Still alive?

Max’s bachelor pad was an example of style. It had everything that should be in a luxury apartment: a magnificent clean and exquisite furniture and a decorative and uninhabitable look.

It was because Max did not live there.

The flat was for him just to return there at the end of the day when he was in City. Always a made bed, a refrigerator full of delicacies that never ran out (that’s why Max had the refrigerator in the first place), and, for that matter it was a refrigerator that does not need to be defrosted or plugged in.

In addition to the black leather sofa, the living room housed a huge TV, VCR and CD player, a voicemail machine, two phones - one with an answering machine and a personal communication line - and a matte black audio system in minimalistic design. Only the speakers were missing - Max simply forgot about them. But that didn’t make any difference. Sound reproduction was still perfect.

There was a fax and a computer. It was evident that every few months Max upgraded his PC as the bunch of user guides were there, still in transparent packaging. In fact, in the whole apartment Max paid attention only to indoor plants. They were branchy, powerful, lush, with bright, juicy and glossy green foliage.

And all because once a week Max went around the apartment with a green plastic spray-humidifier, spraying leaves and talking to his green pets.

…In the morning, Max was scheduled to attend an international conference on future technologies. when the sun hides below the horizon, quite the contrary – he preferred to start working in morning hours.

There were many pedestrians along the way. A lot of couriers riding their bikes, were especially distinguished. Signs of various shops, cafes, and advertisements for entertainment programs were making buildings too flashy. Max slowed down next to the subway station. He went to the machine, inserted an electronic passport card, which also contained a function for payment from the owner’s accounts. The only thing left was to look at the scoreboard indicating the time of the train arrival and wait for that one minute.

The brownish grey city street dust was cut apart by a beam of white-blue color. That was a motorcycle riding in full steam. Max entered the train along with other people and grabbed the handrail. When the train started moving, the guy quickly looked around at other passengers and stuck headphones in his ears, no longer paying attention to anything.

Outside the train windows people formicated through a gray-steel city jungle - a sight, both bewitching and unknowingly frightening.

“Young man!” an old lady turned to Max twitching his sleeve. Max had already managed to pull out one earphone of his ear and looked at her. She was dressed not in the latest fashion, but pretty well and with some taste. “Could you please tell me what station is the nearest to the cinema?” the woman continued.

“This is along the way». Max answered feeling that the spleen that had gushed over him under the influence of what he saw dispersed and took the second earphone out, pulling a smile on his face.

“This is not far - a couple of stations. I get off there as well. At the exit, you need to turn right, walk a hundred meters and you will see a pointer - then follow it, and you’ll find your way.”

“Thank you, of course, for the explanation, but I would not want get lost in these labyrinths ...” the woman grinned. It was obvious from her face that she was tired as if she wandered around the city for two or three hours for sure. She’s recently here, most likely, visiting a relative or something.

“... So, could you, please, specify how to get there? After all, you’re getting off at the same station” the lady finished her concealed request.

“How do you know that it is my stop as well?” - said Max surprised feeling somewhat tense.

“You said it yourself” the old lady smiled a little. She caught him, yeah ... But it was almost dark and she seems really need his help.

“Oh ...” Max glanced through the glass, catching some thoughts “Yes, well, I’ll show you how to get there” he finally said, and added smiling “Just don’t get lost in the crowd. Lots of people usually get off and in there”.

Max seen the lady nodded and looked at holocard displaying routes and the location in real-time. The fourth station has blinked, that meant it’s time to prepare for the exit.

Max left the subway train with some relief. It was quite tight inside and stuffy, even the powerful ventilation system could not handle it. Max looked around: the old lady was following him as they agreed.

They finished their journey I complete silence. Max showed the lady the direction of further movement and walked towards his street.

The yard, as always, was full of cars of various modifications and forms. Perhaps that is why Max hasn’t yet bought one. Why should he? There is no free space in order to simply place even the simplest means of transportation. And why, again, is it needed? After all, you can get to work by a subway. In some cases, still, he likes to be light-handed and on foot. If that’s the case, a motorcycle could be a variant, they are fast, maneuverable, compact and easy to maintenance for people of Max’s profession. Though, pedestrian to the bone, he thought that it would, still, be good to take a note on that idea of motorcycle. “You never know, when there will be a need ...”, an obsessive thought slipped through his mind.

Any settlement has its own small green park. It usually is a destination of choice for family people, and, of course, children, as well as those who feel like being alone with their thoughts and, preferably, in the fresh air... or more or less fresh. And now, despite the late hour, the small area was quite crowdy. Only a low fence separated the road from the saturated green vegetation. There, in the dim light a bunch of people were having an animated discussion on some incident. A pedestrian slipped by, turned off his book-type communicator and then inserted it into a special connector on the jacket.

The future with robots, smartphones and artificial intelligence was discussed at a technology conference. One of the scientists on the stage, read a report on the dangers and importance of technology. To his mind, computers will sooner or later learn to reproduce themselves. Over time, AI will consider a human being to be an obsolete form and wish to get rid of it. Perhaps, technology will lead people to the Apocalypse, because sooner or later smart robots will want to become masters of Planet Earth, and biological creatures will probably lose to the silicon mind both in mental abilities and in matters of adaptability to the environment, especially on another planet. But an even more likely scenario was that people would simply run out of resources and then the war would begin. The third world war, which, as Einstein said, will lead to complete humanity decay (unless, of course, humanity would still be there). Max didn’t really like this scenario, that is why he believed in his startup so much.

Spending the whole day at the conference, Max was already approaching the entrance, a streamlined semicircular ledge of mirror panels that covered his apartment building. With glance at the glass walls, one can catch a faint glow in some places, suggesting that the people at their homes were still not sleeping.

Having climbed to his floor and stepping out of the elevator, he habitually glanced at the back of the glass panels - only to make sure that nothing had changed, and machines on the other side of the glass were still there, though, they were hardly distinguishable because of their bright flight lights. Meanwhile, the built-in door security system reacted to the magnetic key, verified the voice and the walnut-colored door plate smoothly, almost silently, leaned forward. Max entered.

“Good evening, Max!” a greeting sounded from the simple artificial intelligence device. Similar thing was the core of each apartment. The voice used by the system was feminine and was heard everywhere, produced by several devices under the ceiling.

Almost everything that Max was connected with was endowed with artificial intelligence. Though, that AI belonged to different categories. For example, apartments and household appliances AI fell within the elementary and initial categories and were seen by developers only as auxiliary and applied programs. The space ships and highly scientific objects AI belong to much more advanced category and their potential almost completely corresponds to their name - “artificial intelligence”.

“That’s fine,” Max muttered with satisfaction; the vertical wrinkle between his eyebrows caused by the sentiment, disappeared. Throwing his jacket on the hook in the air-cleaning cabinet, Max moved to the corner of the studio apartment to the sleeping zone. Quickly undressing, turning off the light and setting the system for waking him up at seven in the morning, he went to bed.

Throwing his head back, the young man looked at the sky. A completely ordinary black-greenish city sky. Being illuminated in some places by the orange and whitish-yellow light of numerous lanterns, billboards, and light indicators, now it was rather rusty with gray clouds. Stars were not visible at all. Cars and factories in the city polluted the air, leading to drastic environmental changes. And it was not clear how to accept it: should he just get used to thinking about it and consider it normal or should he fight this false sensation experienced by most people as the normality? Maybe look for an alternative? “Better let Greta Thunberg to think about it,” Max thought, before his mind’s eye flashbacks of a completely different sky - a pure, dark blue, dotted with billions of brilliant stars ...