As if in apology, she adds:
– It's common to formulate this way.
I see…
– You're studying those like Cap? – I ask, – The real hunter for the fake ones?
– No, and for a long time by now, Lenia. It was interesting to study for half a year or more. But now – all they are similar, that Cap and others alike. All pathologies are the same and if you know one psychopath, you can guess the behavior of thousand of them.
– Then why?..
– Because they exist. The destruction that comes out of them can hurt just a couple of people here. In the real world they'll leave a trace of broken lives, poisoned love, ridiculed friendship after them. Maybe even blood. But here they are harmless, all their arrogance, animal reactions and self-conceit is just a dust, dust on the wind.
– But it's hard for you here!
– So what? It's not real me who is hurt but a drawn one.
– Vika…
– I beg you – don't meddle in the Institution's business. Otherwise Madam will cancel your access.
She smiles and I feel confused.
– Okay, I'll not meddle in the Institution's business inside it.
– What about outside?
– This is a matter of my personal freedom.
Vika parts her hands.
– Leonid, how old are you?
– What about exchange? – I ask quickly, – Information for information?
Nobody does advertise their biographical data in virtuality but Vika doesn't have any idea how much am I not used to it.
– Okay Leonid. I'm 29.
Before I answer, I have time to rejoice.
– 34.
– I'd never think that, I'd give you just a little more than twenty.
It's not necessary to mention that my fears were quite opposite.
– Virtuality is deceitful.
– No, virtuality is like an ice, we freeze into it once and forever. It's impossible to take off our first mask. We can invent hundreds of bodies afterwards, but that, very first one will be evident always.
– Madam was your first mask?
Vika picks the purse from the table, takes the cigarette from it and lights it.
– Yes Lenia. We had got a grant for the research of human sexual behavior in virtuality, the Westerners were a little crazy about that… at least one third of all information in the Net was tied to sex somehow. So I've invented this personality – a brothel owner, self confident, experienced, the one who saw everything in this life.
– You were successful, – I admit.
Vika exhales the smoke and asks with a slight irony:
– Maybe I'm really like that deep inside, how do you know?
– I don't care.
I'm lying of course but Vika doesn't argue.
– Did Zuko reassure you?
– Almost.
– He's a good specialist. You can confidently bring your friend here.
I look at the watch, there's still some time left.
– It's not that easy, Vika. It's very important to guess right and come to fetch him in time.
– You hackers are funny folks, – says Vika. How interesting. Geez! I was considered a cool programmer.
– Will you allow me to sleep here for a while?
– What?
– To sleep. I'm in the Deep for almost 24 hours while it'd be better to work with a 'fresh' head.
Vika – how wonderful – approaches this business-like.
– Do you want me to wake you up?
– Yes, in two hours.
– Sleep, feel yourself at home, I'll wake you up myself.
She pats me on the head, the gesture that would fit Madam better but I'm pleased anyway. She nods at the bed and exits through the door that leads into costumier room. In a minute Madam will come out and will go to order the girls around.
In the meantime I do something not very polite, I get a spool with a thin thread from my jacket's pocket, the little weight is tied to the end of it.
The wind doesn't calm down outside the window, the thread is waving but I let it go to the end nevertheless. When the weight touches the slope I glance at the thread: each meter is marked with red paint.
Seven and a half meters (~24 feet). Bed sheets won't help here. Ah well, there must be some ropes in the brothel, at least in the rooms intended for sadomasochists.
I throw the spool outside feeling a little uncomfortable but convincing myself that most likely Vika would allow this little experiment. Haven't she said to feel myself at home anyway?
I plop down at the narrow bed, right on the comforter and close my eyes. But just before I allow myself to fall asleep, I exit virtuality anyway and order Windows-Home to wake me up in two hours.
The sleep comes almost instantly. For some reason I hope to see something prophetical and with a plot again, like as it was the last time when Alex shoot Unfortunate but what I see is a complete mess.
The rainbow shining above Deeptown, its blinding bright flashes look like deep program, but this rainbow is built of ledges, it's the biblical stairway to Heaven. I walk along it just as Computer Wiz in his slippers. I realize that the colors have different density – I fall in being on violet and blue layers, lean against the green ones slightly and step against the yellow ones confidently. The city below me is colorful and bright, I can see it through the multicolored mist.
I even know in my dream why do I ascend into the sky. Somewhere up there is a crystal dome of the Deep which had divided the world in two. I must break it, either using the Maniac's weapon or with my bare hands, no matter. The crystal would crack and stream down on the city, in a blinding bright star rain, because the stars are undoubtedly made of crystal, of a pungent crystal that reflects the light of our eyes.
And then something would happen; maybe the stars will burn us or maybe they'll have time to cool down and will fall right into the hands set below. I don't know for sure what do I want.
It's just most important not to make a mistake and to strike right in time. This time had already been defined, the time when I'll be able to turn the barrier into millions of crystal stars, it have almost come, the time…
– It's time… Time, Leonid.
I open my eyes accompanied by Windows-Home's whisper, a couple more seconds passes until I finally realize where am I. A moment later Vika enters.
– You're awaken already?
I nod, sit down on a messy bed and rub my forehead. The head is heavy, I had to either sleep more or not to sleep at all.
– I'll make coffee, – says Vika.
Leaned against the wooden wall I watch her. She takes a small sack with coffee out of the dark sideboard, dark not because of dirt but because of its age, then grinds the beans with a small manual polished brass coffee grinder, lights the fire with experience. I can smell the dry pine wood, boiling coffee and some abstract, not medical cleanliness… either the one of a water in a mountain stream or the one of the hot sand under the sun.
So good.
I can whisper my rhyme and exit into reality, to make a real coffee and even to spice it with remaining cognac, to wash my face with a cold water.
I'll be damned if I do that.
Everything is real here: the clean air, the live water, coffee grounds on the bottom of a cup, Vika's caring look. Outside there's only an abandoned dusty room, dampness and rotten water from the faucet.
… Too often do I feel that suicidal wish to become just as everybody lately …
– Some cognac? – asks Vika and pours me a little cup of Achtamar.
– I have five more minutes, – I say, – Then… it'll be time.
– You'll return not alone?
– I hope so.
– Take your friend by the hand when you enter, in this case he'll be given privileged status too. I'll ask Wiz.