I took a mouthful of beer and moaned in pleasure, then started opening the tin, cut off the cover accurately, hooked it with a fork…
And almost fell from the chair.
A hundred of fish heads was gazing at me with reproachfully.
Somewhere in virtuality I wouldn't be surprised with such joke, but in the real world…
I rummaged through heads soaked in tomato sauce trying to find at least one whole fish. Nothing. Very diligently done. I imagined a fish-factory… a kind of a floating giant… or the sprats are tinned on the shore? A conveyor with this low-grade stuff. Girls, crazed of fish stench and monotonous work… Now one of then takes an empty tin from the transporter and starts stuffing the fish heads into it. A joke.
I really laughed, shuddering and closing the tin back. I had nothing to eat but wasn't mad at the anonymous worker, on the contrary, everything suddenly have seemed perfectly in place.
Stuck to the bottle, I finished the first Urquell.
You wanted miracles, diver? The computer mind and people entering virtuality directly?
Come back to senses, diver! Here they are, miracles available to our world! Stolen beer, sprats' heads stuffed with eyes, stuffiness and foul of old lady's apartment, teenage punks in the stairways, annoying drip of water from the faucet in the kitchen.
This is – life. Whatever stupid and boring it might be, and there inside a helmet is just a tale created by machines and our own subconsciousness. Our electronic escapism.
I opened the second beer, picked up the tin, came out to the balcony and dumped out tin's contents into the wilted front garden. A feast is awaiting stray cats this night.
– Not ethical! – I reproached myself. As strongly as in Vika's program it is stuck into my mind that one shouldn't throw garbage out of the window.
But, unlike the machines we are able to ignore the bans. From balconies.
As I was, with the beer, I entered the bathroom, unbuttoned the suit glancing at the bottle. I didn't want to drink anymore.
– What is this long and cumbersome process for? – I asked rhetorically and poured the rest of the beer down into the toilet.
I lagged to the sofa and turned off the light. For how much longer is it possible to sleep huddled up by the table, with an electronic saucepan on the head? It was quiet, very quiet, and even the teens on the staircase stopped torturing their guitar.
Only the computer hummed smoothly and the candles were blinking on the screen.
I turned over forcing my face into the pillow but the sleep was retreating. There, in the Deep, the motionless dead Gunslinger's body is lying. Does he miss me? Something, just a little from betrayal is in it.
– For the last time! – I moaned, rising. I put on the helmet, plugged the suit into the port, laid my hands on the keyboard.
Deep Enter.
I snuggle close to Vika in my sleep and she mumbles something, turning to the other side. As quiet as her voice is, but I wake up. Looks like she sleeps in the Deep too.
The fire is off. Maybe the morning is close but the darkness haven't yet retreated, only red sheen from the dying fire can be seen. Unfortunate lies a bit away like a motionless mat– bag. What if I reach you and nudge you a good deal, huh? Just to see, are you here with us of exited the deep and sleep in the warm soft bed?
I look up at the sky, into the black sparkling crystal. How did I say that to Vika? "They've stolen the sky from us"?
Yes, they have, and the more people leave here, the further the stars will become.
It's not only the stars though. There always will be somebody for whom this world will stay out of reach: the restless teens who can't find work, the girls from fish packing plants… Fish heads, accurately arranged in rows in tins will come first. Is it just a joke or a silent cry, a protest? Fish heads will come first. And only then human heads will start to roll.
Does the second advent of machine destroyers await us? The rebel against machines, more and more incomprehensible and scary ones for average citizens, or the way out will be found finally?
I turn over and look at Unfortunate. If you are the mind of the Net, if you are the human who have conquered virtuality, then you might be that very way out, the break through the barrier, the exit from this deadlock. Surely Dibenko understands that if Man Without Face is really him.
Should I play noble hiding Unfortunate? If he is salvation, a merge of two worlds?
I don't know. I'm just an ordinary man, accidentally having this stupid resistance against the deep-program. This helps me to earn my piece of bread, and sometimes – it even comes with a thick layer of butter and caviar. But it's not me who should save the world or decide what is good and what is evil for it.
I don't have anything except that funny shabby moral for which Vika was grieving, but moral is a strange thing, it never gives answers but on the contrary, it hinders from finding them.
It's much easier to be a just person or a scum than just a human.
I start feeling myself extremely bitter and lousy. A provincial sportsman might feel so, included in the Olympic team and ordered to compete with the champions. Not my destiny it is…
And at this moment a sound is born above.
I turn onto my back looking up into the blackish crystal again, and see a crack in it – a blue stripe across the whole sky, a dazzling straight arrow rushing down.
– What is it, Lenia?
Vika is already sitting, casting strands of hair from her face. When have she woke?
Or when have I fallen asleep?
What is it around us, a dream or reality?
– A meteor, – I reply to Vika.
The blue arrow is lower and lower, a thin ringing trill is its train, a clot of fire at the end – its spike.
– This is a star falling, – says Vika very seriously and I understand that I'm sleeping after all.
Unfortunate doesn't move.
The crack draws across the sky to the end and plunges into the ground. The blue strip dims – the sky knows how to cure its wounds. Only where the star have touched the ground, a pale light is glowing.
– You promised me that we'll find a fallen star, – says Vika.
Everything is simple in the dream. I rise and give her my hand, we step over Unfortunate and start descending the slope. It's wrong, one is supposed to go up to reach the star, but one shouldn't argue with dreams.
The blue flame sparkles in the grass, neither burning nor casting shadows. The star have fallen into the gully between two hills. A bit further is a conglomeration of cliffs, absolutely out of place here, as if torn from another world. This is important for some reason but now we only look at the star.
A clean flame, a fuzzy fiery ball, very small one, one can hide it in the hands.
I stretch my hand, touch the star and feel warmth, as tender as if I've set my hands under the spring sun.
– Now I know what the stars are, – says Vika, – These are the splinters of the daylight sky.
I'm about to pick the star up but Vika stops me.
– Don't. It is tired already.
– From what?
– From the solitude, from the silence…
– But now we are near.
– Not yet. We've passed our path but it's only half of the way. Let the star believe in us.
I just shrug, I can't argue with Vika. I want to smile to her but she's not by my side anymore, only the voice have left.
– Lenia, wake up!
What the hell, why…
– Lenia, Unfortunate is gone!
I open my eyes.
Morning, the pink light from the East, scared Vika's face.
Unfortunate is not by the fire. The sleep is great deceiver.
– Damned! – I swear jumping up, – When have he disappeared?
Vika fixes her hair, in the same gesture as in my dream.
– I don't know, Lenia. I've just woke, and he was gone.