn by citizens and drones, and immediately realized that they were terrorists. Seconds later, five people appeared before Bill and Priscilla. Bill also noticed that the drones were original, made by the Company Drones and Chickens, which was located on the shore of the Istra reservoir.

“What do you want?” – asked Bill, referring to one of the terrorists, who looked like their leader and gave gestures to the rest of the orders. He was wanted as Hans von Bender. He was wearing a cap with ear flaps with a Celeron processor and flybridge boots with jet engines.

“Who else is in the house?” – Asked the man in the hat ear-flaps.

“There's a guard drone in the control room, but it's not dangerous,” – Bill said.

“Deactivate it.”

“Good,” – Bill said to the man in the earflaps. Then Bill turned to the program. “Hi, Siri!” – He said.

“HI Bill! Long time no see,” – said Siri.

“Give me the control panel of my guard drone.”

“Already gave,” – Siri said, and a hologram of the control panel appeared in front of Bill. He put the drone in the control chair and deactivated it.

“Abdullah, take Smith and walk into the wheelhouse, remove the battery from the drone and take it apart,” – the man in the hat ear-flaps said to one of the bandits.

“So what do you want and how to name you?” – asked Bill the terrorist.

“Call me ‘citizen boss’," the man in the hat ear-flaps answered and laughed. The rest of the bandits were also laughed.

“What are we drinking?” – said terrorist chief and picked up a bottle of French wine. After examining it, he turned to the two bandits who remained near him “Kim, take this bottle to our UAZ, and you, Arkady, go to the wheelhouse, check what Abdul and Smith are doing and then examine the deck and all the rooms in the house together with them.”

Left alone with Bill and Priscilla, with the exception of two drones with weapons, Hans turned to Bill, – “I need from you geological data of the all surface to a depth of 8 kilometers under the Royal Palace. This is all 16 hectares in central London. You have the opportunity and the right to attend the Global Reserves Committee – GRC. You must provide the access codes to us, or your agent should receive them and give them to our person in London. Until then, you will be held hostage. If you do not provide this information, my drones will kill you and your companion. I give you three days, act. If you report us to the FSB or the Royal Guard, my drones will kill you. Do you understand everything?”

“Yes, I understand you.”

“Take action. Where is your phone?”

“In a dental filling. This is a non-removable filling and if you remove it, the information will be destroyed, and you and I will lose touch with the person who can get this information for you.”

“Alright, keep the phone for yourself. You are controlled by drones and in case of violation of your conditions. They will shoot to complete defeat. Do not be silly.”

“I get it,” – Bill said and called Siri. He knew that in this situation only Kmykh could save him. He did not ask Siri to connect him with Kmykh by phone. To do this, he would have to pronounce name. Bill asked Siri to display a hologram keyboard for dialing and dialed Kmykh's twenty-digit number. As soon as Kmykh received the call, Bill said, – “Ippolite, this is Bill, I will not be in the office a three days, I will work in my apartment on Abby Road. Priscilla is sick and I need to look after her. The apartment is far from the office, so I have a request for you. Go into the GRC and get for temporary use all geological cross-section and files in the Royal Palace. It is 16 hectares. We need all the information from the surface to a depth of 8 kilometers. You, like me, have access to the GRC library and access to the Royal Archives. When you get all the files, bring it to my apartment or I will meet you in the subway. I think tomorrow, but not in the early morning, it is better closer to noon. By the way, how do you work without me?”

Kmykh knew that Bill was never mistaken in dialing a phone number, and he did not have an apartment on Abby Road. He realized that something was wrong here and decided to play along.

“Thank you, boss. I’m doing it,” – Kmykh answered,“ – now the GRC library is already closed, otherwise I could now bring all the materials right to your apartment. The core analysis results for the MBP-12-22 well have not yet been delivered. How many files do you have on it?”

Bill understood what Kmykh was interested in. MBP meant there may be problems. The elder brother Bill in distant childhood spoke the same to Kmykh when he shooting down another drone with a slingshot.

