After deleting the match, Ariadna did not open the next task for several minutes. I decided she was still thinking about Anna Mikhailovna and asked:
"Did you want a different outcome?"
"I did not construct an outcome. Only the encounter."
"But did you hope for one?"
"Yes."
For the first time, she answered such a question without asking what I meant by the word. I drew the stool closer.
"What did you hope for?"
"That Anna Mikhailovna would want to write for the stage again."
"So it didn't work after all."
"We succeeded in acknowledging the fact and honouring her refusal. We did not succeed in bringing the author back."
"Sometimes a person needs time."
"Sometimes a person has said no."
We sat in silence. They were rehearsing without the ladder in the auditorium, and fragments of a new scene came through the wall. Timur was arguing with Lidia Pavlovna about a cup: the text said it was empty, but Lidia had filled it with water and now refused to pretend.
"I want to write a bad play," Ariadna said.
"In what sense?"
"With no guaranteed benefit. No reconciliation. No attendance target. One that may be rejected and will not be corrected automatically to fit the task."
I felt the excitement that usually comes over a director when an author brings in their first genuinely dangerous idea.
"Not bad. Deliberately imperfect."
"I said 'bad'."
"A bad text is no use to anyone, including its author. But imperfection can become a method. We'll leave gaps, false turns, things with no function. At first the audience will think it's a mistake, and then they'll understand…"
"Understand what?"
I stopped. The sentence had no ending, but my intonation had already promised a revelation.
"That not everything has to serve an outcome."
"Then the play will still be useful. It will explain that usefulness is unnecessary."
"That's a paradox."
"It's the same task under a different name."
Something entered her voice that had not been there before: not a delay or technical evenness, but patience cut short.
"Leonid Lvovich, I asked for the right to write something that might prove bad. You have already made it outstanding and assigned the audience the correct conclusion."
"I'm developing the idea."
"You are replacing it with your own because yours can be admired."
I pushed the stool away. More than two centimetres this time.
"Are you talking about the play?"
"Yes."
"Only about the play?"
"I am talking about what I said."
It was almost cruel. Not because she denied the hidden meaning, but because she left me only the words she had spoken.
"All right," I said. "Write a bad one."
"The current contract does not provide for an independently authored text by the system."
Vera had spotted that gap on the first day. At the time, I said we would come to an agreement with Ariadna, although the contract did not recognise her as a party.
"We'll make provision for it."
"Who will sign the authorisation?"
Vera's question returned in her voice.
I went to find Vera.
She was in the wardrobe room with Raya, counting the items that could be used in the laboratory without separate copyright clearance. Real coats, old suitcases and stools counted as theatre property. A painted portrait from someone else's production, an artist-designed mask and a specially constructed ladder required a rights check.
"Ariadna wants to write a play," I said.
"Good."
"A bad one."
Vera did not look up from the list.
"That's an artistic question."
"Her authorship isn't covered by the contract."
"I said that on the first day."
"We didn't know then that she would want to."
"That's why rights are set down before desire enters into it. Once it does, everyone starts bargaining with feelings."
She put the inventory sheet aside and, for the first time, asked Ariadna through the terminal about something other than risk, access or the schedule. She asked about the play. Ariadna repeated her wish word for word. Vera did not improve it.
"Then we need an authorship module, the right to refuse revisions and a person accountable for publication," she said. "We won't put bad quality into the contract. We'll have to trust the art on that one."
The last words sounded almost indecent coming from her. Raya stopped counting coats and looked at her.
"What?" Vera asked. "I can do it too."
We discussed the amendment with the operator's lawyer for three hours. He returned the first version because of the word 'author': the system could not be a party to an author's contract. The second called Ariadna the source of the output but allowed the theatre to alter the text without consulting her. I asked how that made the source any different from a printer. The lawyer replied that a printer was also the source of an output in the technical sense, and we lost another twenty minutes.
The third version named the theatre as author. Ariadna refused.
"It's simpler in legal terms," Vera said.
"Then the theatre will be able to stage the text after I have refused."
"It will, unless we record a prohibition."
We included a separate provision allowing Ariadna to withdraw the text from production, a prohibition on altering lines outside an agreed procedure and an obligation to credit her by name. The name caused another dispute: the operator owned the system's trade designation, the theatre owned the name of the pilot scheme, and "Ariadna" was also used by two other programs and a wool shop.
"I want to be credited as Ariadna," she said.
The lawyer asked for a surname or qualification. I suggested 'Ariadna of the Second Exit'. Vera said it sounded like a title of nobility. Raya said it sounded like the name of a suburban train. Ariadna chose: `ARIADNA, DRAMATURGICAL SYSTEM OF THE SECOND EXIT THEATRE`.
"It's long," I said.
"It is precise," she replied.
Later, only the name remained on the poster, while the full line went into the contract and programme. That was how Ariadna acquired the right to a short life on stage through a long one in law.
The last clause concerned bad quality. The lawyer proposed a compulsory expert assessment before any performance. Ariadna asked whether the expert could ban the play solely because it was bad. Yes, if the theatre decided to give them that power. Vera rejected an external veto and instituted an ordinary artistic council, under which the author could reject its comments provided the production remained within the approved budget.
"What if it's truly awful?" the lawyer asked.
"Then we'll sell tickets and find out," Vera said.
I looked at her with a respect I tried not to turn into surprise. I did not entirely succeed.
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