you. No one can say for sure who she is or where she came from. When I saw her, she seemed to be no more than twenty, but I know that she was seen seventy, one hundred and twenty, and two hundred years ago, and every time she was young. They say that they have seen her in various guises ... There are a lot of tales about her, and you cannot tell everyone. Some say that she is a werewolf sorceress, others - that she is a descendant of ancient demons, and still others - that she owns the secret of immortality. I do not presume to judge - I will tell what I know. Annabel is a galactic wanderer, a hunter for other people's secrets - or, to put it simply, an amateur to pry into other people's affairs. They say the secret police of twenty planets are after her. Annabel works only for herself - and one devil knows what she is guided by, digging into the light of God all sorts of abominations that the whole world will learn about later. I know only one thing: any newspaper, any TV channel is ready to lay out a whole cabinet of galactic banknotes for a single seedy secret sold by Annabel. Well, get the mystery in the press - that's all, cover. Not one government collapsed, not one scam revealed, not one noble villain arrested, exiled or simply nailed like a fly, over the years of this beauty, - and how many centuries she works, only God knows, the devil and her. All that I have, including my own worthless life, I owe her. And I remember my duty - and I don’t care what they say about her ... Why did I become sad, kid? Looks like, and she sunk into your soul? Come on, son, never mind: Annabel is cold as star dust ...

“Nooooooooooo! ...” I shouted.

... Many years later. Roule gave me a spaceport, my life was stable - I had, despite my youth, solid earnings, privileges, housing ... But the thoughts about Annabel did not leave me. Her ban pressed me like a millstone on my neck, and I gasped, living alone with my secret. I have no memory of Annie, except for memories - not a hologram, not a lousy photo, not even a glove or a button. Just look sad eyes, looking from the inside of memory ...

A year ago, I learned about the World Brain. The chances were insignificant — after all, Annabel was a galactic wanderer, she hovered the devil-space, and the secret police of twenty planets could not find her, but this was my only hope. For a whole year I made my way to the Brain - in a roundabout way, through acquaintances, bribes and bribes; I spent all my savings and got into debt.

Finally, the day came, which I waited, not believing that it would come. I entered the control center of the World Brain: I was allotted five minutes - the whole five minutes! - in order to take advantage of the power of this incredible machine.

The operator put a helmet on my head, repeated the instructions that I had already remembered by heart, turned on the “start” - and I presented Annabel. As brighter as possible, more precisely - as living: how she kisses me, how she looks at me with her sad eyes, how she soapes my head, how she hugs, and I bathe in her hair ...

“What if she changed? What is she now? What was there Roule said about "many guises"? ... And what if she died? No, no, stop, block extra thoughts! present it brighter, clearer to ... "

But then there was a squeak, and the robot said: "an individual was found on request." Not believing myself, I opened my eyes - and I saw Annabel on the screen. The way I remembered it.

Below was the inscription:

“Humanoid of the earth type, gender is female. Age not defined. He has a son: age 9 years, 113 days, 3 hours, 2 seconds according to the Galactic Timeline. Location..."

- Your time is up! - The operator rose to meet me, and I barely had time to poke the "print" button. I was taken off the helmet, the operator pushed me to the exit - but the coveted piece was already in my pocket.
“The printout of the data is forbidden ...” the operator faltered, feeling for the thousandth bill, which I thrust into his palm.

The next month was spent in flights, in terminals, in transfers from planet to planet ...

And here I am walking along the street of a distant planet Luylarion - I never thought that there was one - I walk past neat houses surrounded by color fences, past gardens, flower gardens, vegetable gardens ... A harmless farmer's planet was the perfect refuge for those who were hiding from secret police of twenty planets, you will tell nothing.

- What a shine on the horizon? - I asked a local resident.
- The star dust has heated up. So we call her. A small comet burned in it - so she warmed up. It's not dangerous for us ...
- Is that so?

I wandered along the quiet streets slowly. I waited so much for this day, experienced so much and felt about it on the way to it, that now I didn’t feel anything, as then, on the day of the landing at Gros-4. Thoughts about the upcoming meeting did not add up to a coherent picture in my head, and I tried to imagine everything ...

- Hey, kid! Open your eyes!

A little boy rushed at my feet. I looked down: the road was littered with creatures that looked like white mice - each was the size of an apple. I looked at their shepherd ...

- It was almost the whole litter did not crush me ... Hey, why did you open your mouth?

But I was silent. It is not every day that one can meet oneself on the street - poured out, one-on-one, only without stubble.

Finally, I asked:
- What is something that is not suppressed?
- Kluffyatnik. Have you never seen a cliff?

Looking at the cliff shepherd, I looked in the mirror.

