"Each of us has a time machine: what takes us to the past are memories; what takes us to the future are dreams."
H. G. Wells
Today was the most ordinary sunny morning of the late summer of 2100. Zelder woke up and took off his sleep control glasses, and the whole apartment woke up with him. I got up from the cryo-bed, looked at my watch. The clock showed exactly 08:30. Then he did 100 push–ups - the morning norm. Then I went to breakfast. Breakfast is typical, cooked by a home multifunctional robot butler, fresh sliced fruit, kefir and coffee hot as lava. Zelder doesn't need to go to work. No, do not think that he is lazy or unemployed, in 2100 no one needs to work. People have stopped spending 8 hours on monotonous, dull work for 20 years. Now humanity will know creative work! Everyone could be anyone they wanted: a musician, (web)designers, an artist, an artist, a programmer, a writer, a scientist, an inventor, etc. But if everyone is "artists", then who reaps bread, digs canals, builds houses? This problem was solved by our engineers, who assembled a prole robot for mass production. The robot performs all the work listed above and frees a person from the oppression of work, opening for him the path of work and creativity. After all, free time is such a luxury. Just imagine what a person is capable of with so much free time, with satisfied needs, with a good education. It will turn out a new Mozart! Tesla! Aitmatov! And in today's free world, there are many, if not all, such creators. But we digress. After breakfast, Zelder decided to take his shoes, since the old ones were already worn out. In the center of the smart district stood a modernist cube. From a distance, the structure resembled a basalt relic of the Sumerian-Akkadian civilization or one of Le Corbusier's phantasmagoric projects. When Zelder came to the door, they automatically opened. He walked through the front door, which was all covered with screens. Today is the ceremonial day of the Renaissance. Therefore, the “access” neural network, as Zelder called it, generated the brightest plots in the style of Michelangelo and Botticelli. The architecture of the front was in the style of “High Renaissance". At least, Zelder only learned the motives of their pen. Feeling like in St. Peter's Cathedral, feeling a wild hunger for art, albeit created by a neural network, he decided to go down the stairs from the sixth floor and observe a series of alternating bright yellow, colorful, paintings, ornate columns, instead of a turbo elevator that would take him to the first floor in 3 seconds. Having had enough of the "disposable" art, Zelder went out into the street with an upbeat mood. It was cool outside, although it was a sultry late summer. It was cool thanks to artificial winds and rains that appeared with the help of a "cloud", the so-called giant oval (hence the name) autonomous flying ship that sprayed microparticles of water to keep a comfortable temperature of 25 degrees Celsius. But initially, the "cloud" was intended to combat desertification, deliver "rains" to the driest points of the globe and dump vegetation seeds. The principle of its operation was that, thanks to a quantum motor with a large pump, the mechanism absorbs air and collects moisture molecules from the air into a tank for further spraying. That is, this miracle machine did not even need to land for a set of water, except to replace parts. For example, the Kazakh steppe turned into green meadows and forest thickets. But humanity quickly realized that environmental problems are solved not by technocratic methods alone, but by replacing fossil energy sources with renewable ones, by switching to a peaceful atom, limiting plastic production, and banning deforestation. Therefore, gradually, during the transition to a new society where there is no predatory ecocide, the "cloud" has ceased to be a necessary mechanism. But the free human mind is truly incomprehensible and people have given a second life to "clouds" using them to cool the air temperature during the heat in cities. So, one of these machines was just flying over the city where Zelder lived. Zelder enjoyed the coolness and the view of the street – it was crowded, green, with lots of gazebos and shops, without cars, in the past, which filled the space and filled the air with acrid miasma of recycled fuel. Now it's gone. After all, no one has a car. And why would a free man need a piece of tin? Everyone rides in a comfortable public transport. Humanity does not remember what traffic jams are, just as a person of the XXI century has forgotten what smallpox is. "The people," Illich writes, "will break the chains of automobile dominance when they fall in love with their neighborhood again and do not want to leave it," and humanity has fallen in love not only with their neighborhood, but with the whole world.
