That way he cut a fine figure, yes, reminiscent of a hussar from the Czarist army in their spiffy uniform of which they used to don just one sleeve, the thing called ’mentick,' excuse my Russian. However, he advanced further, the mentioned dare-devil, this here 2ic, in leaving both jacket sleeves vacant, and he also was bereft of both cavalry and banditto moustachios

’I say,' said 2ic after he dumped his jacket on the opposite double seat and crashed next to it, facing V. ‘Are all of Pretty Boys so predictable? Nearing the Cabin, I knew you'll be sitting in the corner—doesn't matter left or right—and corner it is! Why?’

’To give the commoners a lucky chance to enjoy our nifty appearance, I guess,' suggested V.

‘A-ha!. So, the corner ain't a vantage point for zeroing in a guy of the same quality? A start up who pops up to check if you are still a decent gunslinger? Maybe that is why?’

’The interrogative “why” supposes a zillion possible answers,' responded V wearily.

‘Right… Now the file in question was shoplifted at my workplace and it's a transcript, actually.’

‘Whoa, man! Stop! For sacred security’s sake! You drunk or something? What if I’m wired? All you say now may be used against your ass as well as it’s hole!’

2ic shook his head in disdain.

’Forget the deprecated shit, dude. No recording can be used against the vilest villain now, thanks to non-stop scientific achievements. My lawyer will announce the recorded stuff a prank I plotted to pull your leg. Moreover, if you’re presenting just my words unsupported by unlawful intentions.

Wake up! The 2-step-verification Age has arrived, my friend. No court would pick up a case where mere words are not backed up with acts backed up with well-documented thoughts I thought while doing it. No, sir, raw acts without 2-step-verification don't count any more. Were you caught blood-handed over a body stubbed into tatters or with your pants down before a bevy of kindergarten students. Doesn’t matter. You might have been manipulated and set up by means of retrospective causality. Yep. A dirty trick of your sister’s great-grand-kid. A revenge for not sharing a candy of which she, your sister, aged 3, complained in the video found by her posterity brat in their attic. Do you follow? Horse and carriage. Only a crime confirmed by 2-s-v is a crime.’

’So, if they break my email account, find some stuff send by you but they don’t have a recording of your thought, like, ‘Hey! I sure will send this to V!’, you are immune?

‘Exactly! Innocent like a newly born nepo baby! And let them eff themselves in your email box! Excuse my French.’

‘Then why haven’t you just sent me the file?’

’My message in your mailbox plus my recorded thought to do it make me liable. Can't you see?

‘Thought recording? What hooey are you pushing here?’

‘Man, that’s what I’m doing at my workplace… Ever happened to hear about “noosphere”?’

‘?’

‘Well, there’s not only atmo- and/or stratospheres now, they’ve dug up a noosphere too. It's where gets each thought of everybody capable of thinking. The most secret thought broadcast. The way radio transmitters do. The analogy ends where radio signals wear out and die away because your thoughts stay there, indestructible. True, the bleeding-edge technologies have not yet developed to the full potential, however, theoretically, you can reads Da Vinci’s thoughts at his painting Mona.’

‘How about your Dad’s thoughts at spilling you out from his loins within the slew of less shifty spermatozoa?’

‘It’s a harder nut to crack. The problem of extracting his thoughts from heaps of thoughts emitted by other men in the like process plus those of male big apes in zoos around the world. Everests of doubles.’

‘Now your prize story looks like a fairy tale, pal.’

‘I know, it’s hard to it in at once. The whole swarm of intangible thoughts corralled in the noosphere, wreathing, swiping thru each other, not even aware of how overcrowded the place is. And being doing it throughout the whole world history. Proliferating. Reckless bastards not giving a fuck about the Malthusian Theory. They add up, multiply, keep meandering into each other like radio waves or stray quanta and other stuff which no normal guy can cram into his gibbous nob, are you with me?’

‘Since they are so unobtrusive, I don’t mind their vortexes or swamps, or wherever are located their intangible warehouses of impalpable matryoshkas.’

‘Everywhere, buddy. In you, in me, in this here table. Thoughts, thoughts, thoughts, thoughts…’

‘You’ve screwed the cite up. It runs like “words, words…” and so forth in the original.’

‘Words are not for keep. Too fragile, unstable, often broken, passing and then lost irretrievably. Thoughts are another kettle of fish. They are always there. Accruing part of the noosphere.’

‘Thanks for the entertaining tall story yet, as a regular hick, I can’t believe in anything I can’t grope.’

’Can you grab a radio wave?'

‘Nope. But I can click on the receiver self-made by my Dad back in the last millennium and listen to the weather report.’

‘Some guys earn their living by reading the thoughts from the noosphere.’

‘Come on! No medium managed to pass SPR or ASSAP checks.’

‘Who talks of mediums? I mean the co-employees at my workplace. The job is twirling knobs to fine tune to noosphere thoughts, that’s what I do.’

‘Receivers?’

‘Kind of.’

‘OK. Suppose, it’s not a sham trick invented by hostile aliens. Still, I can’t not even remotely imagine how…’

‘Ready to give up some 20 years of your eventful life to remotely imagine how? The learning curve is pretty steep though. Something based on the Algorithm of Chaos.’

* * *

3

Waitress Sally approached their table. So it stood in the badge on her magnificent breast, the left one. As always in his intercourse with female servants, V closely