Labyrinth of reflections

0

In the beginning – it is dark.

All the colors of the world have gone in an instant.

I didn't notice when and how it happened. The deep program just was here, but now there's nothing at all.

Maybe this is how divers die, falling to the very bottom of the virtual space, burning down their brains and not perceiving anything anymore?

But the darkness fractions into the mesh of tiny squares, changes brightness and colors return.

I'm standing with my forehead pressed against the wall, the drawn wall of the drawn house.

Weird. Looks like I've entered the virtual space without turning the deep program on at all, but I'm not just looking on the helmet's screens, I'm kinda really here! It's just the world isn't real anymore, it became drawn and cartoon-like.

I step back from the wall, squares merge turning into brown rectangles: bricks. I look at the sky – dark bluishness with sparse stars. Houses and palaces are lined along the street, looking like kids' drawings: sharp contours filled with colors. This little house is the brick one, this fence is wooden, fur trees in the garden… Steel tubes with yellow patches on their spikes are stuck along the street – lampposts… Fake, just a fake. More decent parts of the city are drawn better but I'm somewhere in the suburbs now, the world around was created with simple programs and is maintained by weak servers.

But the funniest thing is that I'm quite real myself! The shirt sleeve torn in the fight, scratched hands… I raise my hand closer to the eyes and can see every hair, a dirt under nails and the skin bruised against fingerbones.

A real human in the cartoon.

I start to shiver. This is something new, it never happened before. What did the deep program do to me, been run a thousand times? What did I do to it when surfaced from insanity?

The sound flows closer from behind. I turn around and see the bus moving along the street: a huge two storey rattletrap, made of glass almost completely. The bus is drawn pretty thoroughly, even its wheels are rotating. Caricature faces are glued to the windows: kids, adults, elders. The Deep-Transit's emblem is on the bus' side.

I just stand, gasping for air, looking at the motionless faces. Well, why would they be different – mimicry can be expressed only by very good, tuned programs, aimed for the single user. These are just tourists.

The bus stops, the people exit it awkwardly, an elegant gentleman dressed in bright– red overalls is in front: the guide. All men are dressed absolutely the same in suits with ties, just a single black guy in the group is in jeans and t-shirt. All faces are indifferently well– shaped, like a second line villains' in kids' cartoon series. The women are all in luxurious dresses, much better worked out than their faces, wearing jewelry. Also a flock of kids with cartoony big eyes and a group of elder men and women dressed in blinkers and with cameras. The guy in the wheelchair is the last to exit the bus with the help of others.

– Hi! – shouts the guide to me and waves his hand. His mouth opens but no mimicry can be seen either.

– Hello… – I force out a smile and the satisfied Deep-Transit employee turns to his wards:

– What attracts you most… { In English in the original } I hear a slight hissing and the guide's voice becomes barely heard. A dry, vaguely familiar voice drowns it:

– What you interests most in this district Deeptown? We can see good known… – a pause, – famous, renowned center of book selling, where they will offer to your attention any literature… – a pause, – any books, magazines, newspapers, paper media published since…

I blink as a kid who ripped open his beloved teddy bear to find soiled rags, crumpled paper and somebody's dirty sock inside. Gee, and I valued Windows-Home's interpreter program so high! I was amazed how fast and correctly does it translate from any of the five official Deeptown's languages!

Yeah, fast is true, but all correctness is ensured by our own brains only, as it picks adequate words from the mess.

– Also there are, located, known, popular restaurants "Arthur's Sword" and "Four– Ten". If we walk on forty-three street hundred meters or bit more, then we will come to place of entertainment for grown-ups, adults.

A slight noise in the tourists' crowd, one should assume that they smiled.

– You have two hours of free time, – declares the guide.

I think I know where am I. That faceless gray dome nearby is "famous, renowned" book center named after some American president. If I'm on the 43rd street, then I'm on the opposite side of the city. What a walk! I look at the watch, scared, and the panic fades, we left the Elvish realm only 20 minutes ago!

The tourists wander away: the couples to restaurants, singles – to adults' entertainment places mostly. The guy in the wheelchair together with the grey-haired lady and the black guy rolls away towards the book center. The guide gets the cigar of a considerable size, definitely not the cheapest one, drawn better than his face, bites off its end and lights it, then moves towards me.

Will it be always like this now?

Is this a kind of victory over the Deep that I wanted?

No.

I'd rather be deceived further, seeing the city and the people instead of the mixture of kid's drawing and the primitive cartoon. I'm not a judge for this world, and neither am I an indifferent watcher from aside. I'm a part of the Deep, flesh of Deeptown's flesh…

I hide my face in my hands, looking into the darkness, I don't know whom I should ask, the Deep or myself, but I ask anyway.

Be myself, Abyss…

– Have a cigar, fellow, – says the guide friendly. He smiles, opening a cigar case for me. The collar of the red overalls is unbuttoned, the pen cap and the notebook stick out from the pocket. I can bet they weren't there before. His face is open, kind and attractive, just as it must be for a guy who shows the Deep to inexperienced newbies.

– Thanks, I don't smoke…

Everything is normal, just as before. Even better.

I'm yours, Abyss, I can be the real human in the real Deeptown or the real one in cartoony city. Maybe I even can be the drawing walking among real inhabitants.

Thanks, dear Dima Dibenko. You wanted to throw me out of the game or maybe even to kill me, but something have gone wrong. I even can guess what exactly. Unfortunate have helped me after all, he gave me part of the strength that he has. So my sincere thanks go to him.

– Ah well, as you wish, – the guide doesn't feel hurt by my rejection and hides the cigar case into his pocket. – You're an old timer here, right?

– Right, – I confess.

– I'm Kirk, – the man introduces himself, – Don't I really look like him?

He probably means some play's or folklore character? I never was inquisitive about the simple American mass-culture.

– Not really, – I answer randomly.

– And this is right! – Kirk supports me, – The resemblance must be in your heart!

He releases a jet of smoke into the sky and skillfully rolls the cigar from one corner of his mouth to another.

– I'm from Seattle, – he decides to go on with the talk even if I didn't introduce myself in return.

– And I'm from St. Petersburg.

Kirk taps my shoulder cheerfully:

– Yeah! I know, been there!

I'm pleasantly surprised but his next words disappoint me:

– Nice town, – shares Kirk his impressions, – I had a girlfriend once… such a severe girl! And you know, it so happened, the carburetor went down right when we were passing St. Petersburg one evening. So we had to stop for a night.

He winks to me slyly.

It'd be great to visit Tom Sawyer's native town, but now this self-importance pisses me off.

– I'm from the different St. Petersburg, the one in Russia.

– Russia! – Kirk is pleasantly surprised, – There's St. Petersburg too?

– Yup. And Seattle – where is it? In Canada or Mexico? – I inquire.

Kirk chews his cigar unable to understand whether I'm kidding or really don't know such an outstanding city.

– It's in America!

– Which one, South or Latin?

No, even if he's a typical and real American, he's a nice guy nevertheless, he laughs and slightly pushes me on the stomach.

– Great! Cool! I'll visit you, later. I'm planning to visit Europe when I'm 45, will go see your city too!

– Sure. You're welcome to.

I'm so exhausted by the deep program that stand here and eagerly support this ridiculous talk.

– I'm giving a ride around to the tourists, – Kirk goes on, – father's business. It's great! Today we were going through the city, one girl kept asking to show her the diver. I pointed at one guy outside, said, "Diver!". They almost overturned the bus when all of them rushed to that side to look.

We laugh together.

– We seldom come here, – Kirk smooches his cigar, – But Sam kept asking to show him the book center, se we decided to stop here… not too far for him to go, and also restaurants are close… and stuff… Sam is the one in jeans and t-shirt…

– Huh? That black one?

Kirk chokes on his cigar from such an outrageous racism. How dare one to call the black one – black!

– Well, I have to go, business… – he mumbles and quickly moves to the bus without saying goodbye. I just shrug. Oh citizens of the mighty country, if you just could realize how ridiculous and stupid your complexes are!

But it's time for me to go too. I raise my hand and the cab readily appears from around the corner.

– Deep-Transit welcomes you! – says the driver. As if purposefully he's black and I laugh quietly, getting into the car.

1

The drive takes quite long, Deep-Transit connects to "Polyana" company through quite a bunch of intermediate hosts. My computer is not powerful enough to support appropriately the whole house where I rent an apartment from myself, so "Polyana" is hosted by someone's rental server, somewhere in Byelorussia I suppose. It's not too expensive and I ain't gonna change this order even when I buy a real machine instead of my current Pentium.

On my way I have fun making the world around drawn and real in turns. Now I succeed in this without effort. Even more – I can change the space perception in fragments. A drawn car passes our real one. A real girl walks along the drawn street. Two guys stand chatting: one is real, another one – cartoony.

Even if it's insanity, I really like it.

I make the Volvo I'm riding in drawn and pull my hand through the window. A slight pressure on my skin – and the hand feels the wind outside.

Fantastic!

The world around belongs to foreign servers, I'm just passing here, maybe it's even impossible to get here by an ordinary means… while at any moment I can exit, fall from the speeding car. Something have shifted, messed up. I don't dive into the Deep anymore, I really live in here!

In a block from my house I ask the driver to stop. I know this neighborhood very well, it belongs to the couple of big Russian banks, not officially of course. Financiers don't see any real use of such 'investments', but the programmers working for the banks had set a dwelling here on their companies' expense. What boss from 'New Russians' would ever find out that his computers don't only make debit to meet credit, but also support a part of Deeptown's territory?

It's the best place to test the newly acquired abilities.

Lots of people hovers about here: it's the downtown, both living quarters and entertainment centers are pretty close. I walk along the street looking for more or less quiet corner.

This one looks okay: a tiny park with small fountain and a couple of benches, attached to a blind wall of the highrise, made simply but with taste. Ignoring the sign "No dogs allowed!", a red haired girl walks on the grass with a kitten in the lead. Hm, well, pretty logical – the ban is not for them. The kitten is obviously pissed by the nasty lead, he stops from time to time and tries to tear it off with a paw. I smile in return to the strict girl's look and make her drawn in a moment effort. The kitten stays real, he's sunny-red, just as his mistress, quick and fidgety.

Virtual pets is one of the most profitable businesses in Deeptown, the second after computer games of course. The Japanese love to keep those – maybe because it's impossible to keep the real ones in their pencil-box apartments? Also those pets are being bought by those poor ones who love cats and dogs but suffer from allergies…

I sit on the bench, by the couple that softly whispers to each other, examine the blind wall listening to the purling of water in the fountain. If I'm not mistaken, there are computers of a very well known bank behind it. Should I give it a try?

Ah, what the hell, I'm already charged for millions in damages, one wouldn't be sorry about the hair when his head is taken off…

Calming myself with the splinters from the people's wisdom treasury, I still can't make up my mind. The couple is nuzzling not paying any attention to me. I hope they are lovers divided by thousands of kilometers, not just seekers of safe adventures.

