Labyrinth of reflections (26 page)

Maybe he's Russian though, a Russian citizen. If I throw the info about him in the open Net or to the proper authorities…

I even laughed of my own naivety. So what? Will the ole' good Russia really send its carriers and tank squads to guard Unfortunate? Wasn't it enough talented programmers taken out of the country – say, 14-year old Sasha Morozov, a guy from Voronezh was flown out by the charter flight. Just maybe our intelligence service would gather the remains of its past bravery and would intercept Unfortunate just in order to lock him forever in its own research center somewhere in Siberia or the Ural Mountains.

When the Deep was created, the Freedom was its banner.

We are independent of all corrupt governments, shabby religions and Puritan moral. We are free in everything – and forever. No information can be secret – and we have a right to discuss whatever we want. Freedom of travel can't be limited – and Deeptown will never know any borders. We'll fight for our right to have all rights. We'll purge only those from our ranks who will rise against the freedom.

Lord, how naive and enthusiastic were we!

The people of the new cybernetic world, of the free and unlimited space!

The people reveled in the freedom, playing with it as a kid risen from the bed after the long illness, cheerful and proud by ourselves. The Deep's interests – everything for it, for the name of it, forever… amen.

But why do I still believe in all these funny slogans with the same enthusiasm as I had being a kid, believing in communism?

Why do I want to believe so much, despite everything?

Breaking the laws, trashing someone else's computers, stealing someone else's 'intellectual property', not paying taxes to my poverty-stricken country, not trusting anybody except a handful of friends – and still to believe in something warm and fuzzy, clean and eternal? In freedom, kindness and love?

Maybe I'm just from the breed that can't live otherwise.

And well, nobody really prevents me from believing in freedom further, after I change my entrance channels and the Net address.

It's so simple – to believe.

I was looking at the 3D mesh of Norton's table, at the neat lines of directories and subdirectories. Three gigabytes, all completely full. Service programs, viruses-antiviruses, pieces of Vika's "consciousness", audio files and games, stolen data and new books, unpublished yet. Here is "Hearts and motors – in the travels again" by Vasiliev, here is a fresh mystery by Lev Kursky, prolific like piranha (?), here is Oldi's novel that have made so much noise. I can go out now, buy lots of beer, print a couple of books on my old LaserJet and land on the sofa. To sleep – as much as I can! And those Mr Urman whose real face I'll never see, and Mr Without Face whom I'll never see all the more can feel free to fight over Unfortunate with Willy-Guillermo…

I never liked stupid people and kamikaze.

I picked the phone from the case of my 'five' and dialed Maniac's number. I was lucky again, he was neither hanging in virtuality nor sleeping.

– Allo!

– Shura, it's me.

– Ah… – Maniac lowered his tone a bit.

– Are you busy?

– Well… a little.

– Writing a program?

– No, peeling potatoes… Galya is cooking.

– Congratulations.

– With what? – Maniac pricked up his ears.

– With your reconciliation!

– Ah… yeah… okay.

I'd better not abuse his time, especially after the recent rejoining with his spouse.

– Shura, tell me please, is it possible to enter "Labyrinth" with weapons?

– You mean the virus? Isn't BFG enough for you? – Maniac is obviously amused, – Your kidding. This is a space within a space, created with exactly defined purpose. It's easier to smuggle the virus into the Pentagon, then to pass through "Labyrinth"'s filter with it.

– Wasn't it you who made the filter for them?

– No, – confessed Maniac with regret, – Not me. But I know who and how had made it.

– So how?

– Your image is copied when you pass the portal. If you have any programs with you, any programs, those are cut off. Just your exact copy passes into the "Labyrinth"'s server.

– And there's no way to bypass? – I inquired helplessly.

– Think.

– Don't I have to think too much lately? – I growl, – Shura! Just tell me, can I break through the filter?

– Only walls can be broken… by foreheads, – said Maniac instructively, – What happened?

