The Restorer

It was quiet in the waiting room. It was not the silence that reigns in libraries, but the deafening vacuum silence of a sterile operating room before the first incision.

Adrian Weiss sat in a deep armchair, twirling an empty bottle of "Restorer No. 4" in his hands. That was the name of the shampoo. His hair, sparse and gray just a month ago, now fell onto his shoulders in a thick raven mane, the likes of which he didn't have even at twenty. His teeth, restored by "Enamel-Plus" toothpaste, shone with blinding whiteness. His vision, corrected by disposable "Truth Glasses," allowed him to spot a speck of dust on a conversational partner's lapel from three meters away.

But Adrian had not come to give thanks. He had come for the final remedy. The office door opened. On the threshold stood the Creator—a man without age and without a name, whom the world simply knew as the Doctor. He looked ordinary. Even too ordinary. There were wrinkles on his face, he stooped slightly, and old, worn horn-rimmed glasses sat on his nose.

"Mr. Weiss," the Doctor's voice was as dry as autumn leaves. "You are persistent. My secretaries said that you are ready to buy the entire building, just so I would receive you".

"I can buy this city, Doctor," Adrian replied, standing up. His movements were fluid; his joints did not crack—the "Atlas" cream had done its job. "But I need only one thing. 'Omega'".

The Doctor walked to the desk, sat down, and wearily took off his glasses, wiping them with the edge of his lab coat. "The 'Omega' pill. A panacea restoring all organs. Guaranteeing full tissue regeneration and rejuvenation to the cellular level. The pinnacle of my collection".

"Precisely. I have pancreatic cancer, Doctor. Stage four. Your cream removed the metastases from my skin, your toothpaste strengthened my teeth, but inside I am rotting. I need 'Omega'".

The Doctor sighed and opened a desk drawer. He took out a small black velvet box. "Do you understand the operating principle of my inventions, Mr. Weiss?" "Of course," Adrian looked greedily at the box. "They heal; they fix damage".

"No," the Doctor shook his head. "You are mistaken. My inventions do not heal. They roll back. They return matter to its 'factory settings.' To the standard".

"What is the difference?" Adrian waved his hand dismissively. "The toothpaste returns the structure to teeth encoded in DNA before sugar and coffee destroyed it. The cream returns skin to the state before the sun burned it. That is healing".

"That is restoration," the Doctor corrected gently. "Imagine you found a painting by a great master in the attic. It is covered in dust, the varnish has cracked, there is a hole in the corner. You give it to a restorer. He removes the dirt, patches the hole, renews the colors. The painting is perfect again. But..." The Doctor paused, looking straight into the billionaire's eyes. "Does the canvas remember hanging in the attic? Does it remember the dust?"

"A canvas is a thing. I am a human being. Give me the pill".

The Doctor placed the box on the table but did not remove his hand. "Do you know why I wear glasses myself, Mr. Weiss? Why I do not use my shampoo?"

"Because you are a shoemaker without shoes? Or an eccentric genius?"

"Because I know the price of perfection. Disease is the organism's conflict with reality. Aging is the chronicle of our battle with time. Every scar on your body is a recorded story. 'Omega' does not just cure an organ. It erases the history of its wear. It makes your liver the way it would be if you had never drunk wine. It makes your heart the way it would be if you had never loved or suffered".

"I am ready to sacrifice sentimentality for life!" Adrian barked. "I want to live forever!"

"You want your organism to function," the Doctor said quietly. "These are different things. But I have no right to refuse". He pushed the box forward.

Adrian grabbed it with trembling hands. Inside lay a single pill—perfectly round, white, odorless. He swallowed it without water. 

The effect was instantaneous. Adrian felt the pain that had been gnawing at his side for years vanish. As if someone had flipped a switch.

Warmth spread through his veins. He felt his lungs expand, his heart begin to beat with the steady, powerful rhythm of a hydraulic pump. His skin tightened, pigment spots dissolved. He straightened up. And felt like a god. Adrian walked to the mirror hanging in the corner of the office. A young man of about twenty-five looked back at him from the reflection. Ideal, symmetrical, flawless.

"This is incredible..." Adrian whispered. "I feel... I feel absolute power. Thank you, Doctor. How much do I owe you?"

The Doctor put his old glasses back on and began writing something in a journal. "Nothing. You have already paid".

"Don't speak nonsense. I will transfer a billion to you. I will make you the king of this world! I can do anything now! I..." Adrian fell silent. He looked at the Doctor. Then he looked at his hands. Ideal hands of a pianist. In his head, a strange thought arose, frightening in its emptiness. Why transfer money? Why be a king? Why do anything at all?

"Doctor..." Adrian's voice changed. It became even, devoid of intonation. "I remembered my wife. She died five years ago".

"And what do you feel?" asked the Doctor, not raising his head.

Adrian frowned, trying to grope for the familiar pain of loss, that splinter in the heart that forced him to work twenty hours a day to forget himself. "Nothing. I remember the fact of her death. Like I remember the start date of the Second World War. But... it doesn't hurt".

"Grief is stress for the nervous system," the Doctor explained in a mundane tone. "It is a destructive process. 'Omega' eliminated it. It restored your neurons to a state of ideal rest".

"I remembered my son," Adrian continued. "We haven't spoken for ten years. I was angry at him." He listened to himself. "There is no anger. There is no resentment".

"Anger raises blood pressure and wears out blood vessels. 'Omega' suppressed this reaction".

Adrian stood in the middle of the room. He was absolutely healthy. He was immortal. And absolutely empty. His ambitions, his passion, his love, his hate, his thirst for power—all these were deviations from the norm. All these were diseases of the spirit that were reflected in the body. Now that the body had become ideal, the spirit had nothing to cling to. An ideal mechanism does not dream. An ideal mechanism simply exists.

"What did you do to me?" Adrian asked. There was no fear in his voice, only pure curiosity.

"I cured you," the Doctor closed the journal. "Completely. Human personality is a collection of traumas, complexes, and perception defects. You asked to remove all defects, asked to restore the system. Congratulations. Now you are the standard".

Adrian walked to the window. It was raining behind the glass. Before, it used to annoy him or evoke sadness. Now it was just water falling from the sky. A physical phenomenon. He had nothing left to want. He had nowhere to go. "And what do I do now?" the ideal man asked.

The Doctor stood up, walked to the cabinet, and took out a mannequin. An ordinary plastic mannequin. "The same as any ideal object, Mr. Weiss. Be stored".

Adrian's gaze became glassy. He sat in the armchair. But not because he was tired, but because he saw no reason to stand: his heart beat evenly, his organs worked flawlessly, his brain was clean like a formatted hard drive. He ceased to be a personality. He became an exhibit. The Doctor dialed a number on the phone.

"Send the movers. Object 'Weiss' is ready. Restoration complete. Yes, 'mint' condition. Not a single scratch, not a single emotion. Send him to the Customer."

"What Customer?" Adrian asked mechanically, staring at the wall.

The Doctor smiled, and for the first time, something non-human glinted in his eyes. "The one who created this world, Adrian. He was dissatisfied that his biological robots gained self-awareness, began to suffer, get sick, and fantasize. He hired me to fix them. One by one. To return them to the state of mindless, happy, eternal servants."

The Doctor walked up to Adrian and straightened his tie. "Welcome back to Paradise, Adam. Now you again know neither good nor evil. You are simply healthy."

Adrian Weiss, the richest man on the planet, smiled a wide, dazzling, and absolutely empty smile. "Thank you," he said. "I function".