The kids run back and forth along the wall: a girl and two boys, holding color chalks in their hands and excitedly covering the wall with graffiti. I can hear cheerful shouts: "Hey Janka, Andryushka's monster was scarier!" … "Sevka, come on, give me the red chalk, will you?". Looks like somebody have brought their offspring for a virtual walk. Finally the kids calm down and start drawing. The girl draws the samurai with a sword, the sword is almost real. Chubby glasses bearer Seva runs along the wall picturing something like a snake that swallowed an elephant. But the snake gets a barrel and I understand that it's just a tank. Skinny and swarthy Andrei diligently wheezes drawing an impossible monster. Maybe intentionally, maybe he wanted to draw a man…

I stand up and pad towards the kids.

– Hey guys, could you draw a door? – I ask all three.

The question have definitely puzzled them, but after a short debate they start working on the requested together. The door is being drawn with excitement, mutual taking of chalks away and arguments about whether they should draw a keyhole. I wait patiently. Finally the drawing is finished and the young talents look at me with demand: will I appreciate their work or not?

– Cool, – I say honestly, – Thanks a lot!

The door looks in fact good. It is drawn right between the elephant's trunk… errr… the tank's barrel and the samurai's sword. It has a keyhole, and a handle, and even hinges.

– You have really helped me out! – I confess.

The kids wait stubbornly.

Then I make the street around drawn, make a deep breath, relax and turn the door into the real one.

It's just an illusion, not more than an illusion of course…

I stretch my hand and pull the door towards me, once and again.

No effect. What was I expecting after all?

In anger, I kick the real door in the drawn wall and it sweeps open.

It opens to the inside… Wow, it worked!

The kids scream from behind, not scared or surprised but cheered mostly. Followed by these screams I enter the impenetrable wall.

And get into the bathhouse.

The ancient Romans who were real experts in this, along with the thrifty Finnish and heated Russians would burst with envy: it's a huge marble hall, the glass dome above is slightly covered with snow, cold winter sun beaming through it. A round pool is in the center of the hall, a dozen of men cools down in it. The mountains and a steep slope can be seen through the windows, several more guys, the boldest ones run down the slope raising fountains of snow dust. The heavy wooden door swings open and a skinny guy runs out of the sweating-room with a scream, dives into the pool and starts jumping on one place raising waves. The bald fat man wrapped in the sheet drinks beer by the bar, glancing at the pool with condescension.

The urge to drop the pants and join the company is big: what a guys these bank programmers are, what a cool ones! They had set themselves quite well… I just wonder, don't they get wet in sweat in reality while polishing themselves in the sweating-room with birch besoms?

And gosh, I've really entered!

The columns around the pool still cover myself from the others' looks, but it won't be for too long. The dressed guy in the bathhouse is a weird sight. I turn around – the door is gone.

Ah well, I don't care.

I enter the wall. The bathhouse is good but I'm interested in something else. Something that doesn't have any analogies in virtuality at all…

But it looks I've got into the wrong place again: a gloomy desolate quarters, a row of tanks is in the center of it, the water noisily splashes in them. Along the row a conveyor band is crawling, something looking like detergent powder spills into the tanks from the holes in the ceiling. All this looks like some terrible automated laundry from an old sci-fi novel. I'm about to move further when one tank turns over and spills its contents on the conveyor band.

Lots of dirty water and a couple of kilograms of money.

I'm so shocked that jump out of virtuality even without reciting my usual rhyme.

The numbers were on the helmet's screens, accurate columns of numbers, tables, vague phrases. I took the helmet off. Sure, why would anyone graphically picture the process of money transfer or, even more, their laundering? But my smart subconsciousness being used to the pictures, did it's best!

The head was aching badly. Was at a result of a multiple-time deep program? Or just a consequence of that overstrain that I experience now? What's the difference?

I took an open pack of Analgin from the table, looked into the fridge. One can of Cola was still there. Choking, I chewed the tablets, washed it down with soda. Bear with it just a little more my poor organism, the main part is still ahead. Before returning to the laundry I glanced to the watch: a quarter before two. I should munch on something…

Blades hollowly bang in tanks, laundering money. Dollars, Deutsche marks and roubles crawl along the belt conveyor, I watch this endless flow that has either someone's sweat or blood behind it. What happens if I take a couple of millions from there? For some reason I'm sure they will appear on my account. Maybe I'll plug to the isolated bank network and will type in the order for money transfer, even not knowing about that. Maybe the bank's computers will do all operations themselves, submitting to my will only.

I'm not just a thief resistant to the deep's hypnosis anymore, I'm the deep itself, a part of it…

I lean over and pick up a 100 dollar note. It is even possible to remember it's serial number. It's possible to do so that it never appeared here at all according to the bank's documents.

Everything is possible now – or almost everything.

I throw the piece of paper back on the conveyor belt and pad to the wall. One step – and the world fades, falls down, turns into the flat scheme under my feet. A huge sheet rolled out into the void, I soar above, looking at the threads of the streets.

Here's my house.

I dive down to it, pierce the plane of the scheme, feel asphalt beneath my feet. No more efforts, no more rhymes and begs to the deep. I don't ask my body to breathe after all, do I?

Vika and Unfortunate stand by the entrance, talking. Then Vika notices me and silences in confusion. I wave my hand, walk towards them and Vika runs to meet me.

10

I shut the door of the entrance and mingle with the lock for some time. Vika still holds my hand, and it's quite difficult to start security systems using one hand only. Finally I just order the door to shut. The lock clicks and the light of the alarm system starts blinking. Unfortunate raises his head – looks like he felt something.

– What did he do to you? – asks Vika. Only now, when we're isolated from the outer world she relaxes a little. Probably I wasn't right not hurrying to her at once.

– The deep program, – I find the simple reason, explaining to her what happened. – The cycling deep program, the endless dive.

Vika frowns, she understands.

– It was impossible to surface.

– But you…

– … Found a detour, – I say glancing at Unfortunate askance. – Vika, how did it look like from aside?

– Dibenko threw something at you… – she knits her brow, remembering,

– Like a handkerchief of some kind… and you fell into it. It looked like a very powerful virus.

– What about Romka?

Vika looks at me in surprise.

– The wolf. It's Romka, the werewolf diver, my friend.

– He burned him, down to ashes. He just grabbed his throat and he blazed up.

I stay silent, what can I say? Visual effects of the virus might be different, the most important thing is how did it influence Romka's machine. I was always thinking he has a weak computer, like mine, maybe even without magnetooptics. If Man Without Face had used a brute-force weapon, Romka will have to reinstall all soft from scratch.

– Lenia…

I nod. It's not the time to express sympathy about others' troubles.

It's never enough time for that though…

– Let's go, – I nod to her and Unfortunate. – I live on 11th floor.

– Who else lives here?

– Nobody. Now – nobody. – I say squeezing into the elevator cabin. I push the button, a jerk and we crawl up. Vika frowns, she really fears heights… even of this type.

– Did anyone live here before?

– Well… in some sense, – I evade her question. The doors open and we exit to the stairs. Unfortunate looks around curiously.

– Here's my palace… welcome… – I say unlocking the apartment, then add for Unfortunate only, – Returning the visit?

He nods.

Vika enters first, she delays by the threshold as if thinking whether she should take off her shoes or not. Sure not and she understands that. { When entering an apartment, Russians usually leave shoes worn outside by the entrance. Special slippers are used inside apartments. }

– The bathroom-toilet and the kitchen are to the right. The room and the balcony are to the left. – I inform politely.

Vika looks into the room carefully, her look slides across the faded wallpaper, stops for a second on the computer table, sofa, fridge and dresser. She's possibly disappointed. Sure!

– It's strange… – says Vika and I feel that she exits the deep for a second and looks at my living place from reality.

Go ahead… I just don't want to be in your sight at this moment.

– Let's go, – I pull Unfortunate's hand. – Want me to teach you how to brew coffee?

Unfortunate walks into the kitchen instead of an answer, quickly chooses the most expensive and at the same time the best coffee from the number of packages, takes the biggest coffee pot and the salt dispenser.

– A-ha, – I just say.

– Hundreds of servers have cooking recipes, – notes Unfortunate, – A girl from Rostov have added one more 5 minutes ago, quite interesting one. Should we risk to try it?

It would be strange to hope that I can teach him anything. Except maybe the ability to shoot at people.

But I doubt this is an ability he'd appreciate.

– Be at home, – I just answer returning to the room. Vika sits on the sofa examining the bookshelf.

– I'm back, – I inform her and Vika closes her eyes, just for a moment, to return into the deep.

– It's strange, – she repeats. – Lenia, for some reason I've been expecting…

– … To see the palace?

– No, not necessarily the palace, but at least something…

– Something like your hut?

She nods silently. I can quite understand her confusion: she was definitely sure I'm a spatial designer. But she saw a pathetic apartment instead, even if well drawn but definitely not deserving an honor to be immortalized in virtuality.

– Follow me, – I say, – Unfortunate, we'll leave for a minute! If something happens, we're in the stairwell somewhere.

Vika follows me obediently. It's clean and quiet in the stairs. I put my finger to my lips:

– Hush… Don't disturb anyone…

– But you've said there's nobody else in the house… – whispers Vika.

– But what if not? – I answer mysteriously, pad to the door opposite to mine and take a piece of bent wire from my pocket. It's just like I imagine a picklock. Vika waits, already intrigued.

I pick at the wire in the lock and of course it opens. Sure, it was planned this way… Then we enter.

It's a big three room apartment { 'two bedroom' according to American standards }. Some clothes – jackets and cloaks hang on hooks by the door. A kid's bicycle is leaned against the wall. Footwear is scattered along the wall. I give slippers to Vika, change myself and say:

– It's a habit to change footwear inside here. The family is big, four kids, they would take too much dirt from outside… and the floors are cold. { Floors are almost never carpeted in Russia, they are either painted wood or vinyl covered. Some rugs and carpets are common but these never cover the floor completely. } Vika stays silent, she have accepted the rules of the game.

We look into the kitchen – an old Polish kitchen furniture is there, yet from the Soviet times, lots of spices' jars, some sorts of pickled veggies and jams in big cans. The pot with hot borsch is on the stove top together with a pan of meat rissoles. A quiet green street can be seen outside the window and Vika glues to it instantly. Kids shout outside on the playground, a woman walks with an old slow poodle just by the doorway.

– Who lives here? – asks Vika.

– I know only their names – Viktor Pavlovich and Anna Petrovna. Their older daughter Lida finishes high school, and they also have three boys: Oleg, Kostya, Igor'.

After some hesitation I add:

– The poodle is named Gerda. In general I don't like when pets are named by human names, but they wanted so.

– What city is this?

– Vitebsk. I think it's Vitebsk.

Vika turns her back to me and says strictly:

– Don't come into my view.

For a minute or so she examines the kitchen after exiting virtuality. Then, having dived back, she turns to me and asks:

– Is it everywhere like this?

I nod.

– Masters are absent but their apartments live, – whispers Vika, – A shirt on the back of the chair, toys scattered on the floor, a leaking faucet and trash swept under the sofa by the single… Right?

