– Leonid?
The person that approached me is completely unfamiliar: he's short, with unexpressive dull face, dressed in old shabby jeans and stretched sweater. He's dull and ordinary, not in virtuality is his place but in the queue for carry-out Zhigulevskoye { beer }. But he knows my name – it means he's an enemy.
– Who are you from? – I ask, – Al-Kabar?
The shortish guy doesn't avert his look.
– Leonid, you saw me in a different appearance. Without face.
– Dmitry?
– Yes. Maybe we should address each other less officially?
– You're an asshole, – I agree.
– Leonid, I ask you for a talk, for just five minutes of talk.
Is it really the main Dima Dibenko's guise? I saw his picture, long time ago, he was too young on it. So, he's plain and ordinary? A little dog
– a puppy forever. Was it this guy who invented the deep program and dunked the whole world into the deep? The one who grabbed millions and had got the share in Microsoft and AOL? The one who was the first to understand that Unfortunate is a visitor from the Outside?
– Five minutes.
– Leonid, let's go somewhere…
At least his voice doesn't correspond with his looks too welclass="underline" if he ever could speak in requesting voice, it's now in the past.
We walk around the cathedral, Dibenko opens the door into the garden with the intricate key. It's quiet and silent here, willows, poplars, straight paths… stones… of familiar shape.
– Shit, – I just say.
– Yes, it's a graveyard, – mumbles Dibenko, – I… I like to come here. It calms me down somehow… brings me a philosophical mood.
Probably there's nothing unusual in this. I look at grave monuments, at the alleys, at the girl that sits on the grass by the small bust, hiding her face in her hands. It's not a mourning human, it's just a drawn weeper, an electronic equivalent of marble angels.
Virtuality is life but life can't be thought about without death. So friends bury here those who will never dive in the deep again, will never put on the virtual helmet anymore.
"He believed in the miracle" – short like a curse, the phrase on the nearest stone.
Forgive me, anonymous man. You believed in miracles and jumped into colorfulness of the virtual world. But now, the memories of you lie here, and somewhere in reality your grave overgrows with tall weeds. Your friends come here spending half a dollar while the soil that took you gives birth to a new life. Maybe it would be more honest for your friends to expend a couple of hours of their lives – to get a shot of vodka by your real grave?
It's freedom! I'm not the one to judge.
– I'm listening, Dima.
Dibenko has red eyes, as if he lacked sleep lately, and crumpled face. He dragged me into the miracle which doesn't need me, he finishes divers off as blind kittens. But he created this world and I must listen to him.
– I don't ask how you got away, Lenia, – says Dibenko, – As I understand, you've got your reward after all…
– What reward? For what?
– For betrayal, – Dibenko looks me straight into the eyes, – What, does the word hurt? It *is* betrayal! Betrayal of all of us, all the people that live today! You've managed to become his friend, I knew you'll be able to do this, I knew and that's why I hired you, you and nobody else! It must have been a mistake. What I could offer in return was nothing…
– Dima, do you understand what have virtuality become?
– The freedom!
– Then what do you blame me for? We are in no right to demand anything from Unfortunate! In NO right!
– And why not? – Dibenko leans against the tombstone of the "miracle believer" and smirks, – Okay, let it not be formulas and drawings… not vaccines and recipes of the fair society. But couldn't he at least give us hope? To all of us! If he came – it means everything will be fine! If he exists – it means we didn't choke to death on the freedom!
Looks like I miss something again.
But Dibenko goes on and I stay silent.
– Do you think I knew what I was doing then?… No! I got drunk, sozzled, plastered! I glued myself to the machine, I neither wanted to sleep nor to play, I felt sick of work, I began to compose a color palette, some image rhythm… I really wanted to add music to it but the machine was a piece of crap, without a sound card!
So the legends are true…
– I don't know how! – shouts Dibenko, – It was IT that wanted to be born, not me who did it! It's the deep itself, came through me – into the world! I understood, I felt it – but I'm not a creator, just a conductor, a pen moved by somebody's hand! It reached me from far away, through the darkness, through the silence, reached me and made me to create! It! The deep program!
I suddenly shiver, and not because Dmitry mentioned the silence, just because this feeling is familiar to me too: a terror of the creator who can't understand what and how he created.
– Some people called me genius… – a little man with shadows under his eyes grabs my hands, – Others called me a dumbass who found the pearl in a pile of dung! But neither is true! The deep came into the world through me. It means – somebody wanted that to happen! Not now… later…
Dibenko looks at me, with greed and awe, whispers:
– Did he tell you at least anything? Just a hint… where is he from? A year, century, millennium?
– Dima… – I mumble, – Just why do you think…
– When you escaped, – whispers Dibenko, – You were trapped, you couldn't escape from my machine. But you did… you blasted all data away from the disk and escaped! Was it him who taught you? Was it?
It's a pity to look at him. I don't like pity so much – it kills as well as the hate does, but now I want to pity Dibenko.
But just the voice… his voice doesn't sound right. This is how a great actor in the tragic role can humiliate himself.
– You can't even imagine, – says Dibenko, – how much effort have I spent for this! What I was risking with… with my position in Al-Kabar's Board of directors, with my agents in "Labyrinth"… You wouldn't understand, you still can't understand that over there, in Russia… But I split you up, I traced your channel! I know who you are! Leonid, I know your address in Deeptown! Polyana Company, apartment 49. You're in my hands! I can find out your real address too! But I don't want to threaten you, I just ask: let's be together!
Looks like the time have made a full circle, not Guillermo but Dmitry Dibenko offers me his hand now.
– They can't understand, – he whispers, – Whatever. Aliens from parallel worlds, space aliens, machine mind… Bull! There's nothing out there but us! In the past or the future days – only us!
I understand…
– One can believe or one can laugh, – Dibenko hits his fist against the poor tombstone, – But the only thing without borders is the Time. Computer network lives and will live, and the memory about this guy will outlive all of us! Information doesn't have any limit in time, Unfortunate, he peeked into the past of the humankind. From that wonderful 'far away' to which we will never live to see, from the future of the Earth – he stepped into the virtual world's childhood. Okay, okay, let us be ugly and wild! But can't he tell us at least something? Can't he give us… a faith?
– Dmitry, but why? Why do you think so?
– Because I know! – Dibenko looks into my eyes, – I couldn't create the deep program accidentally! It's as if I would shoot – and hit a thousand targets in a row! I'm not a genius at all, I'm an ordinary man. Just there, in the future, they decided to create virtuality. Possibly, it was predetermined. Maybe they just needed a bridgehead… an observation point to look into our world. So I became… a pen in someone's hand…