Quickly slipping through the stairs, Zelder collided with a neighbor. He was a long-lived man and still remembered the "old world". He greeted him and the neighbor squeezed his carbon fiber hands tightly with his cyberimplant, so that tears came from Zelder's eyes. That's why Zelder didn't like to face this old man either. The old man was of medium height, thin, with thick facial hair and prominent, gray hair. Together with his right hand, he has a cyberimplant. Dressed conservatively. He often recalled the old days. But it's different every time. Then with tender trepidation, then with fierce hatred. It was not clear if he liked the current system or if he missed the old days. But still he was a good-natured and joking fellow. They say that back in the old world, when there was a job, he lost his hand behind a hydraulic press. The mechanism for pressing metal crushed his right hand, as the cunning owner increased the production rate for everyone and the old man (then still a young guy) had to work to exhaustion. The old world took his hand and job away from him, left him on the sidelines. The new one gave him a cyberimplant and freedom to develop.
- Morning Zelder, where to early in the morning?
- Hi Meisner. I want new shoes for myself. I throw the old one into the cube for recycling.
- Oh, well, if that's the case. This one was worn out, apparently, I generated a great design – he began to show it on a hologram emanating from his watch – look what a beauty, so be it to you.
- Really. I would say exotic. And what kind of design? Probably something from the old world again.
- Not at all. I've improved it!
The shoes looked like a cross between moccasins and galoshes in gray, with a duckling print. Zelder liked the design. He thanked me and went on, although he did not fully decide whether to use this fancy design. Zelder decided to continue on his way.
After walking 150 steps along a wonderful oak alley, he comes to this mystical cube. The cube felt the approach, hissed, let off steam and pulled out the control panel. The panel was uncomplicated. A tablet the size of a briefcase. Only without frames, without plastic. A bare piece of electro-glass. From a distance, it looked like a silver university chair.
The panel turned on automatically. Zelder, as a person who has visited the cube more than once, began quickly flipping through the menu. After deciding for a long time whether to choose the same model that he wore or download the old man's design, in the end he decided to respect his neighbor as he had known him for a long time. And there is no longer a concept of fashion, where a couple of designer/clothing corporations dictate to most what they should wear this season. Now a person is liberated and creates his own fashion without fear of condemnation and ridicule.
Zelder took off the old woman's shoes. At that moment, the cube gave him shoe covers made from algae by molecular means, which after exactly 12 hours practically dissolved in the air thanks to bacteria harmless to humans. Bacteria woke up when they came into contact with the air and began to eat algae shoe covers. Putting on shoe covers, he pressed the left green button and a square door opened in the cube. He put old shoes in it for further processing and turning it into new shoes, boots, bottlers, etc.
Having finished with the preparations, he launched the cube and it changed its mysterious basalt shade to a blinding bright purple. This meant that the cube, with the help of a 3D printer installed in it, began to print shoes, apply prints, and put a seal. By the way, the cube was the crown of human thought for the year 2100, like the "cloud", the robot-prol, de-saltizer and Robespierre-3000. The cube is, in fact, a multifunctional, autonomous mini-factory that can simultaneously serve up to 60 people. With the help of the cube, people printed entire houses for themselves, and thanks to this, homelessness was defeated in the world and millions of people were pulled out of rentier bondage. Several copper pipes were connected to the cube from underground, through which materials were delivered: carbon fiber, eco-rubber, recycled glass and paint. After 10 seconds, the cube gave Zelder a brand new pair of shoes of a rather unusual appearance. It was already 09:55 on the clock.

Putting on shoes and stuffing shoe covers in his pockets, he decided to go to the library. Yes, there is a library in 2100. In general, a library is an immortal thing. He decided to go to the library for one reason – he was studying the history of the "old" world. No one forced him to study history, and he also went to the library not about extreme need, when your current livelihood depends on it. But because he wanted to do it, he was interested in it and he believed that in this way he would benefit humanity. After all, he did not want the new world to degrade to the state of the old world. As they say, a story repeated twice is a tragedy, repeated three times is a farce. Externally, the library resembled an oval, multi-storey building with a cone at the top. At the same time, with everything, she moved and generated energy for herself. The building was completely snow-white with specks of greenery. This was the vegetation that was grown on the walls, balconies, windows of the library. The left part of the library was completely covered with a colorful carpet of flowers, grass and shrubs. There was a pretty nice vestibule in front of the entrance with robot climbers who cleaned and washed the windows from time to time. There were also robot gardeners who created masterpieces from vegetation in conjunction with a Central Neural Network that sent generated landscape design to robot gardeners in different parts of the city. In the central lobby of the library there was a bizarre art object in the form of moving molecules with the epitaph "peaceful atom". This is the atomic heart of the library. In the new world, nuclear energy is mainly used as the most environmentally friendly. So, this very "heart" made the building move, and thanks to it, ultra-quantum computers worked in the library. The brain of the entire library was an artificial intelligence called "Archivist95". Upon request, he gave answers in a matter of milliseconds, ordered how, in what order books / e-books should be displayed, kept a special temperature regime and lighting in order not to negatively affect a person's cognitive abilities.