I keep silence.

– Len'ka, are you normal at all? – asks Vika quietly, – I was building mountains where is no people, where shouldn't be any people… it's strange too maybe. I just don't like people too much.

– Don't lie, – I ask her.

– … And you have built the house in which nobody will ever live… No, the house which is *almost* inhabited: a smoking pipe in the ashtray and the hot teapot on the stove… Modular 'Maria Celesta' { kitchen furniture }. Lenia, what for?

– I didn't have right to lodge them really, to think out characters and faces, griefs and joys. Let it be like this… the things only. They also can tell a lot.

I still think she doesn't understand, can't understand completely and I say hurriedly:

– A guy lives one floor below, a music lover. He's from Podol'sk. Sometimes he's too carried away and cranks his tape player so loud that it's necessary to knock into his wall. But he's a nice guy, he makes the volume lower at once. He has a great collection, cassettes, vinyl, CDs, a little of everything. Vinyl mostly, it costs peanuts now, nobody needs it, and he has a Vega turntable, an old one but it works fine. On the sixth floor a weird type lives, I think he's an engineer, works on a plant in Tula, they were making weapons before, now – some consumer trinkets. He dreams of writing 'love mysteries', he invented this sort of a genre… So he writes them, types on a typewriter in the evenings, but never shows to anybody. He understands himself that it comes out bad, he's a rare type of 'graphomaniac', a harmless one. I took his writings sometimes, looked through, it's really rubbish, but so kind and naive one, he should have been born in the XVIIIth century…

Vika doesn't reply and I go on, understanding already that I've made a mistake, I shouldn't have shown her this empty apartment, and even less – to tell her about others, she won't ever understand this weird stuff, these ravings that I was building for two years…

– There's an old woman on the third floor, she lives alone in three room apartment, her life is hard, I know… especially because she's from somewhere in Ukraine, from Kharkov, I suppose. She turns the TV on only when the soap opera is being shown, and even then she keeps the brightness down thinking that less power is being consumed this way and the tube doesn't wear off… But she fears to sublet the rooms or to change her apartment, maybe this is right… I seldom visit her, I can't help her anyway, and it's dreadful to see how she is living. Especially before the holidays, you know, the most terrible-looking poverty is the one that tries to celebrate the New Year. Her children have forgotten her, or maybe she never had them or they were killed in wars, she has a picture on the wall – a guy in the Russian military uniform…

Vika keeps silence.

– There's a couple on the second floor, they are funny. Married for just a year, from Ufa. They quarrel all the time, then make peace, sometimes one can hear them from the staircase… sometimes the cup gets shattered, sometimes they shut the door with such force that plaster falls down. But anyway it seems to me that they'll never divorce, something keeps them together, either some secret or love or both; love is a great secret too, you know… And the three room apartment there is empty… just empty. The Jewish family lived here, then they left, selling the apartment to some mediator company which still can't get rid of it… probably they've boosted the price too much, the apartment is in Moscow, in a good district…

I'll suffocate in this silence, in her not saying a word.

– The disabled old man lives on the first floor, he moves with crutches, possibly the most noisy and caustic person in whole Kursk. He brawls in shops, quarrels with neighbors, I always pass the first floor as fast as I can, fearing to run into him, but it's not right, it's not his fault that he became what he is, it's life… Life.

I can understand myself how ridiculous does this word sound here.

Life? What life – in the drawn apartments of the drawn house, in these concrete crypts where only things remember people. Only neutron bomb would appreciate this, not an alive woman.

I'm really an idiot, a clinical case. Ah well, still for good: Vika can start working on her new thesis.

– Len'ka, – says she, – My God, Len'ka, what happened to you?

Oh yeah, here comes…

– Forgive me, – she says, – All my screams… about the work with psychos… about all those assholes… if I was hit like you…

– Vika… – I can't understand a thing anymore.

– Somebody deserted you, betrayed you? You lost the ideals you wanted to believe in? And you gave up? – she asks quietly, – You don't believe that you can help somebody, to do a bit of good? And you ran away here, into the deep, into the fairy tale? You really can love but you fear your love?

– I can help – here. Here only. At least by dragging the ones who got lost out of this drawn world. But you know, one drowns not when he can't swim, one drowns when there's no more strength to stay on the shore. And the shore… it's not in my power anymore.

– You don't see any hope at all there, in reality?

– I do – now. Now Unfortunate have appeared.

– Lenia, you hide something! Do you know who is he?

– Yes I do, and it means that there's a hope. If they could became as they are, then we'll be able too.

– But who are – "they"?!

How can I explain? How to make her believe in impossible, in something for which the tabloid pages is the best place?

– Vika, he almost said that there… back in the Elvish city. Their servers don't support English, this is the purely Russian party. He called himself an Alien.

Vika shakes her head, she understood, but she doesn't want to, she can't believe.

– He's an alien, Vika. He's not from the Earth.

– He's a human…

– In some sense – yes. Much more human than we all are. Better than we are, and maybe even the one that we'll never be able to become.

– Lenia, why do you think so?

– He doesn't even have the body – here. Yes he flew, by the most usual and boring way, from one star to another. Do you remember his words about the Silence?

Vika shivers.

– It's dreadful to imagine for us but he had passed all this. Hundreds, thousands of years, the void and silence, the darkness with nothing in it. I even think that his ship is immaterial…

Vika shakes her head and freezes suddenly. I turn around – Unfortunate stands in the corridor.

– I was calling for you, – he says, – I came into the staircase and called. Then just entered, the door was opened.

We don't reply. Then Vika asks:

– You aren't human?

– No, I'm not. Let's go, coffee is ready.

11

We sit and drink coffee; I don't like the girl's from Rostov recipe. Strange that I'm able to distinguish the subtleties of taste at all.

– A choice stuff, – says Unfortunate putting the cup aside, – I think.

– Can you feel the taste? – inquires Vika.

– Yes.

– How comes? Taste in virtuality is nothing more but the memory about what we tried in the real world! If you aren't human, then…

I can feel her aggressiveness growing, but can't do anything.

– I'm trying to imagine whether so much salt should improve the coffee's taste or not. I think not.

– Did you try something like coffee before?

– Only when visited you. I… – Unfortunate looks at me and hesitates,

– I can't even say that I eat at all.

Looks like it's some threshold beyond which Vika loses patience.

– You're lying, – she says with conviction, – Look, you're just lying! You know what? Just go to the Viner Square, it's the UFOlogists' club there! They'll be so glad to meet you! They'll believe you!

– I don't ask you to believe me. – replies Unfortunate softly.

I jump up:

– That's enough, both of you! Vika, I believe him!

– Lenia, you are just convincing yourself! – Vika deliberately ignores Unfortunate. – You aren't the specialist in computer technologies, are you? You couldn't trace his signal and believed in all that? He's human, his behavior and knowledge are human! He's human! Can you prove me wrong?

Unfortunate gazes at the wall.

– I can't. He can. – I look at Unfortunate's face, – Tell her, I beg you. Prove it to her.

– I can't prove anything.

– You helped me to get away from the trap, – I whisper, – I don't know how, but you did give me a part of your strength, your abilities, remember? Please, do the same for Vika!

Unfortunate raises his look at me.

– Leonid, I gave you nothing. I don't have a right to meddle into your life.

– But…

– You could do it, yourself. You only lacked the faith in this to be possible. You needed the goal worth fighting for. You had met me and got this goal, you believed that everything is still ahead, that the world won't crumble as a house of cards, won't crash down into the deep. I only helped you to find your faith.

I shake my head, no, I couldn't! I couldn't do it myself!

Unfortunate doesn't avert his gaze.

– I gave you nothing Leonid, nothing but troubles. I'm really sorry. I don't have right to make such presents.

– Listen fellow, don't take me in, okay? – says Vika sharply.

– Unfortunate… Alien… – I put my hand on his shoulder, – But you'll have to prove who you are anyway, you'll have to explain, maybe not to us, but to the scientists and politicians…

I stop at the half-phrase. Unfortunate shakes his head.

– I won't explain anything to anybody, this is senseless and not needed.

– But the contact…

– What IS the contact? – he smiles, – A shiny starship on the lawn by the White House? A long legged blonde presents flowers to the purple crocodile in a space suit? The holds full of machines and devices, the galaxy encyclopedia recorded on 1001 synthetic diamond? The cure for cancer and the means to control the weather? Or, rather… something else. Flying saucers burn cities, the mankind leads a guerilla war against the intelligent jellyfish? You'd rather believe in this Leonid, isn't it true? Just remember the man in command of star armies, remember "Labyrinth"! Are these – the contacts? You believed in me, you decided that I'm an alien, that the moment of contact have come…

– But if you came to us, – I shout, – Then there IS something! You do want to say something to us!

– No.

That's it. I understand and it makes no sense to talk any further.

– I just live here. You can't even imagine Leonid how different we are. I'll never step on the ground – I have nothing to step with, and I won't be able to shake your hand – I don't have any.

– But you're human here! – says Vika.

– Yes. If you want to know the sky – become one. If you want to know the star – become the star… – Unfortunate glances at me and smiles, – If you want to know the deep – become the deep. I became the human, as much as it was possible.

– It's your method of knowledge? – asks Vika ironically.

– Yes.

– What for, if we are so different? If we don't need each other?

– I'm tired. I was alone for too long. – Unfortunate either apologizes or tries to convince her, – I needed this memory… the city and the people, the taste of coffee and the smell of fire. It all was alien for me but now will stay forever. Your distrust and Leonid's faith. Those who were killing me and those who were rescuing. I didn't mean to cause any trouble for you, I didn't want to meddle. This is a norm… not to cause harm.

– Your norm… – I say.

– Yes. You live according to the different laws. It's not for me to judge which ones are better.

– Then you found the best place to appear on Earth, – I nod to Unfortunate, – The freedom and no interference, all life's colors, from black to white.

– Of course.

– For some reason I thought differently, – I say, – That you could not only take from us… the tastes and smells, the words and colors… but also to teach us at least something… No, sure not how to extinguish clouds or to cure flu… At least – kindness.

– Leonid, kindness is just a word. I can't kill a living creature. But it's not a moral, it's more of a physiology.

Now it's really finish.

I wished to find an answer, an ideal, to find a miracle which didn't have a place for it on Earth for a long time. The one that came from the stars or was born by the Net – it doesn't matter. Maybe Man Without Face understood that when he offered me to go into "Labyrinth".

But the miracle doesn't care about us, it's completely alien and its kindness is not more elevated than a contented belch.

– If I try to explain you my ethics, – says Unfortunate, – I'll have to switch to the language of Physics laws and mathematical formulas. If I try to explain science – I'll have to write poems and to paint. Do you understand? The difference is not in the level of development but in the basis itself. We have nothing to take and nothing to give to each other. Whatever I've got is just memories, emotions. But do you really think they'll retain their human form?

– Yes, so I thought.

– It was a mistake, Leonid. I'll leave you soon and everything will change. I'll change myself, and so will my memory.

