Labyrinth of reflections (40 page)

– We're leaving, – I say and take Unfortunate's hand. As strange as it might seem, but I'm sure that Dibenko won't stop us. He's not an idiot, after all! If he just understands what's going on…

– Kill those two, – orders Man Without Face.

We're standing too close to each other and the guards don't shoot. Looks like they are ordered to keep Unfortunate safe no matter what. The couple in the air just continues to fly, but those three on the ground storm towards us.

Do unarmed people need much? Just several machine gun butt hits – several viruses thrust into our machines – and we'll disappear from the battlefield. Maybe the brave Elves of Lorien are now watching us through the blind wall, but they won't meddle, they have enough of their own bravery and battles.

But it turns out that not only the Elves are watching us.

I duck the first blow, trip the guard up and he falls. They have to play according to the common rules in Deeptown… I'm trying to snatch out a machine gun from him in a weak hope that this virus set was created as an autonomous file object…

… A long grey shadow jumps down from the roof of the Elvish hut. The wolf knocks down one of the flying bodyguards and drops him on the pavement as easily as a cardboard puppet. One click of his jaws and the man stays motionless. The wolf jumps aside, and right in time: the second flyer starts shooting at him. Bullets pierce the indifferent body that starts to float up: the knapsack is still working. The wolf rushes to us.

Man Without Face steps out from his way in fluid motion but the wolf was not going after him, he bites into the throat of one of our opponents. The time seems to slow down, I see how the third bodyguard fights with Vika, and I throw my opponent on him.

The wolf bites through the bodyguard's neck in an instant and pounces on the remaining pair. The werewolf is too excited to imitate the pure wolf's behavior – he rips his enemies with teeth and batters them with paws in a cat-like manner. The greenish sparkling dust pours from his claws – the virus weapons have entered the battle.

The machine gun lies by my feet, I pick it up but the program has the user detector of course, the trigger is fixed under my finger. I just throw the weapon at the guard who flies towards us, and he starts to shoot reflectively – too fast and incoherent reaction, and also the dangerous one in this case. The volley hits the machine gun that rotates in the air and the battle program's security fails. An explosion – the whole virus package gathered in the machine gun image, works simultaneously. The poor flyer is the closest one to this bloody mess – and he gets it all. He flames up disintegrating into formless pieces right into the air.

– Run! – growls the wolf, jumping up from the motionless bodies, the bloody saliva drips from his fangs, the fur stands on its ends. I step towards Romka, pat him on the back and whisper – "thanks."

Man Without Face is the last one alive, he stands there quietly watching the demise of his guards.

– Run! – the Wolf growls again, not averting his glare from Dibenko.

– The Fellowship of divers? – says Man Without Face mockingly, – I never expected that.

He's too calm. I nod to Vika and Unfortunate and obediently they start retreating. Me and Roman stay – two against one. But this one is too unruffled.

– Again I suggest you to bethink yourself Leonid, – says Dibenko to me.

– Get out of here, will you?! – hisses the wolf glaring at me with greenish human eyes and leaps on Man Without Face.

A nice leap, this time even quicker and more accurate than the previous one from the roof. The jaws click squeezing Dibenko's neck, forepaws scratch his chest. Now, standing on his hindpaws, the wolf is much higher than a human.

– You sucker, – says Man Without Face.

He lifts the wolf by the scruff with one hand and throws him back towards the Elvish hut. The blow is so hard that the wall gives way and the wolf almost flies into the corridor, but jumps back up immediately and leaps on Dibenko again. The blow wasn't just a blow – the wolf's hide flames with a pale glow. The virus was stuck in Romka after all. He must have turned all the security off for the sake of speed and accuracy. But even now, when the virus is mincing his computer, he still fights.

I run. Everything else is not important. Romka was watching me – just how did he manage? He lunged into this fight to give me the chance and it's stupid to lose it.

