Labyrinth of reflections lor-1

by Sergei Lukyanenko

  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 go
t 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 shake
s 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?