Labyrinth of reflections (45 page)

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.

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?