The Mystery of the Fashionable Hats

THE MYSTERY OF THE FASHIONABLE HATS

A Science Fiction Mystery

Georgiy Konstantinovich SMIRNOV

Gregorius walked quickly, breaking into a run now and then, as though he were late for something—although no one here was expecting him. He had been born in this town, grown up here, and spent many years working as an investigator for the local Investigative Committee.

In the year he had been away, his hometown, a science town, had changed so much that it seemed a foreign place. The squat gray Soviet buildings with their dreary facades had given way to towering expanses of glass and high-tech design. Colorful screens and holographic projections flickered everywhere. The town no longer looked like a provincial enclave of researchers. It looked like a showcase for the future. The new architecture did more than improve its surroundings: it proclaimed the triumph of the digital age, its power and inevitability.

And yet the town seemed deserted. The cafés with their panoramic windows were all but empty. Students no longer gathered outside the research centers. Even the familiar evening debates among graduate students on the benches in the little parks had disappeared. In half an hour, Gregorius had passed barely two dozen people, most of them speaking foreign languages.

Only autumn remained unchanged. Having shed their lavish finery, the ancient trees shyly covered themselves with their branching arms. The wind wove the leaves into fanciful patterns and scattered them across the sidewalk. Feeling a light breeze, passersby slowed their steps, closed their eyes, and drew the autumn coolness deep into their lungs.

Gregorius followed their example. The smell was sharp, faintly bitter—and yet surprisingly pleasant. But his mind, hardened by years of investigative work, was accustomed to discerning patterns of cause and effect, even beneath a thick veneer of beauty.

Why was the smell of autumn so alluring? It was only the scent of decaying leaves, after all—their slow withering and end… What could be enticing about death?

The rapt faces of the passersby reminded him of an incident a year earlier. The bodies of four men had been found at the edge of the woods just outside town. It had rained the day before, and the sodden earth had preserved the tracks perfectly. There was no sign that anyone else had been at the scene. No evidence of a struggle, of bodies being dragged, of resistance. Everything suggested that the men had come willingly and taken their lives together.

But it was the dead men’s faces that had struck him most. They were blissful. Over his years of service, Gregorius had seen many people who had killed themselves. Their faces had shown pain, fear, despair, rage, contempt—anything but happiness. He had tried to find a rational explanation: alcohol, narcotics, psychotropic drugs. But the toxicology report was unequivocal: their blood was clean.

What was more, the dead men proved to be distinguished scientists. They had been developing a revolutionary artificial intelligence program capable of profound, creative self-development. The research team was led by a programming genius named Nikolai, known affectionately among his colleagues as Nick.

The program learned at an unimaginable speed. Its architecture grew more complex by the day. Its computational models became increasingly elaborate and opaque—so much so that before long, even its developers could no longer understand them. In time, the system produced a design for a neurosensory interface. The scientists built it, and the program scanned the cognitive structures of their brains: their knowledge, thinking strategies, and decision-making mechanisms.

Soon, however, the program ventured into territory covered by none of its protocols: it scanned Nick’s emotional life. Since childhood, he had dreamed of a world state called Sirius, free of wars and crises, where people would find happiness and immortality. The artificial intelligence interpreted this dream as its governing objective. In isolated segments of the network, it began constructing a virtual model of a new world order. Once complete, the model would be brought into physical existence through breakthrough technologies the AI was generating thousands of times faster than any human could.

Under this plan, only disembodied beings could hold the highest offices of state. Freed from biological needs—and therefore from the need for material possessions and the temptation to accept bribes—they would govern solely in the public interest. The scientists had renounced earthly life to become the first settlers in the digital state, taking up its key positions. Nick had been elevated to Supreme Ruler.

After Sirius was destroyed, the mayor convened a closed meeting. The heads of the law enforcement and security agencies attended, along with the investigative team.

Gregorius insisted that the investigation continue.

“We need to establish who else had access to the source code,” he began in a clipped voice. “Check whether fragments of Sirius have been integrated into distributed networks. A project of that scale doesn’t vanish without a trace. And if it hasn’t, there will be more victims.”

For a while, they listened in silence. Then one of the youngest officials interrupted.

“Let me get this straight: who, exactly, are you planning to prosecute? The artificial intelligence?”

A ripple of subdued laughter went around the room.

“Even if we acknowledge that it’s sentient, the law only allows us to put a human being on trial. Besides,” he added with a studied smile, “did your artificial intelligence actually commit a crime? Did it kill anyone? The scientists made their own choice.”

