The Before Short Story Series. Part 1 - Иван Перепелятник

be continuously monitored, as well as their approach to study, building relationships with fellow students and teachers. In a word, the employers would assess all the essential conditions for a possibility and expediency of making an offer to a promising student to enter a private club and gain access to a unique chance to work in a clinic that no one knew about and no one had ever heard of. If everything went well for a graduate student, he would be offered a fifteen-year internship in a number of specialized medical institutions located around the world – from South Africa to Japan. Such a unique and holistic experience provided the practical knowledge base required for a distinctive job when a doctor reached a plateau – the phase in a medical career when a person was ready to work with special patients.

A proud and peaceful view of majestic mountain peaks, veiled with sparkling snow, a little prickly sun, piercingly deaf silence and the air that is not to be confused with any other, clean and without a pronounced smell. Such remote places were chosen for the construction of specialized clinics. Nothing should disturb the peace and privacy of patients. No casual tourists would suddenly happen to wander into the protected area, constantly patrolled by private security detachments to guarantee the safety of guests. Not to mention journalists and those looking for fresh tabloids news. Everything ensured complete confidentiality and maximum inaccessibility to make such sites out of reach. The appropriate level of comfort for patients was provided by several dozens of highly qualified employees. Service staff, administration, cooks and, of course, doctors. Among patients in such clinics, one could see people whose faces were known all over the world. But even with all their power and infinite wealth, these celestials could not provide themselves with what is available to everyone today – confidence in the future.

Reed, a little tired of reading the section on the clinic's information portal – "Stories: how it all started" – put the tablet aside on the seat next to him and leaned back in the chair, relaxing in its cozy embrace. The capsule rustled soundlessly along the highway, cutting through the damp air flowing in the warm rays of the early sun.

"How much has changed since then", Reed remarked into the void, addressing an invisible counterpart. – Today, life expectancy is almost twice that of a limited circle of people who had access to the latest scientific medical developments of the time. But all this, unfortunately, has not yet allowed us to completely eliminate the possibility of errors, inaccuracies in our health programs. Neither, ultimately, of diseases. And for now we're still mortal," Reed looked out of the window and smiled slightly.

"Yes, Reed, you're absolutely right", Al replied with a slightly noticeable soothing note, "but let me remind you of all the big, drastic changes that we have been recording over the past 150 years. Today, humanity has already gone far ahead. As you noted, the key indicator is an unprecedented achievement – the average life expectancy is twice higher than in the beginning of the 21st century. The modern scientific community provides almost a 100% guarantee of a healthy, long and happy life for every person. What the rich you read about could not have imagined, today determines the future even before conception takes place. A thorough examination of the parents’ DNA, the required genome corrections constitute the first and defining stage of the formation of a health program. The analysis of the infinitely complex program of a human life – the genome – is based on fundamentally new computing capabilities, the foundation of which was laid in the middle of the 21st century.

Developers and scientists have achieved almost unlimited scaling of capacity of quantum computing machines, which very quickly led to the absolutely obvious superiority of artificial intelligence over humans on a wide list of activities. The scientific field of research and development of new technologies is a key layer of life activity, and the mental potential of a human being was a defining factor before. But everything changed surprisingly quickly since the middle of the last century. Task assignment and control constitute the main role of a biological individual today.

– Of course, the individual has continued playing and, of course, still plays the main role in creative work and scientific research," Al emphasized politely. "At the same time, people were able to shift most of the functions, some routine and repetitive tasks to machines, which provided a fundamental acceleration in a lot of research allowing us to reach powerful and efficient levels of results for a number of them. Medicine is the field of research in which the efforts of the PAX have been focused in the first place. The PAX is the name that public choice assigned to a cluster of computing power of quantum computers distributed around the world.

– Yes, but genome corrections ultimately did not rule out errors in the program of life, as you well know, Al.

– You’re right, Reed. With all these issues, program errors, work is already underway at the next stage. Working out and developing an individual compensation course is the second key element designed to correct deviations from the system that the program identified throughout an individual's life activity. These deviations cannot be figured out at the initial, starting position, when analyzing the genome. A person's life presents endless changes, variations and choices first made by an individual’s parents and surroundings, then personally by the individual. The environment is changing, society is changing, there are global shifts on the planet, in the star system, profound changes are taking place, and so on. All these components have a direct impact on each and everyone. The system is infinitely complex, the number of interconnections is practically infinite, trillions of trillions.

No one, not even the PAX, can take everything into account in the predictive programs of life. Even a 0.01% deviation in the accuracy