I step from the table and look into the window, at Deeptown's illumination flashing outside. Man Without Face, maybe you were right? It's impossible to approach Unfortunate with human measures. I tried – and look what came out of it.

– Let's assume, – says Vika behind my back, – that you're not lying. You're really an alien. The one from the stars, let's say, the one who has nothing in common with humans. Then tell me…

Maybe Vika really starts to believe. Now, hiding behind the words "let's assume" she will try Unfortunate about his ethics and culture, about his ship's construction and interstellar journey principles. Good idea too…

– I'll leave you for a minute, – I say without turning around.

Vika doesn't protest, probably she thought I gonna exit the deep temporarily.

Nope…

The drawn wall, the drawn window – I break through them, make a step and find myself above the city. Buildings, neon signs, pedestrians, cars… I'm not here anymore, my body have vanished, I just glide in the air, as if hackers' dreams and Hollywood directors' fantasies have become true, it's the virtuality as it must be, the freedom of directions and forms.

Further… further…

I make a round around Microsoft's palace, a huge, monstrously bloated building all covered by windows, descend trying to determine the direction towards the Elvish server. Just along this street…

Most likely I'm invisible for others.. I speed above pedestrians' heads, faster than Deep-Transit's cars, switching from server to server.

What am I looking for anyway? For the trace of the battle that was over a couple of hours ago? The virtual time is condensed, there's no traces to find anymore but I must do it anyway.

Here… An Elvish hut, an empty street. A taxi cab blinks in the distance and vanishes. I step on the pavement and turn back into human.

Dibenko's bodyguards' corpses have disappeared already, either they were removed or decomposed by themselves. But at the place where the werewolf was fighting with Man Without Face the asphalt is still melted and pressed in, the only token. So what will it give to me?

I walk around the dent considering whether it'll make any sense to drag search programs from home and to reconnoiter the space. Of course not, the ordinary methods won't help here.

A taxi cab drives from the alley slowly and approaches me, too slowly for it to be a coincidence, Deep-Transit is famous for its speed. Oh well, I had to expect the ambush.

I'm so sure that Dibenko will emerge from the cab that I don't immediately recognize the man that appears.

– Gunslinger? Huh? – exclaims Guillermo cheerfully, approaching me, – You, Gunslinger?

I stay silent. I still like "Labyrinth"'s chief of security service and this is very vexing.

– You're Gunslinger? – requests Guillermo, – I just want to be sure, tell me!

– Hi Willy, – I say. He beams in a smile:

– Hi! I knew it, I knew… – Guillermo eyes the melted asphalt and tsks, – Cool. It was tough. Yes?

– Yes.

– Gunslinger… – Willy parts his hands, – It's really-really unpleasant to me, honestly! I was even against charging you in damages! But there, – a hurt glance up, – they decided to scare you. This isn't the right method!

– So what's now?

Guillermo sighs and sits right onto asphalt without mercy to his fancy suit. I sit by his side. So here we are, by remains of Romka's funeral fire, like two hippies of different generations, one is settled down but still liberal, the other one in the height of his protest.

– I did suspect that this accident was caused by you, – says Willy, – quite unusual and bloody fight. Yes… I was waiting for you on my own… errr… risk.

– Why? – I ask, – Will you try to detain me? You'll fail. It couldn't be successful before, and even less now.

Guillermo pricks up his ears but doesn't ask anything:

– No-no, Gunslinger! It's absolutely not that I'm sure that our troubles is your fault! Maybe some frictions with Al-Kabar were the reason? Huh?

He winks conspiratorially. Like a quiet rebellion against "Labyrinth"'s management.

– Gunslinger, I'd like to restore our cooperation. After all, you were the first to suspect something unusual in Unfortunate and you shouldn't suffer for that!

– Thanks.

– But we can't be left aside either! Penetration have happened on our territory, right? In juridical sense the question is very complicated, it's easier to solve it in a good will… in a human way. We're humans, aren't we?

What I'd never expect from "Labyrinth"'s guys is such pep. How quickly did they get what's going on!

– Willy, – I say, – It's useless. You know what our common problem is?

– Al-Kabar? – asks Guillermo quickly, – Or Mr X?

– No. Willy, we all want something from Unfortunate. I was dreaming about some kind of goodness for everybody. You know, a common, abstract happiness and stuff which he could bring…

Guillermo nods in understanding.

– You obviously wanted to become famous, to get your share in distribution of technologies that he could give…

A protesting handwave. Oh yeah, sure, "Labyrinth" is not a commercial organization, we heard these songs before…

– Willy, he doesn't want to communicate with us! At all. He doesn't need us.

It seems that I've really shocked him.

– Doesn't need us? – he exclaims.

– Absolutely. He stopped here to get some rest and now he's going to resume his journey amongst the stars.

Guillermo makes a couple of chewing motions and asks again:

– A journey amongst the stars?

– Yes…

– What stars?

It seems we don't understand each other…

– Willy, Unfortunate is an alien form of life, I think some energy based one, his mind cardinally differs from…

I shut up. Somehow ridiculous does all this sound! Now, when Unfortunate is not near, I feel a kind of scepticism Vika felt.

– Energy based form of life… – repeats Guillermo very politely and gently, as if talking to a sick person, – Yes. Interesting.

Which one of us is the bigger idiot?

– Willy, let's exchange information. To begin our cooperation.

– I think I know your information already, – Willy winks slyly, – Huh?

– But I also can meet Unfortunate at any time and talk to him. Huh?

– Do you have him? – asks Guillermo quickly.

I remain silent.

– As a token of cooperation… – mumbles Willy. Oh, it wasn't his initiative to come here! Or at least, not only his. Now "Labyrinth"'s management decides in panic whether to allow him to talk to me openly or not…

– I can leave, – I note.

– Okay! – Willy raises his hands, – I surrender! You've won, Gunslinger! You've won as usual!

I ignore the compliment but Willie doesn't expect any reaction. He rubs his forehead and pronounces solemnly:

– It was not at once when we evaluated the Unfortunate's phenomenon. It's our big mistake. "Labyrinth"'s attention to its customers have played the positive role though… When yours and our divers' efforts proved useless, we started to search for Unfortunate's entering channel. We searched and searched… and failed.

I'm waiting for the next part. Guillermo winks cunningly and goes on:

– Are you familiar with the parallel worlds theory, Gunslinger?

– From sci-fi literature.

– It's quite a serious theory, Gunslinger. Other worlds might exist in parallel with ours, invisible, unreachable… but quite real ones. We can't

– yet – communicate with them in a normal way. But virtuality is a different thing. Flows of information live according to their own laws. Computer network is the most powerful device for entropy reduction in the history of mankind. Independently from our will or wish it influences the physical laws of the Universe. Information flows stream along the Net, they condense creating the centers where the very nature of the Universe transforms.

– Information can't change the laws of nature, – I say quickly.

– Oh yeah? When the structure complication happens in the limited fraction of space – it influences the whole Universe. Very weakly of course but the bases of the world vibrate a little anyway. Every object created by humans contained both positive and negative 'charge'. The club carved from the tree branch wasn't just a weapon, no! It was an anomaly phenomenon, an ordered structure in the chaotic world. But this was compensated – at least by the pile of shavings and sawdust. The book became a bit more complicated structure. The volume of information and chaos caused by its creation were not exactly equal already but this phenomenon was also compensated after all

– at least by the fact that many books were not worth the trees cut to make paper for them. What added to that for the first hand, were the books that beared an anomalous complication of information in themselves. I'm not talking about reference books that mostly reflect well known and useless information but about those that led to the birth of new ethics and perception of the world. They started to influence the people's life, to lead to entropy, to destroy. It was like a curse: the more informative the book is, the more did it shake the world. The humans were unable to simultaneously bring an order into the world and not to add chaos. Computers is an absolutely different case, it's information in its purity. It arrives from different directions, it gathers, multiplies. It doesn't vanish without a trace – to give away a file with data is absolutely not the same as to give away a jewel or a favorite book. It tears the Universe's space, violates the balance between the order and the chaos.

Guillermo silences to catch his breath. He's excited, he definitely wanted to tell all this out.

– And so, in such points where the human deeds create the new understanding of the world, where the very human look at the life changes – the unusual happens. The border between the worlds breaks there, and the miracle is being born, and the creature from the other world, maybe a human, maybe not, right?… is able to come to us. To encounter our moral, culture, our dreams… to absorb all net's knowledge in itself… and to freeze, terrified.

What can I answer him? To tell about the fallen star?

– As far as I understand, Unfortunate declared you that he's an alien from the other planet? – asks Guillermo.

I nod. Maybe it's not exactly so though, he never told me directly, he just never rejected my guess.

– Was it his own version or he confirmed your guess?

– Confirmed… – I mumble.

– A normal thing to do, – decides Guillermo, – To admit his own alien nature but to give a wrong direction. He has a right to fear us. His civilization is a peaceful one most likely while we are not the kindest creatures…

It was a long time since I was nudged face forward into the dirt this way.

– We considered different theories, – says Guillermo, – We analyzed Al-Kabar's versions – about the machine mind, mutation that gave birth to the 'human computer'. But… our specialists tend to smile. We were thinking about an alien from the stars. This would be beautiful… too beautiful to be true. We have a good team of psychologists, they work on the data available to us, we have good programmers, they are working too. But still, the theory of parallel worlds remains the most likely one. Al-Kabar worked with people too little, their approach is mechanistic and Urman is too far from modern technologies. No-no. Not a computer mind, not a human merged with a machine. Maybe… – a condescending smile, – an alien. Maybe, – Guillermo's face becomes serious, – a creature from a parallel world. Let's find out together. Without a force, without… any fights, – Guillermo pokes his hand at melted asphalt with disgust, – Let's sit together and talk. Let's forget mistakes, offences, claims. Let's explain that we're not so bad after all, that we shouldn't be feared. Let's stretch our hand…

His hand stretches to me but I'm silent, unable to take and shake it.

Whoever he was, Unfortunate, he tried to help me.

He was – and is – better than many real humans.

– I can't accept your offer Willy, – I say, – I'm sorry. You might be right, but I don't have a right to decide.

– But who has, Gunslinger? – asks Guillermo quietly.

– Only him, Unfortunate. He doesn't want to tell anything. He named himself an alien, a guest who grew tired of loneliness – and now he wants to leave. It's his right. It's his decision. He didn't do anything bad to anybody, he just got lost in our ridiculous world. I helped him to exit, I showed him… I hope I did… that the deep is not bloody fights only. If it wasn't enough – well… let him go, either in his parallel world or to the distant stars. He's free, as much as we are.

Guillermo looks as if he have grown lean. He looks at me, sadly and tiredly. Probably he said the truth, and hardly does he wish bad to Unfortunate. It's just a difference in approaches.

– So you'll let him leave Gunslinger? – he asks, – The mystery will disappear for long, or forever… and nobody will know who was Unfortunate?

– Freedom, Willy.

– You Russians always were considering a state, a society above the person, – says Guillermo, – This isn't the right approach, but you're Russian after all, aren't you?

