– I… wanted to kill you, – says Alex, – I was after you. I feared to be late, I haven't noticed that he was unarmed.
– Okay, then why me?
Alex smirks.
– You shoot me down on the first level, have you forgot?
– No. And this is the only reason?
– But we had a deal to go together, hadn't we?
Oh Lord, why do you punish me?
– Do you want to say that you weren't going to shoot me yourself for the spare cartridge?
– I was considering that, – confesses Alex calmly, – But I had not decided yet. And you killed me.
At this point the laughter gets me, I fall on the floor, nudge my helmet into Unfortunate's leg, hit the floor with my hand.
– You freak! – I shout, – Dumbass!
Alex feels hurt for some reason.
– I had not shoot you! – he shouts, – But you had!
– Man, are you screwed! – I say, – Fucking avenger… unfinished Zorro… I'm diver! Do you understand? The guy whom you shoot down is for two days in the Deep already! His timer is off! He will croak if I don't get him out! And you, with your complexes… idiot, idiot…
– Diver? – Alex repeats dumbly.
– Diver! – I don't care about our eternal conspiration now, – I'd spit on this "Labyrinth" from the 40th floor! I'm trying to save the human – and you're playing war games, sucker! How old are you, kid?
Alex doesn't reply at once, but does anyway.
– Forty-two.
I get the next laughter attack.
Here it is, Piter Pan's kingdom, the island of eternal kids.
The war games' lover, entering his fifth decade.
There's no age in virtuality. Both a solid aged businessman and an immature youth who managed to get to the computer with modem at work – are equal.
Everyone has a right to run along drawn labyrinths remembering kids' rules of honor and shouting, "Not fair!".
Everyone can play noble heroes and brave knights forgetting that the life is much more complicated than ten Old Testament commandments.
– I'm really sorry, – says Alex, – I didn't know that you're doing such an important job…
Oh Lord, how funny… No, nothing serious, I've just dropped in here to pee.
– If I can help somehow… – says Alex in muffled voice, – …to pay for the time you've spent…
– You can't buy the time. – I reply. It would be really better if Alex was keeping to act like a young programmer… – The guy in whom you've stuck your fucking bullets is now dying somewhere of hunger and thirst!
– I'm really sorry, – Alex rises and pads to me. I look up at him, not even trying to stand up. – It's just that you were acting in non-ethical way. You had shot me without any obvious reason.
It's useless to talk to him…
– Maybe I was wrong, – his voice gains some strength, – But you should understand that your initial conduct was the reason for all that followed. Obviously, you're younger than me…
I look at the ceiling, at the dead bony Unfortunate's face.
– Though, you should understand like I do that we are in the unreal world, the one that doesn't exist, – pontificates Alex, – This is a dangerous illusion… people can easily lose their life's guiding points, their moral norms, they can submit to the feeling of complete license. Maybe my actions were not completely right but I always try to keep usual human categories. "Labyrinth" is a game but it embodies eternal ideals. Ideals of chivalry if you want, the fight of the good against the evil.
Yet another illusion fighter. Geez, how many of those do I remember – the people who tried to make the Deep the exact copy of the real world. The funniest thing that the most noisy one among them was sci-fi writer…
– You were acting not honestly from the very beginning, – says Alex, – and here… is the sad conclusion. You know diver, it was always like this. From the very world's creation. All the history is the living example!
– … And in the boiling cauldrons of past slaughters and troubles… – I whisper, – … there's so much food for those petty brains of ours…
Alex shuts up.
– Have you squared your accounts with me? – I ask, – Go ahead, tell me, have you? Or you also want to shoot me by yourself? Come on, do it!
I throw a pistol to him and outstretch my hands apart.
– I… didn't mean that… – mumbles Alex, – If you would just admit your being wrong, it would be quite enough…
– I admit it, – I say, pressing the rocket launcher's tube opening against my chest, – I admit it. I should had waited for you to shoot me. Now you're satisfied?
Alex retreats one step, waves his hands in protest. Obviously he's not satisfied with such an outcome, he haven't yet justified himself.
Abyss-abyss, I'm not yours…
The trigger is so hard, I barely managed to pull it.
Blood on the helmet's screens.
And complete silence inside me.
No, I haven't pulled the unfortunate player from the Deep, and haven't tried to outwit my unprincipled colleague. It's just how it IS.
The virtuality itself have risen against me.
Part 3. Man Without Face
0
I was present at the birth of virtuality, I was one of the first to try Dibenko's program and I don't have any common person's mystic fear of the computer at all.
Calculating machines can't be intelligent.
Vika might dream about self-born electronic mind – I can't believe in that. Everything that's going on in the deep is nothing more than just mutual interference of various programs. If anything goes beyond the frame of the possible, it means that some person is standing behind that.
But who, who can be behind eternal deaths of Unfortunate?
A good diver or just any experienced Deep inhabitant are sure capable of faking their death again and again. All those dropped carbines is a bull but why the Net itself plays up to Unfortunate? Why have Alex managed to catch up with us exactly at the moment when Unfortunate was left unattended? Is it just a coincidence?
Even more, two professionals driving Unfortunate to the exit couldn't guard him against coincidences either?
I can't believe in that.
I'm sitting in the "Labyrinth"'s cloak room after reentering the Deep, humiliated and defeated, a loser diver who thought he's more intelligent than the others. Abyss-abyss… how easily did you squash me. The fight is lost if the enemy haven't shown up.
Not without reason had Man Without Face promised me such a reward for the Unfortunate's rescue. He knew much more than he said. Keen shooting and good reaction won't help here.
That means, I have to stop banging on the drawn door either. It's time to look for the real way out.
I throw the armor and the rest of the gear into the closet, enter the shower and squirm under ice cold jets for a minute. Then the anger comes to replace helplessness and confusion. Great. Hello, anger. You are what I really need. Enough of games according to the rules.
I dress and enter the column hall.
– "Labyrinth"'s administration requests Gunslinger to visit Security Service manager, – rings out in the air immediately, – "Labyrinth"'s….
I'm being watched upon when I come to the door which Giullermo passed last time we met. I push it – unlocked.
This time the administration building is busy. I was let into the common space of "Labyrinth"'s sysops – I can see them and vice versa. Hardly I'll interest anybody here though. I pass the corridors looking at the glass doors – the terminals are behind them, guys and girls sitting by. Big halls are behind some doors, with scale models on top of huge tables, "Labyrinth"'s levels' scale models – hills and ravines, buildings and ruins, rivers and blazing fires. People walk around them lazily. There, one guy leans above the model and pours some nasty greenish slush into a small stream. The stream starts bubbling. The guy nudges his coworker nearby who glances at defiled landscape and shrugs.