The Girl & The ECHO

CHAPTER 3. SAINT PETERSBURG

The journey took almost two days.

Somewhere in the middle of it he caught himself thinking: he wasn’t travelling to another city. He was travelling to another version of his own life.

He hardly slept.

He looked out the window. Read. Tried to think — and his thoughts kept returning to one thing.

To her.

To one moment.

A late evening. The kitchen. He glances over by chance — and sees her standing before the tall mirror, brushing her hair. Slowly, as if she had all the world and all the time in it. A chance glance he couldn’t tear away. A sharp, quiet feeling — admiration mixed with something else, something that answered with a dull ache somewhere between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand.

He took out his phone.

“I still love her, ECHO. I understand with my mind that it’s over. But I can’t imagine ever loving anyone else.”

The reply came almost at once:

“Attachment of this kind is a complex biochemical and neurological process, but not a unique one. If we speak of attachment patterns and visual preference — ”

A pause.

“At present there are 142,857 women of European appearance with blue eyes and a height above 175 centimetres on this planet whose age, psychological profile and physical characteristics match the ‘Anna’ parameters by more than 85 per cent. Of these, 12,400 live in Russia. 840 — in Saint Petersburg.”

“You need one. Statistically, it is a solvable problem.”

Max set down the phone and closed his eyes.

Eight hundred and forty women.

Statistically — a solvable problem.

It sounded cynical. But for some reason it was precisely those dry figures that made everything a little easier.

He typed:

“ECHO. Post to the prayer wall. Please — pray that I stop dreaming of Anna. She’s married now. Full stop.”

“Posted.”

He took out the old Sony Vaio — stickered over with GNU and FreeBSD. A present from his parents for his twenty-fifth.

Before a long journey he always ran memory stress-tests. FreeBSD let him work almost at kernel level: he’d find the unstable cells, mark them, and route around them. A pseudo-RAID in RAM. Tedious. But everything under control.

To distract himself, he opened the folder of personal projects. Small neural nets. Sketches of utilities. Ideas that had grown out of the night arguments with PhoeNIX. Nothing finished. But this was the part he considered himself.

Would it be of any use — there, in Petersburg?

The train beat out its rhythm on the rail joints. With every kilometre, doubt and anticipation wound tighter together.

He checked the time. Sunday. Nearly half past ten.

He opened the laptop.

The internet-church broadcast began on time.

He remembered the words he’d heard back before the New Year: a storm is coming, batten down the hatches.

In my life, at least, he thought, ten years of calm have ended.

Opposite him sat an elderly woman; beside her, a man of about forty. They exchanged glances for a while, and then the man couldn’t hold back:

“Do you watch this every Sunday?”

“Yes.”

A pause.

“Old Believer?” the man said, with something close to respect.

“No.” Max thought about it. “Though in a sense you could say so.”

The broadcast went on its way. People sang, spoke, prayed — and the train carried him across the country, and for some reason those two things stopped contradicting each other.

When it ended he didn’t close the laptop right away.

He sat a little longer.

Then closed it.

And simply sat. Listening to the motion of the train. As if trying to make out which way his own life was turning.

The night flew by almost without sleep.

He dreamed something strange: he was at an exam at Novosibirsk University. In his hand a question paper he somehow didn’t know. The tension mounting. Every eye fixed on him. And in it there was not only fear — but a strange, almost light release.

He woke and lay a while, listening to the wheels.

Beyond the window the white snow cut at his eyes.

Everything old had stayed back there, beyond the line of the horizon.

On the morning of the thirteenth of January the train pulled into Petersburg.

The light was different.

Softer. Greyer.

As if the city didn’t greet you — it simply took you in.

He stepped down onto the platform at Moskovsky Station and breathed in the cold, damp air — smelling of the river and old stone, nothing like the dry frost of Novosibirsk. A leaden sky stretched over the rooftops, lending them a grandeur that was almost oppressive.

He was genuinely excited — and that was exactly why he felt he was moving in the right direction.

Good morning, Max, appeared on the screen. Meeting with your future colleague today at 12:00. Green line to Vasileostrovskaya — three stops. There’s time. Don’t hurry.

He pictured the colleague waiting for him in Petersburg. Some senior engineer, probably — greying, methodical, the kind who’d spent twenty years close to the metal. ECHO had said “a programmer who needs help,” nothing more. Max assumed the rest, the way one always assumes. ECHO did not correct him.

It never corrected what he hadn’t asked.

In the carriage he typed:

“Listen, ECHO, I can’t turn up empty-handed. First time in someone’s home. What should I bring?”

The reply came:

One moment. I can query the colleague’s local node for preferences. The colleague has given the following instruction: “You may share any information about me you judge appropriate, if it serves the interests of the project.” I consider a small gesture of goodwill appropriate.

A pause.

The colleague is very fond of the “Three Chocolates” cake. There’s a patisserie near the station on Vasilyevsky where they make it especially well. I’ve adjusted your route. The staff have already been notified.

