– You fall asleep, go into a trance and then imagine you're there somewhere. It'll suck, but it'll give the Grand Master peace of mind. He really doesn't want to admit failure.

– You'd better be quiet, 'luminary of science,'" Ruthra replied in a tone that only Parmen understood.

– Maybe you really need to calm down your emotional state? – suggested one of the professors, the chief laboratory specialist.

– I'm calm.

– Maybe it's a blockage. You really need to calm down. Let's do this: you will try to create a detached state for yourself, to go into a trance… or better yet, to fall asleep, and we will scan all the incoming frequencies that are functional for the brain. We will switch the equipment to all modes. And if you feel any changes, let us know.

– All right. (chuckles) Let's try that, too, and if it doesn't work, I'm sorry, I'll take it from here.

Soon Rutra went into a trance by meditation, or perhaps he fell asleep. Somewhere in the depths of nirvana he heard Parmen's voice whispering in his ear:

– Relax, I think it's working. We're going to take you to the tomograph and find out what's going on in your head, plus the chip data… we'll know exactly what frequency to manipulate.

– Am I okay? I'm in some strange state. It's like I don't own my own body," Ruthra asked in a whisper without opening his eyes.

– Yes. I confess we are fixing something," Parmen said just as quietly, warily, almost like an incantation.

Suddenly, the machine made an eerie sound, the optical unit glowed, and a shock ran through Rutra's body. Whether Rutra was losing consciousness, or whether the sound had affected him so… he did not know. The fact was that he was completely relaxed, detached, or perhaps paralyzed, almost unconscious, and at the moment when for a moment he had completely shut down, had entered a dreamlike state, had realized that he was losing control, he jerked and woke up. The reality he saw spoke of some kind of change… or he was hallucinating, seeing things, because when he opened his eyes, there was another reality in front of him.

***

It was only after Parmen had told him what was happening in parallel that he realized what was going on. At first he had been surprised, annoyed and indignant. It all concerned the attitude towards Parmen's methods. He had again conceived a cunning program, had lured Rutra into it, and had apparently decided to study his psychological state before the real experiment. In idea – he was right, of course. After all, if we go to an unknown place, country or territory, even if we know a lot of things, we will find ourselves in a completely different mental, spiritual and psychological environment. And what to say if we find ourselves in an unknown world. The scientist was not devoid of imagination, only in the scientific context, but in the design context – alas. The surroundings were squalid.

Ruthra, though he had been out for some time, was thinking clearly, but at the first moment of "waking up" he couldn't understand what was happening. The fact that the surroundings were different was more of a clue than a mystery. So he immediately realized that Parmen had again decided to play a trick on him, as if to create a situation for studying the reaction. He did that periodically, or rather, they did it together. They didn't enter virtual reality to study human behavior in different circumstances, but made such performances in reality. This way it was better to find out how the psyche reacts during the transition to a parallel reality and in it, in that world. It was very difficult to believe in the reality of transition from one world to another. However, it seemed like a dream to Rutra after he regained consciousness. "Parmen most likely used a new technology – altering the perception of reality and creating an illusion of reality," he pondered logically. This technology is used in making feature films – like computer graphics superimposed on real objects, environments, but here – directly through the chip, in the brain, on everything a person sees. Rutra decided that's why he sees things that way.