Eyeglasses jumped aside in the last moment, the compactor missed, crashing a pair of fly-breakers that swooped too low; then the machine turned away, but it was too late. By that time Eyeglasses was already standing by Eddy.
“Well done!” said Eddy approvingly. Eyeglasses smiled abashed, and because of this smile Eddy felt somehow better. “We will still be running a lot!” he thought, without paying attention that for some reason he was thinking in plural.
The dark-haired guy was doomed, but he continued running stubbornly in a straight line without turning. The two compactors reached him simultaneously, but then the dark-haired guy did the impossible: he flew up into the air, jumping about six feet high, made a somersault and rolled over the platform without deviating from his “life line”. The very moment he was in the air the two compactors ran one into the other. The flash of the blow blinded Eddy for a moment. When he was able to see again, on the platform there was burning down a heap of deformed metal, smoking and emitting soot. The dark-haired guy was standing beside them, and one could hear his heart beating convulsively. Eddy shook his hand without a word – he couldn’t think of anything better to do.
“Let’s go”, he said with a suddenly hoarse voice, and began striding through “the gut” without looking back.
There were no traps in “the gut”, but here something more horrible than the first circle standards was awaiting the Death-Rider. And it didn’t keep them waiting for long. A blinding light flared ahead, there was heard an increasing howl and rumble – this is perhaps how the devil was laughing in Hell, mocking over another unlucky sinner. That’s why the thing was called “the merry man”. It was a huge metallic cylinder, almost the diameter of the tunnel, which rushed through “the gut” from time to time in different directions.
One of the old Death-Riders said once that if you ran towards “the merry man” without turning away, shouting: “I’ll crash you!” – it would stop and turn back. Most likely that was a joke, and Eddy wasn’t going to check it. He dashed along the tunnel, seeking for the saving niche in the wall – it had to be here somewhere! Here it is... Eddy dived into the niche and pressed himself against the wall. The next moment he was pressed still stronger, but this appeared to be just the dark-haired guy. “The merry man” flew by, howling.
“The poor student”, thought Eddy, “he didn’t make it... And even if he would – there is scarcely a place for two in the niche.”
The howl ceased suddenly, a smacking sound was heard, and then there was silence. Eddy and the dark-haired guy looked out from their shelter at the same moment, and the dark-haired guy let off Eddy’s arm which he had been pressing against the wall. “My God, were it not for him, I would remain without an arm!” realised Eddy, and he looked at the dark-haired guy in a quite different way; but the dark-haired guy was looking in the different direction, where “the merry man” had disappeared.
There Eyeglasses was standing – alive. He threw a blackened plastic square to the floor and strode towards them. Of course! Eyeglasses had lighted his life-card. Now he was safe for ten minutes. During this time he was either to get to the finish or to withdraw, because the eighth circle without a life-card meant certain death.
“Will you go further or withdraw?” asked Eddy when Eyeglasses had approached them.
“I’ll withdraw. I’ll go with you till “the neutral”, recover my breath and withdraw. That’s enough for me. Last time I went only as far as the sixth.”
“Ah, so he isn’t a novice,” thought Eddy. “Then again, this could have been realised earlier...”
... All three of them dashed into the safety island, leaping over the blinking border, and fell on the floor. For a minute or two they were lying silently, resting. Then Eyeglasses glanced on his life-timer. He had about six minutes left. He lay down again and after some lingering said: “To think that earlier, the Subway has been a usual means of transportation. Some thirty-forty years ago...”
“Lie even more,” responded Eddy lazily.
“I’m not lying”, Eyeglasses was offended. “I’ve read in the books.”
“In the books... And what about guillotine doors? ‘Devil’s asses’? I would like to get to the guy who invented ‘the merry man’...”
“There was nothing like these back then.”
“And what was there?” the dark-haired guy raised himself a little, interested.
“Just a subway. Rails, carriages, and the doors had rubber gaskets instead of knives. And the escalators were usual, without any traps.”
“So why the hell did they devise all of this?” asked Eddy unbelievingly.
“Those damned self-organizing systems... and the symbiont programmers”, muttered Eyeglasses. “However, I must go, sorry.”
He went to a rusty ladder descending from above and started climbing it, surprisingly dexterously. Soon he disappeared from sight.
“Let’s lie for another minute and go on,” said Eddy. “We have the last circle left.”
“No need. Lie here. Have a rest...”
Eddy turned back abruptly. At the border of the island there were standing two guys. One, a huge beefy chap, about six feet and a half, plus an old army “Berthold”. The other one was small, without eyebrows, without hair, and only his eyes seemed masculine. To the left, near the ladder, there were standing three scrubs, various iron objects in their hands.
“We're not the angels that you dreamed about...” whistled the castrate; the beefy guy muttered something gloomily – probably appreciating the joke.
Eddy had heard about “the angels”. “Guys”, he began, whining, “you’ve got the wrong guys, we have nothing but our trousers, and these we’ll put off just now, you just wink, and we’ll...”
“Begone, Satan,” informed the bald one in a mentor tone. “Tempt not our hearts with thy lies. Got it?”
Eddy got it. That they wanted life-cards he got from the start. In the black markets such a card would cost as much as seven grand, so that even two were worth risking. By the way, his cards were from the black market, too. He never asked where they had come from.
“Fellas,” drawled Eddy in a servile voice, “fellas, don’t take a sin upon your souls, we’ll never make one step without them at the eighth...”
He’ll make it. He must. A charge at the beefy one – they don’t expect such a thing from him – and he’ll dive into “the gut”. They’ll not chase him – even symbionts cannot catch a death-rider in the Subway, especially at the seventh-eighth... They don’t want to get themselves killed, do they?.. Only that the dark-haired guy... So what, the dark-haired guy...