– I'm the citizen of Deeptown. There's no borders in the Deep, Willy.

Guillermo nods and rises slowly, awkwardly, looks at the cab that waits for him. There's several Al-Kabar commandos inside most likely. Or probably my friends Anatol and Dick…

– Have Unfortunate given anything to you personally, Gunslinger? – asks Willy.

– Probably.

– Can I know what, or see? – inquires he with a sudden shyness.

I look at him, then bend over the crater in asphalt. The werewolf diver perished here two hours ago, my poor workmate Romka. I didn't see how it happened, but I can imagine.

The flame envelops the wolf's body, it means that the Man Without Face's virus had penetrated Romka's computer. His machine's winchester jerks deleting data and damaging utility programs, communication breaks. Romka falls from the deep, from his desperate and hopeless fight.

I feel the smell of burned fur, see the pale fire, the body is squeezed with a spasm… and I vanish, falling through the drawn asphalt, into the long gone comm channel.

100

The flight.

A flow of sparks pierces my body.

Spiral lightnings sweep at my face.

I feel pain and for the first time in virtuality I understand – it's not an imaginary one. It's just a weak echo of the pain that tortures me in the real world. I'm doing something that a human can't, shouldn't do, I communicate with computers directly, walk through the Net pulling data from programs terminated long time ago.

It's painful, hard but I must overcome that.

It seems that I moan and scream, pressing nonexistent hands against my forehead, a red-hot nails are hammered into my eyes, the skin is torn off with a sandpaper. It's a retribution for the impossible.

When I come back to my senses, there's a door before me.. I'm lying in the corridor, a long and dull one, with hundreds of such doors. Is it one of the virtual hotels?

The pain haven't faded yet but became weaker, softer. It's possible to rise from the floor – very carefully, to lean against the cold wood of the door with forehead.

So you enter virtuality from temporary addresses too, Romka?

I push the door without even thinking that it can be locked and almost fall into the room. Posters with half naked beauties are on the walls, a table with drinks stands by the wall. It looks somehow strange… An unfamiliar man sits with his back towards me, drums at computer keyboard murmuring something out of tune. A half empty bottle of gin and an ashtray full of cigar butts is by his hand. The man is just finishing a glass of cheap 'Hogart'.

– Hi Romka, – I mumble, trying to get a grip against the wall. The man turns around, looks at me in confusion, then jumps up, catches me on his hands and drags towards the armchair.

Now I can let it slip…

Romka brings a full glass of gin under my nose and the smell of juniper finally returns my consciousness.

– Take it away, I'll puke… – I push away his hand.

– Len'ka, is it you? – asks the diver unbelievingly.

– Me…

– Come on, drink, you'll feel better!

– Damned alcoholic, – I whisper something that I never got a nerve to tell him before, – It's you who can gulp pure Gin down.

– Want me to add some tonic? – guesses Romka, – It's fine for me just like this…

He splashes most of the glass' contents out on the floor, fills with tonic and gives it to me. This time I don't refuse, I drink feeling the blessing numbness streaming all over my body.

– How did you enter? – asks Romka, – The door was closed!

It's too hard to explain why closed doors don't hinder me anymore. I wave my hand and suck in the rest of the liquid.

– And how could you find me?

– I just could… – I answer indefinitely, but it seems that Romka is glad to see me too much to keep trying me.

– Did you manage to get away from that bastard? – he asks.

– Yes…

– What an asshole! – swears Romka, – He busied me alright!

– How did you crawl out?

– The virus was a clean one. It froze my machine but croaked after restart. Everything according to the Convention, but cool, damn it! – Romka laughs forcefully, – What an enemies have you got, Lenia!

– Feel envious?

– Yup! – confesses Romka sincerely, – I feared you'll have no time to escape…

– We had…

– She's pretty fancy, that chick of yours, – winks Romka.

I nod, looking around more attentively. Romka's living place is really strange. All these beauties on the walls… plenty of cigars and alcohol on the table, a couple of fresh issues of Playboy on the bed together with a teens' pop-music related newspaper…

Romka averts his gaze.

– Do I distract you too much? – I ask.

The werewolf glances at the working computer, lines of a primitive program on its screen…

– Not really… I was preparing for a test… Never mind.

– What test?

– Informatics.

– How old are you, Romka? – I ask, suddenly 'regaining my sight'.

– Fifteen.

I start laughing and see how the man opposite me clings his jaws gloomily. I laugh, Romka stands up, lights a cigar, pours Gin into his glass and asks finally:

– Well, and what's so funny?

– Romka… – I understand that I behave badly but I have no strength to hold it back… – Romka, have you ever drink vodka in glass shots or pure Gin?

– No.

– And don't even try. It was really dumb of me not to notice this before. You… you behave with too much fortitude to be an adult man!

– Is it so noticeable? – asks Romka gloomily.

– No, not that much… It's kinda unusual though…

– Why unusual? There's many teens among werewolves.

– How do you know?

– Well… Probably we're more sincere to each other. Those who are older than 18 seldom can live in a non-human appearance. But it's fine for us.

Plasticity… plasticity of mind. I look at Romka and think that there must be a lot of teens among those diver friends of mine who tell dirty anecdotes too excitedly, or always demonstrate their coolness. It's easier for them to pass the barrier of the deep program. Easier – as strange as it might seem. Their mind have grown on the movies and books about the virtual world, they know that Deeptown is drawn not only in their minds but in their hearts too. They won't drown.

Maybe there'll be more of them and divers will stop hiding.

– Romka, do you connect from your computer?

– From Dad's. I was always punished whenever caught in virtuality. Dad thinks it's only debauchery and fist fighting here. So I had to enter somehow… to notice what's going on in the apartment. When the door is opened, I can hear that.

– I'm glad you're fine, Romka.

The werewolf nods:

– And how I'm glad! I have a strimmer, but restoring all disk is a pain. You were looking for me to find out how I am?

I really want to say "yes" but it'll be a lie.

– Not only… I also wanted to ask for your advice…

– And now you don't want to?

He's right, I don't, but after these words I don't have any way out.

– Romka, a strange thing had happened to me… – I rise, pour Gin into my glass, two fingers thick, add tonic. – In the Net I've run into a guy… who is not really a human.

Romka waits patiently.

– I even don't know, where's truth and where's lies, – I say, – Possibly he's an alien from the stars, possibly he's a guest from a parallel world. Or maybe he's a creature of the computer mind or mutant that connects to the Net directly, without a computer. He's being searched for by at least two big companies…

The werewolf nods, I don't need to name "Labyrinth" and Al-Kabar to him.

– … And Dmitry Dibenko.

– Dibenko?

– Exactly. They want to get at least something useful from him. But he wants to leave. Forever.

– And you're thinking whether you have to give him away?

– Nobody can stop him, I'm sure. But in any case… it's a different world, right Romka? A different knowledge, different culture. Maybe they'll manage to persuade him, to learn at least something from him. Just a bit of his knowledge might become a new stage of evolution for the mankind.

– It might, – agrees Romka willingly.

– … Because after all, he could… change me somehow. I would never find your trace without new abilities. I don't know whether I have a right to stay silent and hide him.

– You want my advice? – asks Romka with some sudden fright, – Seriously?

– Yes Romka. Right because you're a kid yet and I'm an old cynicist. Tell me, does one person have a right for a miracle?

– No.

I nod, I didn't expect any other answer, but Romka isn't finished yet.

– Nobody has a right for a miracle. It's always by itself. That's why it's a miracle.

– Thank you, – I say and rise.

– Are you hurt?

– No, on the contrary… I'll go home. It's great that you're fine…

Already in the doorway, I stop for a moment and add:

– …And don't be so hard on alcohol. You're grown-up Romka, don't try to prove it. Good luck on the test.

– Thanks! – shouts Romka behind me.

Miracle – it's on its own…

I walk along the hotel corridor, smiling to Romka's words.

This impatience of mind, this great unsatisfiable thirst…

To understand, to explain, to conquer!

The miracle must be tamed and docile. We even made God a human – and only after this we learned how to believe. We reduce miracles down to our level.

Maybe it's good, otherwise we still would hide in caves, feeding the Red Flower set out by the lightning with wood.

You're a great kid Romka, you managed to get a right conclusion going the wrong way, as if walking along the mirror labyrinth, hitting the glass but passing it after all. I can't yet understand why are you right Romka, but you're right anyway…

I pass by an indifferent porter, open the door – Deeptown street, people, cars, neon signs. I know what can change the world. I can give a miracle to the world.

But I have no right to – because it's alive.

It's on its own, there's neither our life, nor our joys, nor our griefs behind it. What does separate me from Unfortunate – a cold of space of unimaginable eternity of the other world? What's the difference, he's alive anyway!

I walk along the street not raising my hand for the joy of Deep-Transit, this is known in all details Russian block, I'll manage on feet. I need to understand Unfortunate completely before he leaves forever, I have to say, to do something.

The church block – gold covered domes of the Orthodox temple, Catholic cathedrals, modest synagogues and Moslem minarets, stone lace of Alexandrians' temple, black pyramid of Satanists, and – as the best of all mocks – a fiery red sign above the pub, the den of friendly, suffering from a little overweight sect of Beer Lovers.

I could show you much, Unfortunate. Zoos where Steller's cows and mammoths live, book clubs where they argue over good and clever books, exhibitions of spatial designers where new worlds are being born, a medical conference where the doctors from all over the world meet to consult a patient from some God forsaken provinces… They won't let us to the conference of course, but I'd hack the door and we would stay silently in the corner watching how an American anesthesiologist and a Russian surgeon plan a surgery for a miner from Zaire… I would take you to the Opera where every musician is the citizen of the world and to the play where everybody in the audience is a part of the action. We would bow to all gods in temples forgetting that they are evil. We would stand by the playground where kids ride 'real' racing cars and would sympathize with Greenpeace people who save hedgehogs on European highways. Deeptown's picture gallery would take at least a month – it's impossible to pass at once through the Hermitage and the Prado gallery, the Tretyakov's Gallery and the Louvre… But at least one day you could sacrifice for that instead of sitting under "Labyrinth"'s blood-red sky. In the student block you would help a freshman from Vologda to conquer the Resistance of Materials course's mysteries, and I'd tell the Canadian artist why it's not necessary to make too much detailed elaboration for the autumn forest. The deep isn't an evil world at all, not a fist fight and debauchery. Is it my fault that your way here had passed through fighting arenas and brothels, with pursuit on your heels and uncertainty ahead?

But who knows, maybe it wasn't just a coincidence. You had chosen this path yourself: "Labyrinth", "Stars and Planets", "Any Amusements" and the Elvish Lorien… You absorbed the deep and showed, not to yourself but to me, what it really is, all intolerance and stupidity, all aggression that lives inside us. And you know not worse than me: the virtual world doesn't consist of this only.

Such a pity that you're right after all, Unfortunate. The world is never judged on its best qualities. Otherwise fascism would be a golden age of technics, of fast planes and mighty engines instead of concentration camps' chimneys and a soap made of the human fat.

You've made your judgement and explained why it is so.

