Parallel Worlds pro et contra - стр. 5
Chapter 4. Where am I? Who am I?
"Where the hell am I? I was in the center. Is this the real world or virtual reality?"
– Irene, you on the line?
There was no response.
– Irene, are you there? Where am I?
"Yeah, well, maybe the doctor was right. And yet… how to check whether it was his trick, a joke, a virtual reality, or really, damn it, it worked out. It's an understatement… Am I in a parallel world? Is it parallel? Once people could not believe in the existence of other lands, much less continents. And the existence of different races, nations, round Earth, which in addition moves around the axis and, quite surprisingly, around the Sun, it turns out, was no less fantastic. And the end of the atmosphere and further endless airless space could not be imagined at all. So it only seems at first that the existence of other worlds is something fantastic. It's not. It turns out to be simple. Or maybe it's a virtual reality? Maybe this is Earth, and what's going on is Parmen's prank. After his prank one can expect anything, and after the incomprehensions with virtual worlds in my last job, I have serious doubts… A person living in Africa, for example, in the Bronze Age, who had never seen snow, would be transported to the Arctic to the Eskimos. They would wake him up and explain that the world is round, there is a moon and planets that revolve around the sun, these are earthlings like you, and so on. What would he think? He would have thought he was crazy, or still asleep, or a prank, or dead, or in another world. Lots of things he would think, and the hardest thing for him to figure out would be how it was that the Earth was round. So now… it seems logical that there should be other worlds in the infinity of the universe, it seems logical that life should originate in the same conditions as it already did, that is, develop in a similar way, but it is very hard to believe it, especially to believe that you are there now. Just like an ancient inhabitant of the Earth. For whom the world is the outskirts that he sees from a distant hill or even a mountain…"
Rutra's musings were interrupted by a policeman.
– Paschow, out.
"Well, I've had a bit of an accident. I wonder what role I'm playing here…" – Ruthra thought, having already convinced himself that there really were parallel worlds and that he was out of the cage. The guardian of order walked forward. Ruthra followed him. "That's strange," he thought. – He should handcuff me first… or there should be two of them, one in the back and one in the front. But really, I wouldn't know. Especially in this world. Or this is our world… There's no difference yet."