Viktor and Natalia entered the empty house. The room, devoid of decoration and any furniture, seemed lifeless to the writer, and the air inside was almost indistinguishable from the street air.
"Is this where you live?" he asked, looking around as if with slight disdain, it seemed to Natalia.
"Yes. For two days now," the girl replied, looking intently at Viktor.
"I see..." he said thoughtfully.
"Do you think it was a bad choice?"
"No... Why would it be? Not at all. That's not what I mean..."
"And what is it about?"
"It's just that when I saw you yesterday, your face seemed very familiar to me. Like a memory from childhood..." The writer took a few steps up the stairs to the second level and surveyed the room again from this height. "I'm currently living in my parents' house, not far from here. It's not as spacious, but somehow reminds me of something... So I thought it would be amusing if we turned out to be old neighbors."
"Yes, that would be an interesting plot. Meeting old neighbors..." the girl agreed. "But no."
"Yes, it would be..." Viktor said thoughtfully.
"But we can become good new neighbors, can't we?" Natalia smiled and looked questioningly at the writer.
"I think so," he nodded. "So, where's your water heater?"
"There it is!" The girl pointed to a massive shiny unit mounted on the wall.
"Let's take a look..." Viktor pressed the single flat button slightly recessed into the surface, and a touch screen display lit up on the front panel.
For some time, the appliance made noise, then emitted a piercing, drawn-out beep and fell silent. On the display, only the mysterious inscription "E1" was visible.
"That's exactly how it always behaves," Natalia said sadly.
"This is 'GlobalAutomatix'," the writer stated, examining the metal tag on the side of the unit. "They offer a 25-year warranty... Why haven't you tried calling support?"
"The connection here is very poor. And the Internet doesn't work either."
"And the instructions, of course, have been lost..." Viktor muttered. "I have a similar model. 'E1' is an error code indicating depressurization. The water heater blows through all the pipes and tries to determine if there's a leak, which is why the instructions say that you need to close all the taps when turning it on for the first time."
"You have a good memory. But I don't even have any taps yet..."
"Give me a wrench. Let's try reconnecting everything..."
Natalia rummaged through cardboard boxes piled under the stairs for a while and finally pulled out a shiny wrench. The writer took the tool and silently got to work.
"I've been thinking about what you said," the girl suddenly remarked, watching as Viktor concentratedly unscrewed the nuts. "That you saw me as a child. It's strange... Don't you think?"
"Nothing strange about it," he replied, without taking his eyes off his task. "Memories from childhood are pleasant to me. You also seemed pleasant and nice to me. Warm memories and a warm feeling from a sweet girl. Probably, it just coincided nicely. Like an unexpected sense of déjà vu."
"Do you flirt?"
"No. Please hold this washer-seal."
"Just you talk so easily about what you feel," the girl said, spinning the black rubber circle in her hands.
"I'm a writer. It's part of my profession—to understand and explain human feelings, turning them into words."
"You writers are always inventing things... Things that don't exist."
"Yes, and you photographers simply capture what is. Give me the washer."
"I call it digitizing reality," said Natalia, handing the detail to Viktor. "Whatever image I shoot, it remains forever in my computer."
"That's an interesting idea. In that case, my texts are digitized fantasy."
"Logical."
"Both are, ultimately, just a sequence of zeros and ones," the writer said thoughtfully. "And we consider it important enough to spend our lives on this."
"You're a pessimist..."
"No. If I were a pessimist, I wouldn't believe that your water heater should start working right now," said Viktor and tapped the button on the front panel.
The appliance turned on, displaying temperature readings and control buttons on the touch screen. Natalia pretended to applaud. Water began to hum in the pipes, filling the heating system. Gradually, warmth spread throughout the house.
"So you're not only a master of words, but also of deeds."
"Well, mostly a master of words, of course," the writer replied, blushing slightly, as it seemed to him.
The girl pressed the button on the electric kettle, and it began rapidly heating water with increasing noise.
"Now I simply must offer you a cup of coffee," she said, pouring the contents of a packet into the screwed-on lid of a thermos. "True, it's not exactly a cup... And not exactly coffee... But I have nothing else. I promise I'll be better prepared next time."
"Thank you," said Viktor, taking the improvised cup from Natalia's hands and sipping the hot drink.
"Awful, isn't it?" the girl asked anxiously.
"Yes. The most delicious awful coffee I've had this week, and I..." The writer suddenly stopped, staring thoughtfully into space.
"What's wrong with you?" the girl asked, slightly worried. "Is it really that bad?"
"No... It's just... Another strange sensation."
"Deja vu again?"
"No, something different... Suddenly, I felt how strange and unusual everything was today. Our meeting. This empty house. You in this autumn scarf. Everything seems unreal..."
"Oh, stop it!" laughed the girl. "You clearly haven't left your house in a long time. And generally, you've gone wild here..."
"Maybe, but... You mentioned digitizing reality... What if not only our fantasies and what we see around us, but we ourselves can be digitized? What if we're already someone's digitized fantasy? A sequence of zeros and ones..."
"You probably need to watch less science fiction at night," Natalia said kindly. "I'll walk you out, I suppose."
"Do you think I'm not quite sane?"
"Yes. Overworked from unfamiliar labor," the girl said suddenly, taking Viktor by the arm and leading him out of the house. "Get some fresh air immediately!"