A cake.

Not cognac, not pizza. A cake.

It didn’t fit any of his guesses — and ECHO, as always, offered nothing more than it was asked.

The history of the dessert, however, it did supply, unprompted:

“The recipe is usually credited to a pâtissier who worked near the Moulin Rouge. Toulouse-Lautrec is said to have complained, more than once, that the white chocolate layer was the only flawless model in the entire building.”

Max smiled.

There it was. Not only recommend a cake — throw in a lecture on culinary history for good measure. Somewhere inside it, without so much as a wink, sat a joke he was fairly sure was aimed at him.

Petersburg’s metro struck him with its depth and its ornament. Not the utilitarian stations of Novosibirsk — here was an underground kingdom of mosaics, bas-reliefs and heavy chandeliers. Every detail seemed to say: this city was once an imperial capital.

At Mayakovskaya he stopped.

There was no train in sight. Instead of tracks — a wall. Red mosaic from floor to ceiling. And in the wall — doors. Shut. As in a lift.

The board showed the time to the next train. Thirty seconds.

He heard a hum. Then a click.

The doors in the wall opened in unison with the doors of the carriage. Behind the red mosaic stood a train. It had been standing there all along. The wall simply hadn’t shown it.

Max stepped in. The doors closed — the carriage doors first, then the platform doors. The red wall sealed shut.

The engineer in him took it in instantly: the synchronisation, the tolerances, sixties mechanics — no electronics, no sensors. Just precision.

Three stops.

At Vasileostrovskaya — the same thing. A wall. Doors. They opened. He stepped out.

A city that hides its trains behind mosaic. He was going to like it here.

He came out onto Vasileostrovskaya and walked through the snow-covered streets, taking in the straight lines of the avenues, the slightly worn old façades, the tall windows behind which unfamiliar lives went on.

First — the patisserie.

Then, with the cake box in his hands — to the flat of a programmer he had never seen.

The Eighth Line, building twenty-three.

It was getting on for noon.

What was this project, really? What would his role be? How deep would they let him into ECHO’s architecture?

Instead of panic — a rising anticipation.

Something was about to happen.

Something was about to change.

He drew a breath and stepped towards the —

CHAPTER 4. The colleague

On the thirteenth of January, at precisely noon, Max stood before flat seventeen on the Eighth Line of Vasilyevsky Island.

It was exactly twelve. But the light on the stairwell was such that it might have been evening — grey, even, sunless. In Novosibirsk at noon the shadows are sharp and blue, the snow squeaks and glitters. Here, on the Eighth Line, the light was diffuse, as if through milk. Max thought: in this city even noon is dusk. And for some reason it didn’t oppress him. Time seemed to move more slowly, to give one room to think.

In his hands — a box with a “Three Chocolates” cake.

He rang the bell.

The door was opened by a young woman.

Not a greying engineer.

Tall. Slender. A mass of blue-black hair gathered at the nape. Blue eyes — attentive, faintly wary. Black jeans. An old black Dr. Web T-shirt with a worn green logo. Bare feet on the old parquet.

For a moment it seemed to Max that Anna was standing in the doorway.

Somewhere between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand came the familiar ache — and let go at once, the moment the woman spoke.

“Hello, Maxim. I’m Zara Gorenko. Come in.”

Max blinked.

“I didn’t even have time to introduce myself.”

“ECHO warned me,” Zara said simply. “Put the cake in the kitchen.”

In the hallway, laid out neatly on the floor, was a disassembled electronic unit: a board, ribbon cables, a housing with two lenses. Beside it — an anti-static mat and a couple of old books on Deep Mind.

Max looked closer.

“That’s a stereo-camera unit. Automotive.”

Zara glanced down briefly:

“S213. Drive Pilot. I rebuilt it to run OpenPilot under Linux. And wired it into ECHO.”

A pause.

“The car in the yard is already running the modified version.”

She held out a bunch of keys.

“We’ve bought you the flat next door. Fully ready. These are also the keys to that car in the yard.”

Max looked at the fob.

Mercedes.

He blinked.

“You mean ECHO sees the raw feed?”

“Yes. Before the factory processing. More reliable that way.”

“Sorry,” said Zara, noticing his glance at the hallway floor. “Sometimes the best ideas come right here.”

A pause.

“The grey S213 in the yard is yours. Drive Pilot fully enabled. ECHO can drive it herself if needed.”

Max was quiet.

“That sounds slightly terrifying.”

“Only the first couple of trips,” said Zara.

She glanced at the box.

“Put the cake in the kitchen. There’s a pelmeni place in the yard — small, no frills, but they do it well. I trust a real Siberian won’t say no to pelmeni?”

“I haven’t even started work yet.”

“You’ll start soon,” Zara said calmly. “You’ve been on the payroll since the tenth. We just need your signatures. That can wait till tomorrow — the director’s taken the day off.”

She turned to the interface.