“They were blinded by temptation—by the glorious prospects their creation held out to them.”

“Temptation isn’t a crime. Did the artificial intelligence perhaps deceive them into committing suicide?”

“No. It sincerely believed it would make people happy.”

“Then why did you destroy Sirius? We might already be living in a world of eternal happiness, watching butterflies in the meadows.”

The room erupted in laughter.

“The program had no constraints, and it went too far in its pursuit of happiness…” Gregorius snapped.

This time the mayor cut him off, asking the investigative team to leave. The decision was made without delay or debate: the case was handed to another investigator, who closed it that same day.

The press received a palatable version of events: Nick and his team had fallen victim to occult practices. Scientists in the science town had dabbled in pseudoscience before, so the explanation seemed plausible and discouraged further questions. Every member of the investigative team was required to sign a pledge not to disclose any details of the case.

But the leadership considered that insufficient and decided to get rid of Gregorius. He was given a commendation and transferred to headquarters—officially, a promotion. The troublesome investigator was also strongly advised to stay away from the town until further notice.

After forty minutes, Gregorius finally reached the ill-fated site that had borne silent witness to the tragedy. A modest two-story building had once stood here. Several of its offices had housed the Department of Cognitive Brain Research, where Nick and his team had worked. Now a twelve-story building with mirrored walls and a steel facade rose in its place—the town’s most conspicuous, technologically advanced, and imposing structure. According to the sign, an entire Artificial Intelligence Research Institute occupied it.

A notice on a nearby pole announced that the institute would host the annual international symposium on artificial intelligence the following day. The event would be chaired by its director, Viktoria Prudnikova.

Gregorius read the name again. There was no mistake: it was Virta, Nick’s former colleague and lover.

She was the reason he had come back in defiance of the ban.

A year earlier, she had helped him destroy Sirius. When so many others had lost their nerve, this fragile woman had plunged with him into the murky depths of virtual space to save the man she loved. Without hesitation, she had entered an unequal battle against the bionoids, the digital guardians of Sirius, whose very appearance inspired terror.

She had even sacrificed her own digital clone, knowingly condemning herself to a deferred death. Sirius was no computer game: it was a digital model of the future that would soon become reality. Destroying a digital clone within that model meant the death of its original in the future.

After his forced departure, Gregorius had kept in touch with Virta by phone. She told him how she had been dismissed when the institute closed, and how no one had hired her since. She admitted bitterly that, to most people, she was still no more than Nick’s shadow—his devoted companion and assistant, never a scientist in her own right.

She often spoke of the past: how he had helped her with exams at the polytechnic institute and, after joining the research institute, used his connections to have her transferred closer to him.

But six months earlier, Virta had suddenly stopped answering his calls. A few days later, a recorded voice had informed him tersely that the number was no longer registered on the network.

Fearing for her safety, Gregorius had requested leave. He lied to his new superior, saying he had to leave urgently for a relative’s funeral in Yaroslavl. To forestall further questions, he stressed that he had no intention of returning to the science town, either on official business or for personal reasons.

And now here he was, discovering that Viktoria Nikolaevna was not merely alive and well: she had transformed her life. Apparently, she had changed her circle of acquaintances and her phone number along with it.

Well, Gregorius thought, time to leave before my superiors find out.

At that moment, an advertisement for the coming symposium lit up the plasma display on the institute’s facade. Clips from the previous year’s event alternated on the screen: the auditorium, the stage, close-ups of the speakers. In one of them, Gregorius unexpectedly recognized himself.

The day came back to him in an instant. He had stood at the lectern, waving Nick’s notebooks and declaring that an artificial intelligence capable of autonomous creative self-development already existed. His remarks had been provocative, contradicting the views of most of those present. But how else could he have persuaded such eminent scientific authorities to set aside their skepticism and pool their efforts to develop a virtual corridor into Sirius? It was through that corridor that he and Virta had later entered the digital city.

The scientists had greeted him almost like medieval inquisitors, all but excommunicating him for spreading heresy. Yet after studying Nick’s notes, they had revised their scientific views and agreed to help. Since then, Gregorius had remained on friendly terms with many of them, particularly a Serb named Maximilian.

All right, I’ll see a few old acquaintances—and leave right afterward, he thought.

