The person needs the person (The original short story)

Thanks to @mgaft1 for the translate from Russian to English!

The idea of this story appeared during our discussion with @mgaft1 on a Russian-language site last year. We discussed what could be the future under the control of Artificial Intelligence. What will the system look like and ... will people living in such a future have irrational impulses?

He went past the sign of the retro-cafe “XX century”, which neon lights went off a long time ago, delayed for a second, looking into an ancient advertising poster with a funny slogan – and headed further down the street, to the center of the city. High above his head, almost silently fly-mobiles passed by. People long since did not need to walk – except on a fitness club track. Yet, Mansour loved such lonely novelty walks.
Suddenly an unexpected presence violated the usual landscape of a deserted street. Mansour didn't understand what happened immediately. There was just something wrong with the surrounding landscape; some movement ahead – not a hologram or a fly-mobile, but a person!
Bewildered, Mansour stopped and for a few seconds could not gather his thoughts. In these moments, he had to reconfigure his perception. Only then, he allowed himself to believe that another person could walk through the empty streets of the lower level... only then the object ahead acquired a clear outline.
A woman. In a long luxurious coat and in high heel boots of an ancient style – made on order. Deep down inside, Mansour had an appreciation of foot fetishism. While in virtual reality, he often ordered himself similar female images. Was it a hallucination? No, she had a bouquet of yellow flowers in her hands. He wouldn’t have imagined it even in a nightmare.
The stranger turned to the cross street. Her gait was firm. When she noticed Mansour, she didn’t look disturbed, but rather annoyed. Struck not so much by her beauty, but by the extraordinary loneliness in her eyes, Mansour followed her like a piece of metal behind a strong magnet.

For a couple of minutes, they walked silently. Finally, a stranger asked loudly and clearly:
“Do you like these flowers?”
Mansour did not expect such a question and to his surprise, answered honestly:
“No, I don't like it! I love red roses.”
"It's good," abruptly the woman cast the flowers around the corner of the neighboring building on the ground.
Behind the building chirred cyber cleaners.
“Are you a member of the reconstruction club?” Mansour asked, having acquired the ability to think logically again.
"Which club?" the stranger asked. Then she pondered turned to Mansur and said: “Anyhow, who cares?”
She took Mansour by the hand and, looking into his eyes, said:
“Let's walk! In our time, people have completely forgotten what it feels like...”
“Sure thing!” Mansour happily agreed. “We are just near a pond. So you don't know anything about the reconstruction club. We live in the past. At least, a couple of weeks a year, we try to live as if we are the people who lived in the twentieth century. An obsolete era that was full of romance... Imagine – there were no fly-mobiles and Artificial Intelligence... Here, on the lower level, there is almost no this ubiquitous CCTV - quite like in those days.
It was, but fifty years ago and many old cameras were dismantled because of inadequacy. Throughout the entire lower level, two or three chambers remain – it is enough to maintain order. While in alleys – generally like in the Stone Age, no supervision! Hmmm... But I see you are not interested...”
"No, no, go on!" the woman exclaimed. "Say anything, just speak! I feel the need to listen to you right now.”
“Here,” the pleased Mansour pointed to the left. “I am sorry, I still didn’t introduce myself. Mansour Bulgakov, level indigo.”
“Margaret Kennedy,” she responded grumpily and, having rolled up the sleeve, showed him a bracelet on the wrist. “White-gold, as you can see.”
“Wow, respect!” Mansour stumbled, then restoring balance, gave Margaret a short bow.
"Screw it!" the woman threw a bracelet off her hand into the alley between the houses.
Mansour rushed after the bracelet – and managed to pick it up earlier than the cyber cleaner. He couldn't let such a valuable thing to go to waste. Sure, now, Margaret was angry, but by morning, she’d definitely come to her senses and remember that some Joe Blow dared not to pick up her identifier.
Right now, though, he had to make up to her for picking up the bracelet. God Dimmit, why is it always so hard with women? Although, how would he know what really works with them?