Do we have any right to feel hurt?

Do we have any right to hit ourselves in the chest and shout "We're kind!" ?

But you can't, you shouldn't take just this with you – a human dirtiness and the beauty of desolate mountains, the technology serving vice! Otherwise why we are in the deep? What do we worth at all?

… I'm standing by the door of the Catholic cathedral, luxurious and suppressing, great and ridiculous. I can enter and pray to an ancient God that doesn't exist after all. I can return home and shake Unfortunate's hand in parting. And neither decision will be right.

– Leonid?

The person that approached me is completely unfamiliar: he's short, with unexpressive dull face, dressed in old shabby jeans and stretched sweater. He's dull and ordinary, not in virtuality is his place but in the queue for carry-out Zhigulevskoye { beer }. But he knows my name – it means he's an enemy.

– Who are you from? – I ask, – Al-Kabar?

The shortish guy doesn't avert his look.

– Leonid, you saw me in a different appearance. Without face.

– Dmitry?

– Yes. Maybe we should address each other less officially?

– You're an asshole, – I agree.

– Leonid, I ask you for a talk, for just five minutes of talk.

Is it really the main Dima Dibenko's guise? I saw his picture, long time ago, he was too young on it. So, he's plain and ordinary? A little dog

– a puppy forever. Was it this guy who invented the deep program and dunked the whole world into the deep? The one who grabbed millions and had got the share in Microsoft and AOL? The one who was the first to understand that Unfortunate is a visitor from the Outside?

– Five minutes.

– Leonid, let's go somewhere…

At least his voice doesn't correspond with his looks too well: if he ever could speak in requesting voice, it's now in the past.

We walk around the cathedral, Dibenko opens the door into the garden with the intricate key. It's quiet and silent here, willows, poplars, straight paths… stones… of familiar shape.

– Shit, – I just say.

– Yes, it's a graveyard, – mumbles Dibenko, – I… I like to come here. It calms me down somehow… brings me a philosophical mood.

Probably there's nothing unusual in this. I look at grave monuments, at the alleys, at the girl that sits on the grass by the small bust, hiding her face in her hands. It's not a mourning human, it's just a drawn weeper, an electronic equivalent of marble angels.

Virtuality is life but life can't be thought about without death. So friends bury here those who will never dive in the deep again, will never put on the virtual helmet anymore.

"He believed in the miracle" – short like a curse, the phrase on the nearest stone.

Forgive me, anonymous man. You believed in miracles and jumped into colorfulness of the virtual world. But now, the memories of you lie here, and somewhere in reality your grave overgrows with tall weeds. Your friends come here spending half a dollar while the soil that took you gives birth to a new life. Maybe it would be more honest for your friends to expend a couple of hours of their lives – to get a shot of vodka by your real grave?

It's freedom! I'm not the one to judge.

– I'm listening, Dima.

Dibenko has red eyes, as if he lacked sleep lately, and crumpled face. He dragged me into the miracle which doesn't need me, he finishes divers off as blind kittens. But he created this world and I must listen to him.

– I don't ask how you got away, Lenia, – says Dibenko, – As I understand, you've got your reward after all…

– What reward? For what?

– For betrayal, – Dibenko looks me straight into the eyes, – What, does the word hurt? It *is* betrayal! Betrayal of all of us, all the people that live today! You've managed to become his friend, I knew you'll be able to do this, I knew and that's why I hired you, you and nobody else! It must have been a mistake. What I could offer in return was nothing…

– Dima, do you understand what have virtuality become?

– The freedom!

– Then what do you blame me for? We are in no right to demand anything from Unfortunate! In NO right!

– And why not? – Dibenko leans against the tombstone of the "miracle believer" and smirks, – Okay, let it not be formulas and drawings… not vaccines and recipes of the fair society. But couldn't he at least give us hope? To all of us! If he came – it means everything will be fine! If he exists – it means we didn't choke to death on the freedom!

Looks like I miss something again.

But Dibenko goes on and I stay silent.

– Do you think I knew what I was doing then?… No! I got drunk, sozzled, plastered! I glued myself to the machine, I neither wanted to sleep nor to play, I felt sick of work, I began to compose a color palette, some image rhythm… I really wanted to add music to it but the machine was a piece of crap, without a sound card!

So the legends are true…

– I don't know how! – shouts Dibenko, – It was IT that wanted to be born, not me who did it! It's the deep itself, came through me – into the world! I understood, I felt it – but I'm not a creator, just a conductor, a pen moved by somebody's hand! It reached me from far away, through the darkness, through the silence, reached me and made me to create! It! The deep program!

I suddenly shiver, and not because Dmitry mentioned the silence, just because this feeling is familiar to me too: a terror of the creator who can't understand what and how he created.

– Some people called me genius… – a little man with shadows under his eyes grabs my hands, – Others called me a dumbass who found the pearl in a pile of dung! But neither is true! The deep came into the world through me. It means – somebody wanted that to happen! Not now… later…

Dibenko looks at me, with greed and awe, whispers:

– Did he tell you at least anything? Just a hint… where is he from? A year, century, millennium?

– Dima… – I mumble, – Just why do you think…

– When you escaped, – whispers Dibenko, – You were trapped, you couldn't escape from my machine. But you did… you blasted all data away from the disk and escaped! Was it him who taught you? Was it?

It's a pity to look at him. I don't like pity so much – it kills as well as the hate does, but now I want to pity Dibenko.

But just the voice… his voice doesn't sound right. This is how a great actor in the tragic role can humiliate himself.

– You can't even imagine, – says Dibenko, – how much effort have I spent for this! What I was risking with… with my position in Al-Kabar's Board of directors, with my agents in "Labyrinth"… You wouldn't understand, you still can't understand that over there, in Russia… But I split you up, I traced your channel! I know who you are! Leonid, I know your address in Deeptown! Polyana Company, apartment 49. You're in my hands! I can find out your real address too! But I don't want to threaten you, I just ask: let's be together!

Looks like the time have made a full circle, not Guillermo but Dmitry Dibenko offers me his hand now.

– They can't understand, – he whispers, – Whatever. Aliens from parallel worlds, space aliens, machine mind… Bull! There's nothing out there but us! In the past or the future days – only us!

I understand…

– One can believe or one can laugh, – Dibenko hits his fist against the poor tombstone, – But the only thing without borders is the Time. Computer network lives and will live, and the memory about this guy will outlive all of us! Information doesn't have any limit in time, Unfortunate, he peeked into the past of the humankind. From that wonderful 'far away' to which we will never live to see, from the future of the Earth – he stepped into the virtual world's childhood. Okay, okay, let us be ugly and wild! But can't he tell us at least something? Can't he give us… a faith?

– Dmitry, but why? Why do you think so?

– Because I know! – Dibenko looks into my eyes, – I couldn't create the deep program accidentally! It's as if I would shoot – and hit a thousand targets in a row! I'm not a genius at all, I'm an ordinary man. Just there, in the future, they decided to create virtuality. Possibly, it was predetermined. Maybe they just needed a bridgehead… an observation point to look into our world. So I became… a pen in someone's hand…

– A bridgehead? – I ask, – A bridgehead means war.

– Yes! And one must kill at war… and to take prisoners.

– Do you know how many hypotheses exists about Unfortunate?

– Yes.

– What if he's not from the future but from another world?

– Let it be! Even more reasons then! He's in our world and here are our laws! We must understand who is he.

What does he want from me after all?

I look at Dibenko: trembling lips, tired eyes, shabby and low appearance. What does he want? Does he want me to change my mind? Does he want me to hand Unfortunate over to him? In any case it's not in my powers. We'll just waste the time…

The time…

He knows my name and address. He knows where I live in virtuality.

He even could trace me at Romka's place.

And now he's biding his time.

I step back and rush to the gates. Dibenko looks as I leave not trying to stop me, only a smile appears on his face – a proud smile of an actor who played his role well and now listens to an applause.

101

The cab rushes past me as if my raised hand doesn't mean anything anymore in Deeptown. I jerk after the car, wave my hand again…

Useless. This is war.

How did Dibenko manage to cut me from Deeptown's transportation system? Possibly he has a share there too?

Well, but I don't need Deep-Transit anymore, do I?

An already familiar feeling when the city around falls flat turning into a scheme. I soar above it, drag myself through the distance, through foreign computers – towards my house…

… And I hit the wall.

I can see the house, a highrise inhabited by things – but I can't get inside. Something have changed in the space itself.

I make myself real, not inside the building itself, on the sidewalk by it.

The house is burning.

It's not a fire but a fantastic illumination. The walls are changing the color and brightness, each grain shines like a diamond. The whole house is like a ridiculous squarish diamond under the floodlight ray.

And there are people, many people: uniforms of the city's security service, "Labyrinth"'s and Al-Kabar's guards… The ring of cordon around the house, snipers with carbines, machine-gunners behind transparent shields, the gunners with jet knapsacks floating in the air. I emerged inside the ring, and hundred of barrels aims at me instantly.

The spiders have made a deal and have spread their web together.

– Leonid! Raise your hands and come closer! – the voice booms above the street. A group of people can be seen behind the ring of guards, in the rainbow flashes of illumination: Urman, Willy, Man Without Face, commissar Jordan Reid.

Wow.

What an honor for me! Where can a poor diver go? All official and unofficial rulers of the deep have gathered by his house!

– Leonid, come closer, slowly! – repeats Reid. His voice echoes along the street.

At least they are trying to keep an impression of their actions being lawful: the operation is carried out by the police. I walk under the aiming barrels, under the scrutiny of hundreds of computers, every step of mine is measured and estimated, every byte of data is under invisible control…

The guards in front of me give way letting me in. Guillermo looks aside. Urman – who in fact is just Urman's secretary – smirks mockingly. Dibenko, in his mask again, is indifferent.

I address to Reid ignoring them all:

– What's going on?

– You're charged with unlawful penetration into secured information space, in using weapons which caused a serious material damage, in hiding the information that is vitally important for Deeptown, – raps Jordan out, – You're detained for examining the circumstances.

– And what is my house charged with? – I ask, but it's impossible to confuse Reid:

– The search for the evidence is being carried out.

I turn around to the burning building. Search? Hell no! Conservation. Freezing. Overflowing of comm channels with data. Will Unfortunate be able to deflect the attack or even his powers won't be enough here?

– I surrender, – I say, – I admit all charges. I request… this to be stopped.

Jordan shakes his head, with a slight sympathy in his look but with determination.

– Don't try to hide in reality, – he warns, – We requested Interpol for your physical arrest.

The dread rolls over me – extinguishing the will, taking all strength away. Who knows, maybe there, back in reality, gloomy commandos in black fabric masks already stand behind my back?

A real prison, a real trial – this isn't an excitement of virtual fights. It's a rotten hay mattress, a skilly which recipe haven't changed since Stalin's times, bars on the window and escort guards not blemished with an intellect.

Or my dear native police haven't yet learn to work fast despite it's desperate wish to exchange the Russian citizen for a dozen of obsolete portable radio communicators?