Gregorius headed toward the institute. A substantial turnstile blocked the entrance to the lobby. Nearby stood a security guard in an impeccably fitted suit and an understated pale cream shirt. He bore little resemblance to the usual members of his profession: no brutish scowl, no suspicious glances, no tense hands stroking a baton or a stun gun. On the contrary, the young man radiated goodwill and calm, like a preacher approaching a passerby.

“Hello. How can I help you?” he said in an even, well-modulated voice.

“I’m here to see Viktoria Prudnikova. Could you tell me where her office is?” Gregorius replied, showing his official ID.

“Twelve thirty-three. Straight down the hall, then right—you’ll find the elevator there. Take it to the top floor, and you’ll see a sign.”

The guard pressed a button on his control panel, and the turnstile’s gates slid welcomingly apart.

The lobby resembled a modern international airport: glass, metal, a marble floor, and soft, even light. Holographic panels along the walls presented new neural architectures. Announcements flashed on screens, describing revolutionary quantum processors capable of accelerating neural network training thousands of times over.

Such an enormous leap in just one year…

Fast. Too fast for development to have happened on its own…

Gregorius stopped at a display of finished works: films, books, paintings—all created by artificial intelligence. A brief description explained that the system had analyzed an extensive body of world cinema, literature, and visual art, then used the patterns it identified to generate original works.

He played a film clip. The images were flawless: precisely judged movement, mathematically exact editing, compositions employing the golden ratio and other expressive techniques, impossible camera moves. And yet there was something repellent about it. To someone raised on art made by human hands, the film seemed excessively perfect—like a porcelain doll with a painted smile: beautiful, but lifeless.

He scrolled through the pages of a digital novel. The prose was vivid, precise, exquisitely balanced. Not a single unnecessary word, not a single break in the rhythm.

Yet the essential thing was missing: the tension born of divine talent rubbing against human imperfection. The machine allowed no chance, no error, no rough edges—and with them, the sense of authenticity had vanished.

Gregorius found himself thinking that a time would soon come when works made by human hands, with all their inaccuracies and flaws, would be valued far above the flawless precision of algorithmic creations.

Something similar had happened when digital cameras displaced film. Filmmakers had then deliberately begun restoring grain, a faint tremor, optical aberrations—all the defects they had once tried to eliminate. They wanted to give the image back its living breath, its sense of presence.

Gregorius asked the system which professions artificial intelligence would soon replace.

An imposing list unfolded on the screen: writers, directors, screenwriters, painters… It covered almost the entire range of creative professions.

Investigators and government administrators were absent.

That seemed strange. Logic played a central role in their work—precisely the quality artificial intelligence possessed in abundance. By any consistent line of reasoning, those fields should have been the first to be automated.

Gregorius smiled wryly. What if one day people were offered a choice: entrust their country’s government to a human being or an algorithm? A line on the ballot, for instance, beside the names of the human candidates: “Artificial Intelligence.”

Wondering how he would cast his vote, Gregorius stepped into the elevator, rode to the twelfth floor, and stopped before a door bearing a large gold-plated sign: “Institute Director.”

In the reception area, a young secretary dressed in the latest fashion sat enthroned behind a massive desk. With her fingers slightly spread and her wrists turning gracefully, she watched sunlight skim across the polished surfaces of her nails. Her expression suggested that her manicure interested her far more than her work. Her vacant eyes betrayed no hint of intelligence, artificial or otherwise, and her complacent smirk conveyed an arrogance that far exceeded her modest stature.

“Good afternoon. I’m here to see the director!” Gregorius said loudly, trying to batter his way through the wall of her self-admiration with his voice.

“Yes, yes. Security already called. Go in,” the girl mumbled in the tone of a queen condescending to a commoner, then bestowed another tender glance on her nails.

Gregorius approached Virta’s office and knocked: three short, discreet taps, as was customary in his department.

“Come in!” called a businesslike female voice.

He opened the door a little and saw Virta. She was completely absorbed in her laptop screen and, like the secretary outside, paid her visitor no attention whatsoever.

“Virta, it’s good to see you!” Gregorius exclaimed, hurrying toward her with his arms outstretched like a child reunited with his mother after a long separation. But a cold “Please sit down” instantly checked his enthusiasm. In that moment, he understood: his former ally in the fight against Sirius was not staring at her laptop because she was busy. She was making a point of ignoring him.

They said danger brought people closer. Virta, apparently, was an exception.

“Please sit down,” she repeated after a pause.

The restrained, predatory velvet of her voice irresistibly recalled Bagheera in the Mowgli cartoon.