Zelder liked to work on the sixth floor of the library, as there was an unusually beautiful panoramic view of the city. And since the library was also spinning, after the charming view of the city, he could admire the powerful and peaceful river. Somewhere in the distance, snow-capped mountains could be seen.
Zelder wrote a book called "The XXI century – the era of tragedies and fractures." In this regard, a lot of somehow preserved manuscripts, correspondence in messengers, official documents, statistics for the period passed through it. And the library was fully equipped for a comfortable, idle pastime and for fruitful work. More precisely, he did not write, the library wrote through a microphone. Zelder spoke his thoughts aloud, quoted some documents. And Archivist95 recorded everything on his own media and, if desired, could publish a trial version of the book. But in the library there were conditions for typing in the old-fashioned way, on the keyboard or even with a pen on paper (sic!!!). Zelder preferred to use the microphone, it's more convenient for him. But sometimes he had to reread what the Archivist had written several times, because he got tired of talking into the microphone for a long time. When working with archival documents, he was surprised by the abnormality of the situation in the XXI century. It was extremely difficult for him to imagine war, famine, homeless people. Therefore, the work progressed slowly, but he liked it. At 13:30, he realized that he had enough work for today.
After leaving the library, he headed to the station to take the subway to his favorite cafe and have lunch. The station and the metro are the most typical, except that the trains are decorated differently. Zelder drove comfortably to the "C" area. After walking for about five minutes, he reached his favorite eatery. It was a small, cozy place with a terrace and a robot cook. Only three dishes were served here: noodles, dumplings and broth. Without frills, but delicious and made from environmentally friendly products. He settled down on the terrace, went to the screen and ordered himself dumplings with lamb and onions, a bowl of broth. A notification popped up on the screen that the order would be ready in 15 minutes. He went back to his room, pulled out his holographic watch and looked through the news. In the news they wrote about new novels, research, improvements to increase the productivity of robots, about restored populations of animals long ago destroyed by man. In short, in the world of Zelder, everything is as it should be, nothing extraordinary, except for the burned-out autonomous cargo deliverer. They write that there was a short circuit. And a notification on the news hologram "YOUR FOOD IS READY" appeared on the entire screen. In this world, no one exploited the waiters, the very idea that someone takes an order, then brings you food for a free person was disgusting. In the new world of radical self-service: you order it yourself, you pick up the food yourself, you take the dishes back yourself. But in some places people were served by robots. There were no such robots in this cafe. Taking his broth with dumplings, he began to eat with appetite. After finishing the whole portion, he felt thirsty. But he decided to drink coffee with rum. Coffee with rum was poured directly from a machine in the shape of a cat, which winked when you took a cup of coffee. While pouring, he met with an acquaintance. His name was Lutush. They started talking and Zelder sipped a cup of strong coffee with special pleasure. The clock was striking 15:00. They decided to take a walk around the city.
The city was new, not one of those built in the old days. It is located on a wide river surrounded on one side by a forest, on the other by the river itself. o. was a city, first of all, for people. All in greenery, with wide sidewalks, with a lane for cyclists, scooters, with a separate lane for hydrogen-fueled buses, and finally with a separate lane for robots that scurried around the city doing work. The houses were low-rise, with a maximum of 5-6 floors, or even less. Super-blocks or districts were built with the expectation that each district would have all the necessary basic services so as not to travel far and maybe even so that there would be no need to go outside the district at all. But still, you can't put everything in super-blocks. Therefore, people left their districts for something unusual. For example, like Zelder who wanted to have lunch in the exact place or visit a cyber museum, a holo-theater, etc. The city was alive. If something broke, then immediately a couple of repair robots or utility robots came noisily to fix it.