Vika stops Deep-Transit's cab ten meters further down the street, pushes Unfortunate inside and waves her hand to me. Then her face distorts in terror.

A disappearing howl of pain scratches my ears from behind and in the next moment Man Without Face grabs me by the shoulder. It's too hard to compete in speed with somebody who has 'octium''s prototype as a home computer. One blow – and I fall on the pavement. Man Without Face who invented the Deep, leans over me.

– I was patient, – he says.

I spit into the grey foggy mask, just a symbolic gesture – the ability to spit is not implemented into the virtual body. I'll have to make a hint for Computer Wiz…

Dibenko moves his hand along the face as if wiping the spit off, but in fact he's not that squeamish: his fingers scoop a handful of fog and form a sort of a snowball, looking as if made of a dirty city snow.

– Get it diver. Happy dreams to you.

Then the snowball flies towards my face, unwrapping into an endless cloth. It's not gray anymore – it's colorful, sparkling, reflecting, cheerful and pattern-covered. Too late I understand what does this colorfulness remind me.

Abyss-abyss…

Too late.

Deep-program covers me and there's no strength to duck it.

Abyss-abyss…

The cloth still burns and doesn't seem to fade as the honest lawful deep-program should…

Abyss-abyss…

I dive deeper and deeper, I fall into this colorful chasm, into the endless chain of false reflections, into the colorful labyrinth, into the madness and unconsciousness.

There's no timer on my machine and nobody will come to my door with the key.

Abyss-abyss…

I can't surface as fast as the colorful whirl pulls me down!

Abyss-abyss…

Composure first of all.

As I heard, it's a favorite saying of some of our cosmonauts, but just who remembers the heroes of the past days now?

Composure.

The panic kills faster than the bullet.

The endless kaleidoscope surrounds me: the rainbow, the fireworks, the working deep-program. How simple – and unexpected. The diver can surface but what would he do if the water comes in faster than he swims up?

I don't know yet.

I make a step and succeed as strange as it might seem. The world have lost its reality, turned into the mad abstract artist's painting. The swirling orange band flies by, curls into the ring, tries to tie around my head. I tear it off: I can't see my hands, but the band flies aside as if in hurt feelings. The small fountains of white dust rise from under my invisible feet, an emerald rain starts falling, each drop is a tiny crystal, painfully stinging the body.

And the silence, a dead silence, almost the one Unfortunate was talking about…

Be calm.

Where am I now? Walk along Deeptown's streets with outstretched hands and looking forward blindly? Or fell down somewhere into the depth of Dibenko's computer? Or maybe I'm spread throughout the whole Net like some mythical character?

Be calm.

First of all, I'm at home. I'm at home, before my old computer, in the helmet and the suit. The keyboard is somewhere before me, the mouse to the right. If to grope the keys and to enter the exit command manually…

No, it's impossible, and not just because I won't feel the keys beneath my fingers. My consciousness got used to just imitate the movements long time ago: I don't stretch my hand, but just jerk it weakly, I don't jump but just raise from the chair a little, not walk but move my feet under the table. Illusions. The Deep.

– Vika! – I say, – Vika! Exit from virtuality! Vika, I cancel immersion! Exit!

No effect.

I took the possibility to communicate with Windows-Home from the Deep for granted, to download and to transfer files, to exit the Deep, to inquire about the machine resources. If it were so simple… there wouldn't be any need for divers. Now, in the common virtual dweller's hide I'm in the common rights.

I can't feel the real world.

I can't cry for help.

I'm drowning.

Be calm!

I try to take off the helmet that I can't feel. Useless. I run, pull away hoping to tear the wires. Hardly have I moved even a bit.

I close my eyes. I need to switch off from the deep-program, not to see it, not to dive deeper.

Abyss-abyss, I'm not yours, let me go…

I repeat this hundreds of times – the poor pupil in the diver's school, dolefully writing the same sentence in the notebook over and over again.

Abyss-abyss, I'm not yours, let me go…

Nothing changes.