Abyss-abyss – and to run…

I look at drawn faces, at the armed guards. There's no borders for the miracle hunters. They've dived into the deep from all corners of the world – in order to tear off, to rip out a piece of mystery, wherever could it be brought into our world from.

And frenzy takes me over.

– Jordan… I give you exactly ten seconds… – I whisper, – To all of you. Ten seconds to get your asses out of here.

– Collect yourself, Leonid! – this is Reid.

– Gunslinger, let's find a compromise… – this is Willy.

– Your strength has its limits too… – Man Without Face.

Oh my God, they fear me! Me! Alone against them all, primed, with an ancient computer behind and an empty hands!

Why?

– I don't know how you still hold out, – starts Dibenko, – but…

– Five seconds, – I say.

And the guards start shooting, either without an order or I just have missed it.

The fire and pain.

Everything that was invented for years of the deep's existence, everything well tested and most secret – everything for my honor…

I stand in the middle of the fire and see the dread on the faces around me, and even in the gray fog of Man Without Face – the dread…

Why am I still here, remaining in virtuality instead of taking the helmet off before the gray display of the killed machine?

I pull myself towards the guards, not with hands, just with a gaze – their bodies crumple like fabric puppets under the heel, fall apart in ashes, drain of steam, freeze, collapse into points, dissolve in the air, as if my gaze reflects all nastiness that pours my way.

Five seconds given for my enemies pass and the street is empty, just my house still burns and those who had set fire to it stand near.

– It's in the deep only where you're God, – says Man Without Face. He doesn't threaten me, just reminds.

– Oh really? – I pad closer to them, – Reid, now IRS computers will learn that you had misappropriated a couple of millions… Urman! All Al-Kabar's data is in free access! Willy! "Labyrinth" is dead! Levels are deleted, maps are lost, monsters have fled! Dima! Your fingerprints belong to a serial killer!

I give them a couple of seconds to conceive that and add:

– One minute… and it will be so!

I don't know if it's possible, I don't know the limit of my powers, I even don't know where they came from.

But they believe me.

– What do you want, diver? – shouts Urman. Reid shoulders him aside and roars:

– Your conditions!

Did I guess right about his taxes?

– You'll stop the hunt.

The miracle is before them. But they have what to lose.

Urman and Guillermo look at each other, Al-Kabar's director nods.

– We cancel our charges Jordan, – says Willy, – It's not necessary… to engage Interpol.

He nods to me very slightly. So it was just a threat?

Lies. Lies everywhere.

With a corner of my eyes I can see people approaching us along the street, the ordinary citizens of Deeptown. Now, as the cordon is gone, they can satiate their curiosity.

Let them watch.

Jordan grabs Dibenko's shoulder and shakes him slightly:

– Did you hear that? The operation is over! That's it! Turn your systems off!

So it was Dmitry who froze the building? Police had not enough guts for that?

Man Without Face shoves commissar aside, he looks at me only. He's the only one who doesn't care about my threats. Not because he doesn't believe in them and not because he's ready to compete with an American juridical system, totally run through with computer technologies.

He's not ready to refuse the miracle. We're compatriots after all, the highest idea had screwed up our brains alike, even if in different directions. A whisper comes from the foggy mask:

– You're betraying the entire world…

– I'm rehabilitating it.

– You don't want to share, diver. You've got your reward… and betrayed us. Ah well. Don't forget to take the Medal – you'll have something to justify yourself with.

I remember the warehouse, the boxes with soft, the table where the Medal of Complete Licence was left.

I reach through the distance that is no more, and the heavy medal lies into my hand. I examine it for a second: the white background and the rainbow colored sphere, the cobweb of the Net surrounded by innocence and purity.

– This is yours, – I say and throw the Medal to Man Without Face. The medal touches the black fabric of the cloak and sticks to it. Nice… – I haven't earned that. And you… you created the deep, and stop repeating that you couldn't do it. You could. By yourself. Thank you. But don't think that we all owe you anything. This world will live, will fall and learn to stand up after that. It'll never force to talk anybody who wants to stay silent, and will never shut the mouth of the ones who want to talk. And probably it'll become better…

I turn around and walk towards my house.

Dibenko haven't yet turned off the programs that froze the building in the diamond crust. But I ain't gonna ask him for anything. I pull the door and enter the staircase that shines as Aladdin's Cave of Wonders. It's just that illumination dims behind my back, fades completely. I rip the foreign program, gaining step after step from it.

I ascend, just two and a half hundred steps to go up.

Rustles and noises can be heard behind each door, my drawn little world livens up as I pass by. Fragments of music and muffled talks, rattle of shattering glass and rhythmical hammer hits, slaps of bare feet against the floor and squeal of a drill can be heard from behind my back.

I can't even remember now, when and what was I programming surrounding myself with nonexistent neighbors. Weirdo am I. Just as anybody is…

I know that I can remove all freezing at once, with one effort, but I don't do that. Let the way up will be slow, step by step, sweeping the false sparkle from the walls, waking up the life in empty apartments. I'll never enter this house again.

Baby's whimpering and the buzz of a broken faucet, dog's barking and goblets' ringing. I have nothing to memorize and nothing to be sad about. These were my crutches but I've learned to walk on my own.

The last bend of the stairs, for a moment I stop by my door made of diamond grains. My tiny face is in every one of them, one of the numerous faces I was putting on in the deep.

I breathe at the door – the diamonds dim, darken turning into icicles, melting and flowing down in water droplets. Cry for me abyss, I have nothing to cry for.

I enter and instantly see that nothing have changed inside, Dibenko's program had no power here.

Unfortunate and Vika stand by the window, looking outside.

I approach – and Vika silently takes my hand into her, and we look at Deeptown, three of us.

The street is swarming with people, a dense solid crowd, Deep-Transit's cabs stay a bit further along the sides of the street and people still keep coming in order to freeze, looking up at the house.

And only right under the window the people give place, there's a ring of emptiness surrounding Man Without Face. He also looks up as if being able to see us. I even want to believe that he can.

– He's not evil at all, – I say to Unfortunate, – He's only impatient.

– I don't accuse anyone, – agrees Unfortunate.

– Then leave, – I ask, – It's high time for that.

He looks at me for some time, the one who came into the deep as Unfortunate, as if trying to see my real face, to understand what I might feel now.

– Are you hurt? – he asks in the end.

– No. Just upset, but this is different.

– I feared that you'll be hurt: I broke your dream, didn't I?

– Which one?

– You dreamed that virtuality will change the world, will make it cleaner, will give power and kindness to the people. You tolerated what angered you, smiled to what annoyed you…

Unfortunate stretches his hand, puts it on top of my and Vika's joined palms.

– You believed in the moment… one single moment that would redeem all sins and mistakes. I killed this faith.

It's even funny for me to listen to these words. Does he really think so?

Did I really think so?

– It's not the deep, Unfortunate, – I say, – Not this deep.

He nods.

– Do you remember the mirror labyrinth, Leonid?

Sure I do…

– The deep gave you millions of mirrors diver, the magic mirrors. One can see himself, one can see the world – any of its corners. One can draw the world and it'll become alive, reflected in the mirror. This is a wonderful gift. But mirrors are too obedient diver, obedient and deceitful. The mask put on once becomes the face. The vice turns into finesse, the snobbery into elite stuff, the spite into sincerity. The journey into the mirror world isn't an easy stroll, it's too easy to get lost.

– I know…

– That's only why I'm talking to you – because you know. I would like to be your friend too, Leonid.

He smiles sadly, then adds:

– But it would be a very strange friendship…

– Alien and Russian – brothers forever? – inquires Vika sarcastically. { A mock of the Stalin's times song: "Stalin and Mao watch upon us… […] Russian and Chinese – brothers forever." } So Unfortunate didn't convince her, not at all. For her he's still a human, a cunning hacker taking everyone in…

I'm mirthless but I say:

– I'm not asking who you are. Believe it or not, but I don't care… An alien from the stars or from another dimension, or the machine mind. But you know much more then we do anyway. Tell me, what will happen?

– It depends in what mirror you are looking, diver.

– Then I'll choose, Unfortunate, and I'll be very picky. Now – leave.

He removes his hand from ours.

For a second nothing happens, then the wall behind hid back starts bending, curling up into a funnel.

Unfortunate makes a step back, into the shiny tunnel leading towards unknown, towards the blue sun and orange bands flying beneath it, into his world. His body shivers and blurs, cascades of colorful sparks streaming from his skin. For a moment it seems to me that I can see – see the one who visited our world.

But most likely, I just want to give the miracle a name too much.

– Remember us… – I say to escaping flashes of light, – Remember us as we are…

The house begins to shake, the walls become transparent, then pale green, then brick ones, then made of paper. The ceiling crawls up and bends in a dome, the floor turns into the mirror, the light in the window passes all spectrum colors and burns our silhouettes on the paper wall. The apartment turns into a huge hall as if all directions were stretched by an order.

The tunnel narrows slowly, but there's still time… to jump after Unfortunate – and to see where he came from, to tear the mask from the miracle.

– Lenia, what is this? – shouts Vika.

– The data, – I answer. The wind begins to blow through the apartment, a room pomegranate in a flowerpot blossoms, a pile of CDs on the shelf starts playing all songs simultaneously. – He copies the data, brings everything he learned with himself.

Half transparent shadows rush past us. Alex with the carbine at ready runs by, then a monstrous spider rushes by, stepping with its paws, that imaginary family which we rescued in "Labyrinth" goes down the tunnel too. A huge tree flies away, rotating as a propeller, a hobbit with a scared muzzle minces out, a flying Man Without Face's guard with a fire breathing jet knapsack stalks out in huge jumps.

Then me and Vika walk in. Hand in hand.

– Remember us, – I repeat, – Remember…

The tunnel narrows more like a cameras's aperture. At the last moment the flying slippers of Computer Wiz squeeze into it, flapping their wings.

Then the room returns to normal.

– I don't believe that he's an alien anyway, – says Vika, in unsure voice but stubbornly, – If he's a good hacker, then he could…

She silences when I hug her shoulders.

– Please Vika, don't, – I ask, – He have left, haven't he? Forever. It's not necessary to argue now, we can just believe.

There's a noise in the street, an exchange of opinions. Have they seen at least anything of what we did? It doesn't matter. The new legend was born in the deep.

– He have left, but we stay, – says Vika, – and there's a hunt after you.

I nod, slowly releasing her, step to the window and look down. Man Without Face is still motionless.

– Leonid the diver must leave too. – I agree.

– Will you miss your house? – asks Vika. How great it is when it's not necessary to explain anything.

– A little… like I'd miss a kiddie's three-wheeler.

I return to her and hug again, her lips find mine.

And this is something that will never leave from now on.

– Abyss… – I call silently.

The house shakes again when the rental server in distant Minsk receives the command. Magnetic head slides along the disk surface – deleting.

One turn – and the first floor with the scandalous pensioner disappears. Another turn – and the sixth floor with the quiet graphomaniac is gone, another – and the tenth floor with vinyl collector is no more.