– Very lousy situation. Extremely lousy.

– Lousy for whom?

– For all the Deep. And for one good guy.

– And what about you? – asked Maniac directly and I remembered "Three Musketeers" involuntarily.

– Complete shit, believe me.

Maniac didn't reply at once, he even began to whistle something.

– Shurka!

– Will "Warlock-9000" be okay for you?

– What is that?

– A local virus. As usual.

– Will it pass the filter?

– Maybe.

– Shura, don't I distract you too much? I mean… from potatoes. – I said, possessed by the sudden guilt.

– No, I'm finishing already…

I don't like cordless phones, it's enough radiation for me already from my dear computer. As for Maniac – on the contrary, he can't imagine his life without them. And now also, he stands pressing the phone to his ear with a shoulder, tearing the peel off potatoes.

– Pour it in for me.

– Just to pour it in?

– Yeah, – I asked gathering all my impudence.

– Hold on, it's not that easy. What apps do you use to create your images?

– Various ones… "Bioconstructor"… "Morphologist"… "Guise".

– I see. What personality will you use when using the virus?

– Personality #7, Gunslinger…

– What is the file's extension?

– Huh? Extension? Hold on…

– Fire the terminal up, – said Maniac tiredly, – Set the complete access for the password… say, "12345".

– One-two-three-four-five, – I repeat dumbly.

– In numerals! – specifies Maniac, – I'll tune everything by myself.

– Thanks!

– Not that fast… You'll owe me beer…

Maniac sighed one more time and threatened before putting down the phone:

– I'll call in 5 minutes. Your old girl in on already, waits for me and is as docile as a schoolgirl. Is that clear?

I rushed to the computer. In three minutes Vika agreed to submit to the one who calls with the password "12345" and moved over to the kitchen to cook myself a supper. I haven't even filled the teapot yet when the phone rang in the room and then connecting modem started whistling softly.

I'm stupid after all… and kamikaze.

Though, it's ridiculous to love myself too much, I can afford to be stupid for some time.

I just had time to drink some tea with jam found in the sideboard, then refilled the mug and returned to the room. Maniac was just disconnecting from my computer having left the burning red line on the screen: "Took some your old junk to read and play virus plugged in instructions by voice in a minute".

Maniac have carelessly omitted all punctuation.

Exited into Norton, I found the file of Gunslinger's image (it's extension was most trivial: .clt), and started to compare it to the other, unchanged images. Nothing have changed that I could have noticed.

As expected.

Maniac called in five minutes and quickly explained what and how I should do. I could only shake my head when I got just what did he do to my image "#7".

Obviously, "Warlock-9000" was something he was preparing for a long time, kept for the very special cases. If this thingy is used even once, hundreds of plagiarists will follow.

– Beer, beer and more beer… – I said turning the phone off. Nobody can tell though whether I'll be able to provide him this beer or not.

I was going to raise such a storm in the Deep which it haven't seen for quite a while.

The storm it deserved.

– The terminal is on, – reported Vika. I clicked the connection icon, and was on "Russia On Line"'s server in several seconds.

The address left by Man Without Face I remembered by heart: some Polish server which doesn't really mean anything. It's just a router, the signal will pass a couple or more countries on its way to Man Without Face.

There was no video support on that server, no drawn muzzles or animated photos on the screen. A severe styled menu in Polish and English, some ten more languages supported, including Romanian and Korean… no Russian. Our brotherly nation doesn't favor us too much, alas. I replied to operator's greeting and asked to establish connection with "Man Without Face" {
in English in the original
}. The operator switched to the Russian keyboard driver in half a minute and asked me to name the addressee in my native language.

"≈╔╚ъ╒╔╙ │╔╖ ▀╗ф═", – I typed in.

They started to throw me from server to server. The first two were open ones, I couldn't tell anything about the next three. Then I saw "Please hold" on the screen. In Russian by the way.