- What's your name, buddy?
- Gorgodambor! - the Second Self proudly reported. - Only everyone calls me Horus. It's easier for language and brains.
“Tell me, Gore ... does your mother call you a wolf cub?”
- Calls ... how do you know? And anyway, who are you? Well - no place!

In the hands of the Second, I suddenly had a gun.

“Anxiety is one beta,” Gore whispered into the microphone, protruding from behind the ear. He gradually moved back, not taking the gun from me. I did not move, completely unaware of what to do.

Suddenly some kind of apathy, indifference to everything and everyone; and therefore, probably, when a familiar figure with a golden cascade of hair appeared from behind the fence, I thought of her as a hologram: “It has not changed. Just got lower. Or was I grown up? ”

- Who are you? - asked a familiar voice. He, too, has not changed.

I was silent. Sad blue eyes attentively peered at me, squinting against the light ...

***

Three hours later, I still did not understand anything. We lay in bed, exhausted by a love race, but could not TRUST - and eagerly touched, crushed, felt, hugged each other, all wanting to make sure that we were alive and real.

Annie, a big warm Annie, my second mother, was now strangely small and thin, although her face and body had not changed - did her eyes become even sadder, and her eyelashes were even longer. She smiled and cried. A minute ago, her thighs were worn on my young man, as if on a piston, and he heated up with a force that did not fit in him, bursting with him - and I shouted from this force, dazzling, like a supernova, and Annie also shouted, clutching my hair .. .

I stroked her sisi and whispered:
- The same as they were. The same. Only less. And I'm twenty-three ... Annie!
- What?
“I will never forgive you for not seeing you with Gore inside.” Did not see your tummy ...
- I have holograms ... Why did you leave?
- What?!
- All these years I have not lived. Only Gore, the son lived, saw you in him ... Why did you leave? Why listen to me ?!
- Annie ... Say: if I found you through the World Brain, then others can find it? Police, enemies? ..
- Not. Only you could find me. Did not explain to you?
- What?
- The device of the World Brain. You can find only the person who lives in you. Not a shadow, not dead pictures, but - as alive. Do you understand? Otherwise, the machine does not fix the image. I do not live in anyone ... only in you, wolf cub.
“Didn't others fall in love with you?”
- Falling in love is not that. Fall in love with a fictional image, a phantom. Like you, I no longer have. I'm a tumbleweed ... I was. Before the cub was born ... that is, Gore ... that is ... Since then, I quit my games and settled here. It is incredible, it could not be ...
- What?
- A son. Our son. I could not have children.
- Why?
- Because.You know nothing about me, wolf cub. I could live forever - or almost forever. I changed bodies; I had eighty-four of them, and it would be more if I had found suitable deceased. And if the incredible hadn't happened ... I still can't believe it. A long time ago, a thousand years ago - and even more - I was told that I could not love, I could not continue the race. It was a fee for immortality. But there was something else ...
- What?
- I was told ... I don’t remember, I don’t remember well, it was a long time ago, a long time ago ... It’s said that I can give birth to a child only if ...
- If a?
- If HE ... the father of the child ... will warm me, melt me ​​inside, and the core of immortality will melt from its warmth. It seems so. “There are copulations in which He and She come close to the threshold of life and death. From such copulations are born new stars. It happens once in a thousand years ”- it seems that the great Acherisat told me ... I didn’t understand what it meant, I was stupid like a kitten ...
- So, you are no longer immortal?
- I dont know. I don’t remember how it should be: either I will become mortal, like everything, or vice versa - my family will gain immortality ... I only know one thing: now I can’t change bodies anymore. Now I will always be the way you know me.
- And your body ... is it, too, someone died? Someone else, aren't you?
- Yes. It was a girl killed in street battles on your planet - just like your mom and dad. Her name was Annabel. I ... I didn't kill her if you want to ask about it. I never killed ... my bodies. Neither myself nor anyone else's hands.
- And what ... what was you? What was your body like? What was your name?
- I? I am me. I'm Annabel. Annie ... what's the difference that once was? This is my body - the one that is hugging you now. I have no others and never will. Little wolf, little wolf, do you believe that it is me, that it is us? Shameless dilda Annabel, seducing a child, and a little boy yearning for his mother?
- Not. Big, kind, affectionate Annie, my Annie, my best friend - and me. And say ...
- Yes?
- Say: before me you often did ... THAT? With others?
- Let's not talk about it.

Annie threw her arms around my neck and leaned against me, hiding my head on my shoulder - just like I had in her once. And I buried her hair.

Now they smelled differently, not the way they did, on a spaceship, sweeter and shrill. Like spring dust after rain ...

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