There, in the infinitely far real world, my motionless body sits by the computer and the deadly rainbows reflect in my opened eyes.

Dibenko have got me.

Did he invent this trap accidentally, trying to learn how to surface, to invent the life-buoy but actually invented the cement bowl attached to the feet instead? Or was it exactly what he wanted to do: not to pull all virtuality dwellers to the divers' level but to descend us to the common one?

Maybe I'll never know that.

What happened to Romka? Did Vika have time to jump into the car or is she wandering in the colorful snowstorm too while Unfortunate walks away with Dibenko, silent and submissive?

I need to return to find out.

The world around calms down a bit. Either the color storm gained some system or I got accustomed to my surroundings. Let's assume that the emerald rain falls from above, so I now have one reference point. Let's try to walk… slowly, easily… to that stubborn orange band for instance that is still fidgeting there before me.

The band lets me to come close, then flies away. I have time to notice that the emerald rain tattered its edges. The orange band is curled into the Moebius ring, as if it's… it's independent from the space that surrounds it!

Looks a bit too intricate for the deep-program…

I move towards the band again – and again it doesn't let me touch it and flies away.

What's going on anyway? Have this mad world formed around me or is it just a trick of my own subconsciousness?

I follow the band, any direction can be correct – if directions exist here at all. The rain thickens, the crystals become thinner turning into needles. I lower my head to protect the eyes and keep walking. I like what's going on for some reason: somebody fights with somebody.

It means I have a chance.

Neither distance nor time here, all measures are merged. Maybe one hour have passed, maybe three kilometers.

Maybe the madness have come.

The band soars ahead but its movements are slower and less sure. It's just an orange rag now, tattered by the rain. The last leap – and it falls down raising the geyser of white dust.

Is it over?

I stand over remains of my strange guide. What now? No more guiding line. I close my eyes – and hear a weak distant sound. Deep program doesn't work with sounds! They say, or maybe these are just rumors, that Dima Dibenko's computer didn't have a sound card.

I keep walking.

The sound becomes louder but not clearer. The forest stream can babble like this, or the distant surf, or the candle flame. Whatever, even if it's an echo of the Big Bang! I need this sound, this lack of silence!

One step, another.

Even through the closed eyelids I can feel that something have changed.

I open my eyes. The world's colors seem to be faded. The emerald rain have lost its brightness, became pale: not gems but dirty bottle glass is pouring down from the sky. The white dust under my feet is barely seen.

And the blue star is shining ahead. A splinter of the blue sky.

Either it became bigger or I grew smaller, but the sparkling blue sphere is right above me now. I stretch my hands touching warm rays, and fall into the star.

The wind.

The cold wind blows into my face.

I rose from the snow-covered ground. Wherever I look – the plain, flat as a table, no horizon can be seen. The sky is covered with orange tangling threads, a blue light streams through them. And also – foggy jets flowing above the ground, changing brightness and density, flying against the wind and soaring up to the orange mesh of the sky.

I shook the snow from my knees and looked at my hand. A strange snow – crystals are too big, friable and not sticking together. They hiss on my hand and fly away in a light smoke.

– I'm glad you came Lenia, – says Unfortunate from behind.

I didn't have time to turn around, he almost shouted:

– No… don't!

The plain enveloped in fog, the cold wind, the crumbly snow… I swallowed the lump that stuck in my throat:

– Unfortunate… thank you.

– I had to help, – he replied very seriously, – At least to try. You rescued me after all.

– Not very successfully…

– But you've led me out. I felt bad there…

– I can guess that. But you could pass "Labyrinth" in an hour… in 10 minutes.

– Lenia…

– You could just exit, or could beat all the records.

– No, I couldn't.

– But why?

– Haven't you understood yet? – surprise showed in his voice.

– You didn't want to kill?

– Yes.

– But all that wasn't for real!

– For you.

– I won't ever be able to be like you.

– But this isn't necessary at all, Gunslinger.