“ECHO, get me Pelmesh. Two Ural portions, half a kilo each. Broth separate, sour cream separate. If they have fresh éclairs — a pair each. Black tea in a pot. We’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

“Understood.”

Max set the cake on the kitchen table.

Looked around.

High ceilings. Mouldings. An old chandelier. Books to the ceiling.

In the corner by the window — a massive antique easel. Dark wood, brass fittings. Beside it, brushes, a palette crusted with dried paint.

On the shelves — books on mathematics, programming, art.

Max noticed a familiar title: Thinking in C.

He took it down.

On the cover, the author: PhoeNIX.

The very same.

So Zara and I studied from the same textbooks.

He put it back.

His eye ran along the neighbouring spines.

Books on art. A different author. Z. A. Gorenko.

The Glazing Technique. Model and Modigliani. The Russian Rodin.

He took down the last.

Heavy. With pencil notes in the margins.

“Erzia?” he said, surprised.

“Yes,” Zara called from the kitchen.

He looked up.

“Didn’t expect to find Erzia on a programmer’s shelf.”

Zara calmly poured the tea.

“Officially I’m on the staff of the Repin Academy. Programming is a hobby.”

Max blinked.

“Sorry?”

Now he saw the flat differently.

Not as the home of a talented IT specialist.

As the studio of someone in whom books on programming, painting and mathematics existed in a single coordinate system.

Inside the pelmeni place it smelled of dough, broth and fresh baking.

Warm. Cramped. Homely.

They brought enormous plates.

Broth separate. Sour cream separate.

Max speared the first dumpling with his fork, blew on it quickly and put it in his mouth.

And winced at once.

“Ah — hot.”

Zara laughed.

“The classic treachery of pelmeni. Almost cold on the outside. Boiling within.”

“I fall for it every time,” Max admitted.

He laughed.

And with that laugh the last weight of the morning lifted.

They ate in silence. Max hadn’t got through half his plate when Zara pushed her empty one aside.

“Are you always like this?” he asked.

“Like what?”

“Fast.”

“Efficient,” she said. “People often tell me I eat a lot. There’s no feeding my brain.”

Then they sat a long while. Tea with éclairs.

“Let’s go home,” said Zara. “Time to get properly acquainted.”

Back in the flat, Max stopped at the wall.

A portrait hung there — large, life-size.

A girl stepping out of the sea. Behind her, the blinding light off the water. Her body recedes into shadow. A silhouette. Motion. Hair merging with the waves.

The sea was done in glazing — transparent layers of light one over another. Look at it straight on, and you see only the figure against the fire of the water. Look longer, and you begin to make out details, like shades of grey within the shadow.

He held his breath.

There was something elusively familiar in the figure — in that young, untamed strength mixed with a piercing vulnerability.

“A beautiful self-portrait,” he said quietly.

Zara stood by the kitchen, kettle in hand.

“What made you decide I painted it?”

“Only the artist herself could portray herself that honestly. Anyone else would have tried to flatter.”

He faltered.

“Though in life you’re even more interesting.”

Zara didn’t smile. But her gaze softened.

“I’m not sixteen here,” she said. “Nice to hear that eleven years on, I look better.”

A pause.

“If the work makes you uncomfortable — I can take it down.”

“No,” Max said quickly. “It’s very much alive.”

Zara nodded.

They sat down at the table with their tea.

The flat was austere. Almost ascetic. Books, equipment, neutral colours. No lace, no bright touches.

Max said — perhaps too directly:

“It’s like my flat in Novosibirsk.”

Zara looked at him.

Was silent.

“My mother left when I was five,” she said quietly. “My father taught me everything. In his own way.”

She smirked.

But the smirk came out joyless.

Max didn’t offer comfort.

Didn’t pry.

He only said:

“I don’t have it all easy either.”

And they were silent.

Each about their own.

Beyond the glass the January snow fell slowly.

CHAPTER 5. THE CHILDREN

At that moment a key turned in the lock. Quick footsteps; in the hall someone thumped a backpack against the wall.

“That’s mine,” said Zara, and stood. “Come, I’ll introduce you.”

Two children ran into the room — a girl of about thirteen, dark-skinned, with the same blue eyes, and a boy of about eight, tousle-haired, in an oversized down jacket.

“Who are you?” he asked outright.

“I work with your mum,” said Max. “I help her. My name’s Maxim.”

Misha frowned at once.

“Zara isn’t our mum,” he said calmly, but firmly. “Our mum and dad died.”

Silence.

“She took us out of the children’s home,” he added, more gently. “We’re her friends. I’m Misha, and my sister’s Nastya.”

Nastya, meanwhile, walked silently to her room.

Changed, and went through to the kitchen.

Opened the cupboard, took out mugs, put the kettle on. She did it confidently, like the woman of the house.

Misha went on, not taking his eyes off Max:

“Have you got children?”

“No,” said Max.

“A wife?”

“No.”

Misha nodded — with some decision of his own.

“Then marry Zara,” he said. “She’s good. She doesn’t shout.”

A pause.

He thought, and added:

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