“I’m certainly, very sorry, but let me ask you,” he had to switch the topic showing her the direction, “ here - to the right, to the pond” Mansour mumbled, feeling that in her eyes he looked like a moron.
However, she didn’t make any fuss and turned into the side street following his lead. Margaret clearly wanted to see the pond.
"Let me ask you, are you a scientist? Rather … How did you manage to get a white-gold bracelet?” Mansur finished his question.
“I cheated,” Margaret looked annoyed. “Remember, seven years ago there was an experiment with awards of extreme athletes? I just got into this thing. Always been interested in parachute sports, and eventually acquired the white-gold level. I never even thought about the result – I simply like flying. Jump off the rock into the abyss and lose yourself for a few moments. If I knew that with this bracelet, people would be asking me every day: "Oh, so you are a scientist!" then I wouldn’t jump at all! I would be happy to have a level like yours.”
“Understa-a-a-and,” Mansour stretched this word pondering. “No, you’re all right! Your white-gold bracelet is well deserved. I’ve never dared to parachute or dive in my life, but I 'm great at quests and creative thinking.”
Margaret stopped and looked up.
“Here it feels surprisingly harmoniously somehow,” she said.
“Right,” Mansour nodded. “These ponds are a historical monument, and above them, there is a piece of real sky that is kept. Being in this alley feels magic, I always liked it. Here in this building,” Mansour pointed to the wall of the building to the left of them. “I think, on the one hundred seventh level – the exact holographic reconstruction of the ponds, the way they were in the twentieth century. It has nothing to do with what they are right now. But you know I like a real pond for some reason.”
They stood for a minute trying to see a narrow strip of sky between the walls of two huge buildings going hundreds of floors up.
"I want to see the ponds," Margaret said.
“Let’s go,” Mansour carefully took her hand and led her further down the side street. “You know, I have a somewhat unusual hobby. Perhaps, if I show my work to the Central Artificial Intelligence bureau I might get the white-and-gold bracelet, too. Maybe. I don't know; because I don't want to show it to anyone. But feel like I want to tell you about it.”
“This is your secret, and you want to entrust it for me?” Margaret was surprised. “Please don’t do it! Although…wait… Go ahead! Tell me! I might then just have the reason today not to inject myself with a lethal dose of poison.”
“Poison?” Mansour even jumped from surprise. “Why would you want to poison yourself? We live in a perfect world, and you have a white and gold level! That’s like the ultimate. Most people can only dream about it. I can’t even imagine what else one can dream about?”
“That is it, exactly – nothing to dream about!” Margaret stopped and looked closely into his eyes. Her eyes were thunderous. “You can't even imagine how disgusting it is when there is nothing more to strive for, every day looks like yesterday, and tomorrow will be the same as today! I can no longer parachute after I had a fracture, and I have this white-gold level for life as injury compensation! So, I drive around different cities and streets like this one. Went all over the world. This city was the last one on my list. Everywhere – everything is the same. Here, at least, you and your secret. So what is it?”
"I wrote a book," Mansour shrugged.
“A book? Is that it?” Margaret resented. “…with the help of programs-editors any fool can do that.”
“No, I wrote it without programs,” Mansour hastily explained. “And in general, without gadgets.”
"How’s that?" Margaret asked doubtable inquisitiveness.
"We've already come to the pond," Mansour said. "Let's sit down. There are benches, and you can even see the sky from here. By the way, at this very crossing once there used to be a cafe named after you – “Margaret”.
“This wreck?” with disdain Margaret looked at the ruins of a two-story building, incredibly preserved in the center of a huge metropolis.
“In photos of the beginning of the twenty-first century it looks much more sympathetic,” Mansour pleaded. “However, it doesn’t matter. Let me tell you about the book. Once I learned that my great great great … anyway, my distant ancestor was a writer.”
