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– Hi! – shouts the guide to me and waves his hand. His mouth opens but no mimicry can be seen either.

– Hello… – I force out a smile and the satisfied Deep-Transit employee turns to his wards:

– What attracts you most… { In English in the original } I hear a slight hissing and the guide's voice becomes barely heard. A dry, vaguely familiar voice drowns it:

– What you interests most in this district Deeptown? We can see good known… – a pause, – famous, renowned center of book selling, where they will offer to your attention any literature… – a pause, – any books, magazines, newspapers, paper media published since…

I blink as a kid who ripped open his beloved teddy bear to find soiled rags, crumpled paper and somebody's dirty sock inside. Gee, and I valued Windows-Home's interpreter program so high! I was amazed how fast and correctly does it translate from any of the five official Deeptown's languages!

Yeah, fast is true, but all correctness is ensured by our own brains only, as it picks adequate words from the mess.

– Also there are, located, known, popular restaurants "Arthur's Sword" and "Four– Ten". If we walk on forty-three street hundred meters or bit more, then we will come to place of entertainment for grown-ups, adults.

A slight noise in the tourists' crowd, one should assume that they smiled.

– You have two hours of free time, – declares the guide.

I think I know where am I. That faceless gray dome nearby is "famous, renowned" book center named after some American president. If I'm on the 43rd street, then I'm on the opposite side of the city. What a walk! I look at the watch, scared, and the panic fades, we left the Elvish realm only 20 minutes ago!

The tourists wander away: the couples to restaurants, singles – to adults' entertainment places mostly. The guy in the wheelchair together with the grey-haired lady and the black guy rolls away towards the book center. The guide gets the cigar of a considerable size, definitely not the cheapest one, drawn better than his face, bites off its end and lights it, then moves towards me.

Will it be always like this now?

Is this a kind of victory over the Deep that I wanted?

No.

I'd rather be deceived further, seeing the city and the people instead of the mixture of kid's drawing and the primitive cartoon. I'm not a judge for this world, and neither am I an indifferent watcher from aside. I'm a part of the Deep, flesh of Deeptown's flesh…

I hide my face in my hands, looking into the darkness, I don't know whom I should ask, the Deep or myself, but I ask anyway.

Be myself, Abyss…

– Have a cigar, fellow, – says the guide friendly. He smiles, opening a cigar case for me. The collar of the red overalls is unbuttoned, the pen cap and the notebook stick out from the pocket. I can bet they weren't there before. His face is open, kind and attractive, just as it must be for a guy who shows the Deep to inexperienced newbies.

– Thanks, I don't smoke…

Everything is normal, just as before. Even better.

I'm yours, Abyss, I can be the real human in the real Deeptown or the real one in cartoony city. Maybe I even can be the drawing walking among real inhabitants.

Thanks, dear Dima Dibenko. You wanted to throw me out of the game or maybe even to kill me, but something have gone wrong. I even can guess what exactly. Unfortunate have helped me after all, he gave me part of the strength that he has. So my sincere thanks go to him.

– Ah well, as you wish, – the guide doesn't feel hurt by my rejection and hides the cigar case into his pocket. – You're an old timer here, right?

– Right, – I confess.

– I'm Kirk, – the man introduces himself, – Don't I really look like him?

He probably means some play's or folklore character? I never was inquisitive about the simple American mass-culture.

– Not really, – I answer randomly.

– And this is right! – Kirk supports me, – The resemblance must be in your heart!

He releases a jet of smoke into the sky and skillfully rolls the cigar from one corner of his mouth to another.

– I'm from Seattle, – he decides to go on with the talk even if I didn't introduce myself in return.

– And I'm from St. Petersburg.

Kirk taps my shoulder cheerfully:

– Yeah! I know, been there!

I'm pleasantly surprised but his next words disappoint me:

– Nice town, – shares Kirk his impressions, – I had a girlfriend once… such a severe girl! And you know, it so happened, the carburetor went down right when we were passing St. Petersburg one evening. So we had to stop for a night.

He winks to me slyly.

It'd be great to visit Tom Sawyer's native town, but now this self-importance pisses me off.

– I'm from the different St. Petersburg, the one in Russia.

– Russia! – Kirk is pleasantly surprised, – There's St. Petersburg too?

– Yup. And Seattle – where is it? In Canada or Mexico? – I inquire.

Kirk chews his cigar unable to understand whether I'm kidding or really don't know such an outstanding city.

– It's in America!

– Which one, South or Latin?

No, even if he's a typical and real American, he's a nice guy nevertheless, he laughs and slightly pushes me on the stomach.

– Great! Cool! I'll visit you, later. I'm planning to visit Europe when I'm 45, will go see your city too!

– Sure. You're welcome to.

I'm so exhausted by the deep program that stand here and eagerly support this ridiculous talk.

– I'm giving a ride around to the tourists, – Kirk goes on, – father's business. It's great! Today we were going through the city, one girl kept asking to show her the diver. I pointed at one guy outside, said, "Diver!". They almost overturned the bus when all of them rushed to that side to look.

We laugh together.

– We seldom come here, – Kirk smooches his cigar, – But Sam kept asking to show him the book center, se we decided to stop here… not too far for him to go, and also restaurants are close… and stuff… Sam is the one in jeans and t-shirt…

– Huh? That black one?

Kirk chokes on his cigar from such an outrageous racism. How dare one to call the black one – black!

– Well, I have to go, business… – he mumbles and quickly moves to the bus without saying goodbye. I just shrug. Oh citizens of the mighty country, if you just could realize how ridiculous and stupid your complexes are!

But it's time for me to go too. I raise my hand and the cab readily appears from around the corner.

– Deep-Transit welcomes you! – says the driver. As if purposefully he's black and I laugh quietly, getting into the car.

1

The drive takes quite long, Deep-Transit connects to "Polyana" company through quite a bunch of intermediate hosts. My computer is not powerful enough to support appropriately the whole house where I rent an apartment from myself, so "Polyana" is hosted by someone's rental server, somewhere in Byelorussia I suppose. It's not too expensive and I ain't gonna change this order even when I buy a real machine instead of my current Pentium.

On my way I have fun making the world around drawn and real in turns. Now I succeed in this without effort. Even more – I can change the space perception in fragments. A drawn car passes our real one. A real girl walks along the drawn street. Two guys stand chatting: one is real, another one – cartoony.