They walked along the central avenue and admired the architecture, simultaneously discussing why humanity could not unite for so long and build such wonderful cities:
- Listen, Zelder, it still seems to me that people could not come to a new world because they were stupid, selfish and petty.
- Selfishness and other character traits are not the locomotive of history. This is just an imprint of that time. Time was selfish, that's what people are like.
- Hmmmm, controversial and as if you're running from the answer…
- No, it's not. Look, it wasn't about the people. We are the descendants of these people, and according to your logic, we too should have been forever feuding, quarreling and putting sticks in each other's wheels. Isn't that right?
- Really…
- So, people in the old world were selfish, because the world itself is selfish. No one tried to stop the samsara turbine.
- Okay, you got it again.
So the next three hours of the interlocutors passed. Tired of walking, they went to the first place they came across. This is a pretty big catering with robot waiters. Deciding to make themselves a light afternoon snack, they sat down at the table by the window. Zelder looked at his watch. They showed 18:05. It's getting late. As a result, they decided to drink wine and eat seafood. With wine, conversations about high things went especially well. They had a conversation about art and artificial intelligence:
- Lutush are you sure that a neural network can create art?
- Of course! You like to walk around the front doors yourself. It's almost like the exhibition halls of the Museum of Fine Arts.
- Hmm, very controversial. I don't think a neural network can create art, an art object. The neural network creates an imitation, a copy of art, not its own.
"Why not?"?? – here Lutush in a fit of emotion poured wine on the tablecloth. The robot waiter scanning the tables for garbage noticed and quickly began to wipe the tablecloth, and then putting wine and snacks on the tray, swallowed the dirty tablecloth and immediately spat out another, new one and laid it – Thank you, dear. So, explain yourself! – and stamped his foot.
- You've had too much Lutush. Drink less. And as for art, only man can create. Art is the fruit of human reflection and work. And a soulless machine cannot create art. It can only generate random images according to a predefined formula! In this sense, art is not the result of processing data by a neural network, but the neural network itself!
- In! – Lutush shouted – since the neural network is art, then its product belongs to art.
After that, they argued for a very long time (two bottles in a row), but they never came to anything. After a snack and a drink, they parted, as Lutush needs to return. He has an evening lecture on quantum mechanics at the university. Zelder took the bus home. When he reached his stop, he looked at his watch again. It was already 19:53. He clutched his head, because he had forgotten because of an argument and wine or because of wine and an argument that he should play the violin in the park today with the public orchestra of the Super-Block "U". Noticing a bunch of scooters, bicycles and, oh my God, the last hydrogen jet pack at the bus stop, he rushed at it and flew towards the Super-Block "U" park. Such public orchestras were formed from all comers. They were mostly amateurs. Zelder also joined one of these orchestras. In the city of O. people spent time in different ways. They gathered to play sports, virtual games, staged scenes in the amphitheaters of the park, held debates, created games and played them, collected fancy robots. But yesterday, Zelder decided to play music after visiting the Super-Block clinic.

Thanks to the jet pack, I flew to the park in five minutes. There were two in stock. During this time, with the help of Robespierre-3000, he was able to change clothes to classic ones. Robespierre-3000 changes the structure of clothes with the help of waves at the molecular level and makes different clothes from the same matter. 20:00. Zelder didn't have time. During the concert, the amphitheater began to rise up, changing color with the beat of the music. In general, it was more like a show than a quiet concert of classical music of the old world. They played for exactly an hour. After the concert, a lively conversation began with other members of the orchestra and Zelder made them laugh with his story of how he almost forgot about the concert. Having changed his role with the help of the Robespierre-3000 molecular cleaver, Zelder, tired and with a migraine, went home. But on the way he had dinner in the nearest dining room. At home, after reading the manga that his neighbor drew, he decided to go to bed. But despite his fatigue, he could not sleep. He was always happy that he lived in a new world where there was freedom of choice, where he could fish in the morning, carve wood figures in the afternoon, and write poetry in the evening. With these thoughts, Zelder fell asleep contentedly…

"Nothing contributes to the creation of the future like bold dreams. Today is utopia, tomorrow is flesh and blood."
Victor Hugo