I was holding for fifteen minutes.

First five minutes quietly and modestly, then – getting a beer from the fridge and putting the old "Nautilus" album in the CD-player. Good singer Butusov is... until he starts trying to write the lyrics himself.

I remembered my dream, where was a singer on the stage and poor Alex, a prophet dream in some sense. But why did I imagine Unfortunate as a singer? Never had I any familiar musicians in my life, and risked to sing myself only in complete solitude.

"Who?"

I pulled myself to the screen and typed without much thinking:

"Me"

"How goes, diver?"

"I suppose you know that."

I would give very much to find out who is he – Man Without Face.

"Yes."

"I can't handle it."

"It's your problem."

"Not only mine."

A short delay – either Man Without Face was thinking or there was a lag along the lines somewhere.

"What do you want?"

"Help."

"I can't help. Everything you need is inside you."

If he was here, a real person, I would say something to him that is possible to say only or even better not to say at all. So I said that aloud but the Net has its own norms of communication and my fingers typed:

"Who is he?"

"You were told already."

The spiders. The spiders, stretched their thin threads into each other's dens. Urman watches after "Labyrinth" while Man Without Face controls Al-Kabar.

"Was that true?"

"Maybe"

"I CAN'T HANDLE IT!" – I typed in CAPs.

"Pity."

And almost instantly the line have appeared in the bottom of the screen: "Addressee have disconnected."

– Connection broke! – confirmed Vika, – Do you want to reconnect?

– No, – I replied. For some reason I didn't have any doubt: the Polish server won't connect me with Man Without Face again.

Maybe he feels offended that I've told about him to Urman. Maybe he have just lost faith in my abilities.

The result is the same in either case.

– Vika, am I smart? – I asked.

There's almost 1000 keywords stuffed into Windows-Home. Sometimes it's possible to make really funny talks with the computer... almost intelligent ones.

– What answer would you like to hear? – deviated Vika as usual when the words were not formulated as an order but were unclear to her.

– The honest one.

– I don't know Lenia. I really wish I could answer but I really don't know.

– Stupid you are, Vika.

– And you're a boor.

I laughed. If anybody not familiar with modern operating systems could hear me he would decide for sure that my Pentium is intelligent.

– Sorry, Vika.

– That's okay, I'm not angry.

Intellect and its fake... Where is the border between them? We already talk to our computers, they greet us and wish us good night. Many people including me spend most of their time in virtuality. But it's not a victory of the human intelligence, just a fake of the victory, bright colored banners and fireworks above the void. Higher processor speed, more memory – and the computer gets human look and feel. But nothing more...

And Unfortunate – he can be a program too. Just as cunning as Maniac's virus, penetrated through the filter, rooted itself in the 33rd level's server, the one able to support the talk and to shoot the monsters.

– Shit!! – I shouted.

It's so simple! Just a hundred of phrases said sometimes in the right time, sometimes irrelevantly. The program that learns on its own words, returning you your own thoughts, obediently following its naive rescuers... Sure it doesn't need any comm channels.

What did I tell Unfortunate, what did he reply? I strained my memory.

I don't know... It might be a program. Then both Al-Kabar and Man Without Face were too wide of the mark.

Good if I'm right, the riddle is solved quite simply.

The Silence, Gunslinger...

I shivered, remembering the void that rolled over me after his words.

A program?

Unfortunate, carrying the drawn kid with such care...

A program?

– I can't understand a thing, Vika, – I said, – Absolutely nothing, and you can't help me.

– Can I help? – replies Vika inopportunely.

– No!

– Who can then?

I was silent for a while before replying.

– The real Vika. The Deep!

– Deep program start?

I put my hands on the keyboard instead of an answer.

Deep

Enter.

The darkness on the screens is lined by falling stars, the rainbow spiral whirling before my eyes, erasing reality, pulling me towards Deeptown's skyscrapers.