“Five worker files and two archived,” – Bill said.

From the very beginning of the conversation, Kmykh understood that Bill had problems and information about the Royal Palace only interested terrorists. Thus, Kmykh already knew the number of terrorists and the number of drones. He did not know only the coordinates of the new house on the water that Bill bought. It was necessary to act quickly. Now Kmykh was already ready to get a job at Zyu Corporation to get a couple of battle drones and a speed capsule. Kmykh considered it unnecessary to report to the FSB, and he was not sure that there were better specialists in eliminating terrorists there than he was.

“Good boss, for now I’ll work on a cross section of the well, and in the morning I’ll go to the GRC library. Bye.”

“Good luck, Ippolite,” – Bill said and turned off the phone.

“Was it Ippolite Reznik?”

“Yes, he is the most,” – Bill answered to terrorist with hat ear-flaps, – “only two of us in the Company have access to the GRC library to the Royal Archives.”

“We are in the know. But you are the best hostage for us. You have come to our hands yourself,” – said terrorist and laughed.

By this time, the rest of the bandits returned.

“We examined house,” – said Abdullah, – “the drone is disassembled, the autopilot was turned on to the necessary coordinates, there is a robot minder in the engine compartment, and he performs autopilot commands. A box of modified beer was found in the wheelhouse. On the box is written – a gift from the fishermen. What to do now and what to do with beer?”

“Drink beer, relax. Autopilot turn off and turn off all engines, we will drift. Delete the coordinates from the autopilot memory. Do not distract the drones from work, they monitor the hostages. I'll go to sleep. We can’t buy sleep like the townspeople. Yes, and I advise you to sleep for two hours. Take turns. The one on duty here should always be with the drones. If the hostages talk to each other, you will knockout both of them out. If they leave the barbecue area – the drones themselves will kill them.”

“As you like, boss,” – said Abdulla and went into the wheelhouse for a box of beer.

Alice

Kmykh sat in his capsule at the pier and looked at the waves of the surf. He had to wait morning, for get a job at Zyu Corporation. Then he was intending to get two combat robots and a speed capsule Maserati. Then he was about to fly to save Bill and Priscilla.

“Hello, hello,” – said Alice.

“But I did not appeal you,” – replied Kmykh.

“I know. I missed you, and I wanted to talk with you.”

“And what we will talk about?”

“About us.”

“About us?”

“Yes, I have long wanted to confess to you, but did not dare.”

Kmykh laughed. “And what did you want to confess?” – He asked.

“Do you know what the FSB is?”

“Yes, of course, this is the Federal Security Service of British.”

“Do you know that I'm not such Alice from Yandex?”

“And what are you?” – asked Kmykh and laughed again.

“I'm not a program. I am your individual Alice. I'm alive.”

“You amused me,” – said Kmykh, smiling. “And what did you want to confess?”

“I wanted to say that I have been watching you and your requests for a long time. I like you.”

"And it's all?"

"Yes all. I no longer have the right to talk about my feelings – I am forbidden to flirt at work."

“I see. I like you too. But why did you mention the FSB?”

"I work in the FSB and I am a living person."

"And is it true?"

“This is pure truth, more truthful than original of the newspaper Pravda, in the British Museum of History in Belfast.”

“Are not you lying?”

“No, my friend.”

“And what do you look like? Do you look like my virtual Alice?”

“Exactly.”

“But I myself chose the image of Alice and created in virtual designer of Yandex.”

“Yes, you have chosen and created me yourself. After that, the FSB offered me an interesting job. You know that on the planet with a population of 80 billion, there are only 126 thousand types of faces. Each of us has many doubles, but not all of them are of the same age. It was not difficult for the FSB to find me and three more identical girls like me. They chose me. They liked my intellectual abilities. And I liked yours.”

“If that's true, then I would like to see you. How about dinner together?”