My computer livens up and the apartment walls fade. I don't look at the table, but I know well that the drawn Vika on the display smiles to me – for the last time. Programs don't feel sad when we delete them, people do but I have no choice. If you get lost in the mirror labyrinth – break the mirrors, reach for the light…

A crowd bursts into shouts when my house dissolves in the air. Poor Jordan will have to prove that it wasn't his fault.

We fly above Deeptown in a hug, looking into each other's eyes.

– Great… – whispers Vika.

– I have no idea myself how I do it…

– You have no idea how you're kissing? – she asks in surprise.

… No, never will I understand a woman's logic.

By the connection of the Ukranian and Baltic blocks, near a supermarket, I find a quiet spot between phone booths and a fountain. This is where we come out from. Not at once though.

– You're erasing all your traces? – inquires Vika.

I nod in silence.

– Do you hope they'll not find you?

– I'll try. Maybe they'll be able to figure the city out… but even this isn't likely. It would be better if they won't know even this.

– What about trusting me?

– St. Petersburg, – I say. I want so much to hear that we're compatriots, but Vika frowns.

– Piter… Lenia, wait here, okay?

I wait. She runs into the supermarket while I reach the Minsk server again, checking for any trace that might have left, then move along all spare addresses, even along those never used – and kill them scratching all data from everywhere mercilessly – from strimmers and magnetooptics, Bernulli's storage and optical disks. The last one to be cleaned is my ISP's disk. That's it. Now I never entered the deep.

Vika returns.

– Got into a long waiting line, can you imagine? – she laughs.

– An urgent shopping?

– One thing.

She waves a farsightedly folded plane ticket before my face, I just can see where is she about to fly.

– Are you free in the morning?

– Don't you fear to fly?

– What can I do, it'd be too long by all other means… Will you meet me?

– What flight?

– Wait for me by the information booth at ten in the morning.

A little game of independency… I can reach the cash register in the supermarket right now and find out who and from where have just bought the ticket to St. Petersburg.

But of course I won't do that.

– How will I recognize you?

Vika shrugs her shoulders.

– We'll see. How about you?

– I'll hold a red rose in my teeth, – I inform gloomily.

I can understand Vika perfectly. One thing is to fall in love in the virtual world, while to meet in reality is an absolutely different case. It's too scary to talk about yourself. I don't know whether I would have guts to offer to meet first.

– Then see you at ten by the info booth, – decides Vika, – Let's try not to be confused?

– Okay.

– I'll leave now, alright? – she half asks, half informs, – I yet have to gather my stuff…

– It's cold here already, – I warn.

– Here too…

Vika becomes half transparent and crumbles in a whirl of sparks. Beautiful is her exit from the deep.

My time is up too.

I wink to a passer-by who stopped watching Vika's exit and disappear from virtuality.

The screens were dark. Completely.

I took the helmet off.

The golden background of Windows-Home was glowing on the display, Vika is gone.

Enough of loving the drawn people.

We'll exit the Internet manually…

I opened the terminal window and stared at the blinking line dumbly.

No dialtone!

I'd better pay my phone bills in time.

I picked up the phone anyway and listened to the silence. Then I checked the logs: the phone was disconnected three hours ago, by the end of the working day, according to the habits of phone switchboard workers.

So you were right, Mr Urman's virtual secretary… It's really possible to enter the deep without any technical devices.

I pulled the suit off and lagged myself to the bed.

111

The TV set woke me up. I was lying, snuggling in the comforter – the heat wasn't yet turned on, so it was cold, and listened to announcers' chatter. { The heating in Russia is mostly centralized, meaning: one boiler station for a part or even for a whole town/city… so the time of turning the heating on in fall or off in spring doesn't depend on the wish of those who lives in houses at all… The hot water supply comes from the same source. Now imagine what happens when this boiler station goes down in the middle of the winter for a couple of weeks… OOPS. Tons of fun. :-/ } Politics, economics, currency exchange rates… Will yesterday's commotion in virtuality make it to the news reports I wonder? Maybe it will, somewhere between the news about a popular singer's arrival and sports, among the rest of the funny things. Television likes to make reports from Deeptown. It's funny for a philistine to watch cartoony landscapes and drawn people. Probably it's good that we're laughed at, if only we weren't feared… weren't hated…

I raised my head and glanced at the watch scared, they must have been stopped since yesterday. A usual thing, I always forget to wind it. I found the remote control lying by the bed and displayed the time on the TV screen.

7 AM. Good, I won't be late.

The whole body was feeling broken-down, the head was heavy as always after the series of long and frequent dives. A human isn't adapted to virtuality too well. Maybe a year or two will pass and the moment of requital will come to all Deeptown's citizens: some kind of paralysis, blindness, heart attacks. Then Dibenko's name will be dragged through the mud, the companies that made their bets on virtuality will ruin, and serious scientists will report that they foresaw it long time ago and were restlessly warning…

We'll see. In any case I'll have a chance to feel the disaster among the first.

Or maybe on the contrary – the breakthrough I was dreaming about and Dibenko was waiting for will happen. What I could do yesterday will become possible for everybody. Two worlds merged together: virtuality and reality, just make one step and enter the deep, without any crutches…

I rose and made my bed, washed the floor, wiped the dust, then raked all clothes out from the closet and was digging in the pile for five minutes in search for anything decent. It's too hard to take care of your wardrobe if you got used to draw all your clothes, from briefs to tuxedo.

Jeans and sweatshirt. Will do.

Dressed, I walked along the apartment once more glancing at the computer that was working all night long. A line was slowly crawling across the screen: "Lenechka, the deep is waiting!"

Let it wait.

No, my attempts to make an apartment to look any better failed. The chronic chaos of the single's apartment was only enhanced by clean floor and the garbage removed out of sight. Oh well… let's appear in complete beauty. If Vika ever dealt with hackers, she won't be scared.

I turned the computer off, and being at the exit already, I remembered that even haven't attempted to get the kitchen into order… Oh no, that's enough, this deed isn't for me.

After closing the door hastily, I called the elevator. The plastic button, burned through by a cigarette butt was hardly glowing. It was heavily smoked inside the cabin for some reason.

Not so beautiful as in the deep, sure not.

The elevator dragged me down slowly, past ten floors, past my neighbors of the concrete box whom I didn't know, and even never attempted to know. One can think out other's lives, can sympathize and mock nonexistent people… But how hard is it to know them – those alive and real ones, to make just a step closer.

What if Vika won't come? What if she changes her mind, feeling the same thing that I did: one cannot merge two worlds?

I imagined myself in the airport – a ridiculous figure, a fugitive from the virtual world crawled into the world of alive. The pale untanned mug, clothes that never require ironing, the eyes, red as the druggie's. And then Vika appears, beautiful and slender, fashionably dressed… or maybe even worse. A stooping girl in glasses comes out, in baggy dress and the coat of several years ago's fashion…

God knows what would be worse…

I quietly moaned, almost living through our common shame and mutual disappointment. Elevator doors parted right at this moment and a little girl with a terrier led on a leash stepped back scared.

Oh great, now even kids dash aside…

I squeezed past the cheerful dog and dragged myself down along the stairs towards the exit.

– Good morning! – said the girl quietly behind me.

I forgot how to greet people, didn't I?..

– Good morning, – I replied, smiling belatedly and ran outside.

For some reason I'm sure that Unfortunate wouldn't forget to say that, he would even also pat the dog on the neck and the dog would plop on its back, pleased.

I had enough money now, I could even take a taxi to the airport proudly but I didn't want to hurry. I feared that wait, oh how I feared it… I had a couple of hamburgers for breakfast by some kiosk, warmed up ones but obviously not fresh made. I wanted beer but under the seller's condescending look I dared for soda only.

The bus to the airport was almost empty. Some sleepy company with huge trunks, girls with a very bright make-up according to the latest fashion. I stood in the back of the bus watching the belt of the road crawling away.

Maybe I shouldn't go…

It was a quarter before ten when the bus stopped at the airport. I crawled out with an optimism of the one condemned to execution, stood under the drizzling rain for some time before entering the building.

Maybe the weather is too bad for flights…

It was warm and noisy in the airport. The kids, excited by the flight ahead were running around their parents, the 'shuttle merchants' were gloomily dragging their packs along, the line of lightly dressed people was forming for registration for some Southbound flight. { 'Shuttle merchants' – a kind of tiny business, common to Russia. They travel to China, Turkey or some other country, buy the goods from wholesalers or on local markets (usually these are dirt cheap clothes of crappy quality), and *personally* take those back to Russia (by a charter flight when several merchants hire a plane or just by a regular passenger flight). Then the goods are either sold (personally again) on some retail (flea-kind) market or are resold to smaller merchants (yeah, there are even smaller ones!) } I studied the flight info on the display – there were no delayed arrivals.

Maybe Vika didn't come…

Four planes have landed during last half an hour. Vika could have come from Tashkent, Riga, Khabarovsk or Moscow… And if she set the time with reserve, then all Russia is at her disposal and almost all of the abroad.

I lagged to the info booth, several people was standing there but neither woman looked like Vika to me, I felt that from the very first sight.

All faces are so much different, so many homely, tired and worried ones. It's not so in the deep, and to no purpose possibly…

I leaned against the wall and waited. Half an hour is my usual indulgence to women's unreliability… But I'll make an exception for Vika, will wait for an hour. Or two. I'll stick to this wall until militia unglues me.

So good would it be to have a good notebook now, with radio modem, to run the deep program, to dive, to search through all airline companies' files…

I closed my eyes.

The deep was lying before me.

The black velvet, the bottomless precipice, pierced by colorful threads. The tiny sphere of the Earth that tried a new apparel on. The deep was waiting, I could see sparks of the planes leaving and landing, whirlpools of information processed by computers, I saw a distant Deeptown's buildings. Just to reach out – and I'll be there, I don't need machines anymore.

Somebody nearby, right in the airport, was entering the deep using his notebook. I stood behind his back for a moment and looked with his eyes.

This is my world.

The generous and boundless, noisy and slovenly, the human one. It'll become better, will change with us, we just need to believe in this, not to wander in labyrinths when the exit is near, not to fall in love with reflections when alive people are by our side. And possibly the next visitor to the deep won't become the only Unfortunate who can't shoot at the people.

I exited the Net, the figures have changed on electronic wall clock: ten sharp.

– And where's the red rose?

It was the most dreadful – to turn and to look at Vika, harder than all feats in the virtual world…

She was exactly the one I was drawing, the one that smiled to me from the screen every morning. The one that lived in my dreams.

Just her hair are a little lighter and the haircut is a bit shorter, and her eyes don't laugh – they are scared… just like mine are now. But this is my Vika, the girl in jeans and light jacket, with the bag over her shoulder.

We both lived in our real bodies in the deep. The best mask in the world is your own face.

– This rose is still being grown, – I say.

Vika relaxes a little.

– I feared… that you'll promise me to draw it.

– Oh no, – I whisper, – Enough of drawn flowers…

I take her hand, we'll stand here like this for a second, looking into each other's eyes.

Before we go home.