Early this morning I had a very fascinating dream. What's more, I kept waking up periodically, but forced myself back to sleep to see how it ended. Now I'll tell you a little bit about it.
If you walk out of our city along the railway tracks towards Riga, after a while the rails enter a tunnel under a large hill. It is hollow inside, and houses a secret bunker, which Gorbachev used to visit from time to time (why him - I don't know). Inside the bunker, we discussed some matters regarding a mysterious man who had saved the country from a certain catastrophe, for which he had personally met with Gorbachev. But nobody really knows who this man is - he rarely appears and isn't much of a talker. Then I recalled that I had been in the bunker before and had met this man - he looked stern and unshaven, wearing the black canvas clothes of a special ops fisherman.
There were few people in the hill itself, it's barely used. But a coworker of mine, who serves in this hill, led me further through the facilities, where the crowds grew larger. They were mostly young military men, obviously cadets. After some time we emerged from the inner rooms into the sun, into a place somewhere between a military base and a scientific lab. You could probably call it a classified research town. There I spoke with scientists for a long time, about what - I can't remember. All I know is that it was an absolutely special place where they had obtained certain knowledge not yet found anywhere else in the world, and not least because of its unique location. There is no other way to get there except through the railway tunnel.
While strolling along the rocky hills, I found a wooden gate between two cliffs that led out to a wide plain. The sight that opened up before me was astonishing. The landscape was as beautiful as a fairytale - sunlight spilling over the hills, where dozens of different animals were roaming and frolicking. And the most fantastic part - there were actual, living mammoths among them. I stood there in a stupor, wondering how this beauty hadn't been ruined yet and why there wasn't a single person beyond the gates. Then I felt it, walking through those gates was almost impossible. Even the most hardened cynic wouldn't have the heart to disturb such beauty and harmony - I myself didn't dare to step inside, though I returned to the gates several more times. Or perhaps it was a temporal gate to another era - that would explain the mammoths and the subconscious reluctance to go in.
Having wrapped up my business, I was just about to leave the settlement, when a skinny professor in glasses told me in parting that I was about to see something significant. And from his tone it was clear that this was something incredibly special, one of the greatest achievements of this place. Makes you wonder why they didn't show it to me earlier?
When I walked out of the building and was getting ready to catch a special taxi (I have no idea where it takes you), on the grassy lawn in front of the parking lot I saw what the professor had been talking about. It was an entity, presumably female, not looking very human, with the body of an android. Somehow I instantly knew that this was a fully-fledged artificial intelligence, the greatest of the unresolved problems up to this point. It struck me so hard that I almost burst into tears. We hadn't found brothers in reason, but we had created them. Unbelievable!