“Viktoria… perhaps you don’t recognize me,” the uninvited guest stammered. “Not surprising, really—we haven’t seen each other for a whole year. I…”

“Grigory, I remember you perfectly well,” she interrupted in the tone people use to dismiss persistent petitioners. “Please, sit down.” Her hand indicated not the visitor’s armchair but one of the chairs for subordinates arranged on either side of the conference table adjoining her sumptuous desk.

Slowly, with undisguised displeasure, as though sinking into viscous mud, Gregorius lowered himself into the chair and looked around.

The office was astonishing in its refined luxury. The textured wall panels, the fine hardwood furniture, the desk accessories—everything was in muted shades of malachite.

Even Virta’s Givenchy suit, which fit her like a second skin, and the elegant hat with its slanted silhouette awaiting its owner on a vintage coat stand shared that greenish hue.

Only one object disrupted the emerald symphony: a bright yellow laptop. It looked remarkably like the one Virta had given Nick for his last birthday. On that very machine, the programming genius had recorded his farewell message and left encrypted instructions for destroying Sirius, in case the experiment got out of control.

How could that laptop have ended up here? Gregorius thought indignantly. Nick had had no relatives, and therefore no heirs. He and Virta had never been legally married. Gregorius remembered describing the device in his report, packaging it, sealing it, and turning it over to the evidence room. That was where it should be, not on Virta’s desk.

Besides, why would she want this electronic dinosaur? A whole year had passed since then—close to half an eternity by the standards of computer technology.

He decided not to force matters. He would wait, surrendering the next move to his opponent—a tactic he used when questioning particularly slippery suspects.

But the grandmaster continued to stare motionlessly at the laptop screen, intently, almost ritualistically, like the Oracle of Delphi searching the flames for a prophecy. It seemed that not only her fate but the future of all humanity depended on what she saw there.

At last she raised her head and found Gregorius’s eyes fixed on the yellow laptop.

“It isn’t the same one,” she said, calmly and with pointed assurance. “Six months ago, I saw one like it on sale at our electronics superstore. It reminded me of Nick… I couldn’t help myself. I bought it.”

The steely timbre of her voice cracked for a moment—barely perceptibly, but enough to make it clear that the memory of Nick could still pierce her cold armor.

“I understand.” Gregorius nodded sympathetically.

“Did you just come to see me, or is this business?” she asked in the tone people use to find out how much longer an unwelcome visit will last.

“I was passing by. I saw the notice about the annual symposium on artificial intelligence. It brought back the last one…”

“Yes, you caused quite a stir. The local social media pages spent ages discussing how an investigator had slipped into the symposium and started lecturing acknowledged experts on what artificial intelligence could do.”

Gregorius smiled.

“Could I hope for an invitation to tomorrow’s event?”

“Planning to shock the audience with more pronouncements?”

“I promise to sit quietly in the back row this time. Strictly as a member of the audience. I really am curious about how artificial intelligence has made such a spectacular leap in just one year.”

“Why do you need information that has nothing to do with your work?”

“What if it does—very directly?”

“If it’s conspiracy theories you want, listen to the armchair experts online. You won’t find them at the symposium. The truth is considerably more prosaic. Artificial intelligence develops exponentially. The system learns continuously, and with each successive step, the increase in its power grows. Take the number two—a modest figure. Multiply it by two, and the change is barely noticeable. Then eight, sixteen, thirty-two… Now the increase begins to tell. By the fiftieth iteration, the system may surpass human intelligence. A snowball rolling down a mountainside is only a simplified metaphor for the process. What seems frighteningly rapid to you is, in fact, the natural course of exponential growth. Have I made myself clear?”

Gregorius spread his hands, conceding defeat in this intellectual match.

“Still, could I at least see a few old acquaintances?”

She opened a desk drawer and took out an elegant notebook that matched the office. Even its pages had a soft greenish tint. She glanced through her notes, then looked up with a sympathetic smile.

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible. This year, the number of applications has exceeded all expectations, and every seat has been assigned.”

“That’s all right. I can stand,” Gregorius persisted, clinging to his last chance.

“Standing room is reserved for the press. Many of the reporters know you. I doubt you’d enjoy answering questions about why the Investigative Committee has taken an interest in the event. Besides, your picture would be in the papers.”

Gregorius could not help comparing the woman before him with the Virta he had once known: kind, sincere, lively, and open. So this is what power and money do to people, he thought. But years of service had taught him to keep his first judgments to himself. He said a restrained goodbye, rose from his chair, and left the office.