Labyrinth of reflections lor-1

by Sergei Lukyanenko

  The situation is absolutely simple. I’m able to heal the wounds in this world. Unfortunate appeared here with an injured limb. Now, when I opened my bag and spent some of its contents for Unfortunate, the computer that supports Lorien and its suburbs must restore the functioning of the drawn body.

  – What if it doesn’t work? – asks Harding curiously.

  – Then we’ll carry your… hm… friend to the city.

  – Thanks, – says the hobbit sincerely, – I have only 3 strength points, I wouldn’t be able to lift him.

  He hesitates for a moment, then asks:

  – Will you manage it alone?

  – Sure.

  – Then I’ll run, okay? Back to the city… I was here for so long, will be punished for that.

  Surely a kid.

  – Okay… Run, – I say feeling conscience-stricken. Harding trots to the path, then shouts:

  – But beware of Conan! Just in case…

  Vika whispers in my ear:

  – Conan the Victor over Hobbits!

  – Cut this out, – I ask, – It’s shameful enough already…

  We wait for several minutes in silence, postponing the talk with Unfortunate. We need to wait for the healing results first.

  – Okay, stand up, – commands Vika.

  Unfortunate leans on the leg, unsure, rises a little, makes one step, another…

  – Does it hurt? – I ask with curiosity of the real doctor.

  He shakes his head.

  – Then let’s go to the city.

  – And what’s then? – Unfortunate squints his eyes at Vika, but she is silent, I have to reply:

  – Then you’ll have to make your choice after all. We don’t have any more time for riddles.

  One can’t call the return to Lorien a triumphant one. The guards by the gates look at us disdainfully – we have left two hours ago and obviously didn’t catch up with the army. There’s no malicious phrases though, but I decide to explain anyway:

  – He convinced us to train more, – I nod at Unfortunate, – Not too much use from us yet.

  An explanation not worse than any other. Let them think of us as of newbies, too self assured in the beginning but repented in time.

  – Is this Lorien? – asks Unfortunate while we drag ourselves along the snow-white trees tangled by stairs like Christmas trees with garlands.

  – Exactly. Now we’ll exit to the street and will finally fix our business. – I throw carelessly.

  – I can’t explain anything anyway, – says Unfortunate.

  – Then we’ll part. We’ll part forever, man. – I don’t lie and don’t blackmail him. I need to hide, a long and boring task. To hide in small one-horse towns where calculators are called computers, and Vika needs to restore her business.

  Vika looks at me askance but stays silent. She understands, she knew that I’ll have to leave.

  Unfortunate raises his head and looks into the sky pierced by mallorns.

  – You can stay here if you want, you don’t have to pay phone bills, do you? – I ask.

  – No.

  – … And neither have you to exit into reality to have a snack.

  He remains silent.

  – You’ll earn a thousand points, will become cool and respected, – I reason aloud, – Some time I’ll come here, will knock quietly and ask: “How can I find the wise Alien?”. And maybe then you’ll take a risk to tell me the truth.

  – I don’t have too much time either, Leonid.

  – Oh come on! What does a couple of years mean to you… after hundreds of years … of silence?

  Unfortunate stops, we gaze into each other’s eyes.

  – Hey guys, it looks like I became the less informed in our company suddenly. – says Vika.

  – Everything is simple, Vika. Very simple. When you cast aside the impossible, then unbelievable becomes the truth.

  Even Unfortunate is in disarray.

  There’s still something missing in that long chain of conditions that would allow him to talk.

  – Let’s go, – I ask, – Let’s not confuse poor Elves… we’ll never become a part of their tale.

  The exit from Lorien is through the same gateway, only this time the gatekeeper doesn’t bug us with his questions.

  – Make your decision Unfortunate, – I say opening the door, – I’m not joking, I’m really tired of these riddles.

  Only exiting into the street I understand that it’ll be me to decide anyway.

  Man Without Face stands five away meters or so, with hands crossed on his chest, gazing at us with the fog from beneath ash-colored hair, the black cloak spread above the dirty pavement. And he’s not alone.

  Three bodyguards stand behind his back, two more fly in the air a bit further. Their flight isn’t made as ironically as Zuko’s winged slippers – droning jet knapsacks are behind their backs. They are not high, just a couple of meters above the ground and the whole scene reminds me of some ancient, pre-virtual era game…

  – Bravo, diver, – says Man Without Face.

  Vika is the first one to come to herself.

  – Were it your assholes who ruined my institution? – she starts aggressively.

  The fog above the cloak’s collar waves slightly.

  – Check your account baby and then decide whether you have any right to feel hurt.

  Another move – the nonexistent face turned towards me.

  – The warehouse where we had our talk is located at 42 Nukem Street. Go and take what was promised to you.

  How dashingly. A whip and a cookie. A very sweet cookie.

  Man Without Face steps forward and stretches his hand towards Unfortunate.

  – Let’s go, we have a lot to discuss. I know who you are.

  Unfortunate doesn’t move.

  – We can make a deal. We must make a deal. I don’t know what conditions do you have, but everything can be decided… – whispers Man Without Face ingratiatingly. He doesn’t look at us, we’re bought and swept from the gameboard.

  That’s what he thinks of course.

  – You haven’t been to Russia for too long, Dima, – I say and Man Without Face freezes, – You can hang your medal above the toilet bowl.

  – You want to say your not for sale, Leonid?

  We’re even, he knows my name too, and maybe even my address as well.

  – Yes.

  – Don’t go suicidal. I prefer to pay well for the job well done, and learned that not in Russia by the way.

  – I didn’t work for you. And you’re risking as well.

  – How comes, I wonder?

  – What if I tell Urman about you? To Friedrich Urman himself? He is very anxious to join the mystery too.

  Man Without Face laughs.

  – Diver, you’re just plain stupid! To Urman himself? None of the guys of his rank ever does business in virtuality personally. The aides exist for that: the secretaries, twins, facsimiles if you want, the very well trained aides… The ones intended for doing business in virtuality.

  I hold the blow. The slap is good, I never suspected such subtleties. I thought that the businessmen should aspire into the Deep as passionately as any ordinary man. But I hold the blow, I don’t have another choice.

  – What’s the difference, Dibenko? I can report you to Al-Kabar, but you can’t do anything to me, I’m diver.

  – Even divers have their weak spots.

  He’s bluffing, he must be bluffing. I turn to Unfortunate and ask:

  – Do you want to go with him?

  – It’s for you to decide, – says Unfortunate. He’s the only one now who doesn’t have a single bit of fear. He, and also those Dibenko’s gorillas, but in their case the reason for that is different.

  – 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 Withou
t 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…

  111

  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.