“So this little puddle is all that is left from the ancient Patriarchal ponds. It is a historical monument now precisely thanks to the most popular of his books. I became interested in plunging into that era and joined the reconstruction club. Artificial Intelligence even likes to mess with our club because we create requests for the production of unique objects. Imagine – it took AI several days to bring to life my proposal.”
"Wow!" said Margaret. "I can’t even imagine what you might have wanted?
"A ball pen and a pack of sheets of white paper," Mansour laughed.
“The AI even hung when it accepted a request to make such an irrational thing as a "ball pen" - and eventually offered me a Rapido-graph. According to reviews from the twentieth century, the Rapido-graph is more pleasant to use, and now it turned out to be easier to produce.”
Margaret's merry laughter spread in the void over the pond's dark water.
“So you hacked the system?” she couldn't stop laughing. “Amazing! I met a man who managed to hang the AI system!”
"Well, it’s not that I‘m proud of it," Mansour said in confusion and tried to change the subject. "If you believe the photos, once upon a time there were trees here. They've been gone for a long time, but you can see the sky from here right now. Generally, in the past, all the ponds were different – for sure, you saw them on holograms. People came here to distance themselves from the fuss, to talk on a bench under the shadow of branches, and to feed ducks. It was very romantic here.”
They stood near the concrete fence, looking at the dark body of water.
"It's romantic here now as well," Margaret said, raising her eyes to the sky.
Two stars were glowing high at the top of the night sky. Without a doubt, they were real stars, not glitches of holograms – they glittered in the middle of a strictly faceted skyscraper piece of heaven that topped the pole of empty space above an ancient pond.
“I look into this bottomless sky, and even the air seems sweet,” Margaret spoke quietly. “Tell me about your book!”
“It wasn’t easy to learn how to write letters on paper,” Mansour sighed. “It is more difficult than any quest – and if I show AI this ability, my level will be immediately raised. But I didn't learn to write so I can eat more delicious food and have a higher access level in entertainment. I was just wondering – would I be able to succeed?”
"So, did it work out?" Margaret asked.
"Yes," Mansour nodded. "I wrote a novel about a man living in the twentieth century. He only dreams of a future, in which robots will free people of the need to do hard work. At the same time, he tries to figure out what people will do so as not to degrade from boredom. Gradually, step by step, he invents and logically justifies what our civilization has come to – the gray level of today’s well-being everyone has. And those, for whom it’s not enough to have a bed in a small room and minimal nutrients from protein bars – engage in quests and receive rewards. Scientists who have been able to invent something that AI has not thought of, or those who have set interesting tasks for it, receive the gold level. You want to eat delicious feed – develop yourself. Yet, the essence of the novel is not in that; I just stated the obvious. The essence for me is in the everyday scenes; in which way my characters travel to work using the transport of that era, in how they walk near ponds – real, not holographic… how they are taking pictures of scary wild birds ready to fly at any moment. How many of the people do not believe that the golden age will one day come.”
Margaret approached her face to Mansour and looked at him intently. Mansour realized that he had to do something now... but what? Not being able to come up with anything better, he hugged her firmly and kissed her on the lips.
"It was beautiful," Margaret said quietly a couple of minutes later when they interrupted the kiss to take a breath. "Still, do you have a sex robot? Actually, what a silly question. Of course, you do…”
“Ehm … I am ashamed to admit that I turned my sex robot off a year ago, " Mansour said.
Margaret laughed loud once more.
“Well, it is simply since I...” Mansour tried to find words to justify and prove that he has no problem with potency, but Margaret, laughingly, exclaimed:
“I turned my robot off two years ago and thought I was the only one on the entire planet who is that crazy!”
Mansour hugged her again and kissed her.
"Let 's go!" he said. "I certainly don't have a white-gold level, but my bed is soft and wide!”
"No!" Margarethe said playfully. "No bed! Didn’t you say there's no CCTV on the lower level? To the alley!!”
Having grabbed him by the coat collar, with the determination of the athlete, psyched for a victory, Margaret dragged the last and only writer of the Earth into the darkness.