– The data, – I answer. The wind begins to blow through the apartment, a room pomegranate in a flowerpot blossoms, a pile of CDs on the shelf starts playing all songs simultaneously. – He copies the data, brings everything he learned with himself.
Half transparent shadows rush past us. Alex with the carbine at ready runs by, then a monstrous spider rushes by, stepping with its paws, that imaginary family which we rescued in "Labyrinth" goes down the tunnel too. A huge tree flies away, rotating as a propeller, a hobbit with a scared muzzle minces out, a flying Man Without Face's guard with a fire breathing jet knapsack stalks out in huge jumps.
Then me and Vika walk in. Hand in hand.
– Remember us, – I repeat, – Remember…
The tunnel narrows more like a cameras's aperture. At the last moment the flying slippers of Computer Wiz squeeze into it, flapping their wings.
Then the room returns to normal.
– I don't believe that he's an alien anyway, – says Vika, in unsure voice but stubbornly, – If he's a good hacker, then he could…
She silences when I hug her shoulders.
– Please Vika, don't, – I ask, – He have left, haven't he? Forever. It's not necessary to argue now, we can just believe.
There's a noise in the street, an exchange of opinions. Have they seen at least anything of what we did? It doesn't matter. The new legend was born in the deep.
– He have left, but we stay, – says Vika, – and there's a hunt after you.
I nod, slowly releasing her, step to the window and look down. Man Without Face is still motionless.
– Leonid the diver must leave too. – I agree.
– Will you miss your house? – asks Vika. How great it is when it's not necessary to explain anything.
– A little… like I'd miss a kiddie's three-wheeler.
I return to her and hug again, her lips find mine.
And this is something that will never leave from now on.
– Abyss… – I call silently.
The house shakes again when the rental server in distant Minsk receives the command. Magnetic head slides along the disk surface – deleting.
One turn – and the first floor with the scandalous pensioner disappears. Another turn – and the sixth floor with the quiet graphomaniac is gone, another – and the tenth floor with vinyl collector is no more.
My computer livens up and the apartment walls fade. I don't look at the table, but I know well that the drawn Vika on the display smiles to me – for the last time. Programs don't feel sad when we delete them, people do but I have no choice. If you get lost in the mirror labyrinth – break the mirrors, reach for the light…
A crowd bursts into shouts when my house dissolves in the air. Poor Jordan will have to prove that it wasn't his fault.
We fly above Deeptown in a hug, looking into each other's eyes.
– Great… – whispers Vika.
– I have no idea myself how I do it…
– You have no idea how you're kissing? – she asks in surprise.
… No, never will I understand a woman's logic.
By the connection of the Ukranian and Baltic blocks, near a supermarket, I find a quiet spot between phone booths and a fountain. This is where we come out from. Not at once though.
– You're erasing all your traces? – inquires Vika.
I nod in silence.
– Do you hope they'll not find you?
– I'll try. Maybe they'll be able to figure the city out… but even this isn't likely. It would be better if they won't know even this.
– What about trusting me?
– St. Petersburg, – I say. I want so much to hear that we're compatriots, but Vika frowns.
– Piter… Lenia, wait here, okay?
I wait. She runs into the supermarket while I reach the Minsk server again, checking for any trace that might have left, then move along all spare addresses, even along those never used – and kill them scratching all data from everywhere mercilessly – from strimmers and magnetooptics, Bernulli's storage and optical disks. The last one to be cleaned is my ISP's disk. That's it. Now I never entered the deep.
Vika returns.
– Got into a long waiting line, can you imagine? – she laughs.
– An urgent shopping?
– One thing.
She waves a farsightedly folded plane ticket before my face, I just can see where is she about to fly.
– Are you free in the morning?
– Don't you fear to fly?
– What can I do, it'd be too long by all other means… Will you meet me?
– What flight?
– Wait for me by the information booth at ten in the morning.
A little game of independency… I can reach the cash register in the supermarket right now and find out who and from where have just bought the ticket to St. Petersburg.
But of course I won't do that.
– How will I recognize you?
Vika shrugs her shoulders.
– We'll see. How about you?
– I'll hold a red rose in my teeth, – I inform gloomily.
I can understand Vika perfectly. One thing is to fall in love in the virtual world, while to meet in reality is an absolutely different case. It's too scary to talk about yourself. I don't know whether I would have guts to offer to meet first.
– Then see you at ten by the info booth, – decides Vika, – Let's try not to be confused?
– Okay.
– I'll leave now, alright? – she half asks, half informs, – I yet have to gather my stuff…
– It's cold here already, – I warn.
– Here too…
Vika becomes half transparent and crumbles in a whirl of sparks. Beautiful is her exit from the deep.
My time is up too.
I wink to a passer-by who stopped watching Vika's exit and disappear from virtuality.
The screens were dark. Completely.
I took the helmet off.
The golden background of Windows-Home was glowing on the display, Vika is gone.
Enough of loving the drawn people.
We'll exit the Internet manually…
I opened the terminal window and stared at the blinking line dumbly.
No dialtone!
I'd better pay my phone bills in time.
I picked up the phone anyway and listened to the silence. Then I checked the logs: the phone was disconnected three hours ago, by the end of the working day, according to the habits of phone switchboard workers.
So you were right, Mr Urman's virtual secretary… It's really possible to enter the deep without any technical devices.
I pulled the suit off and lagged myself to the bed.
111
The TV set woke me up. I was lying, snuggling in the comforter – the heat wasn't yet turned on, so it was cold, and listened to announcers' chatter. { The heating in Russia is mostly centralized, meaning: one boiler station for a part or even for a whole town/city… so the time of turning the heating on in fall or off in spring doesn't depend on the wish of those who lives in houses at all… The hot water supply comes from the same source. Now imagine what happens when this boiler station goes down in the middle of the winter for a couple of weeks… OOPS. Tons of fun. :-/ } Politics, economics, currency exchange rates… Will yesterday's commotion in virtuality make it to the news reports I wonder? Maybe it will, somewhere between the news about a popular singer's arrival and sports, among the rest of the funny things. Television likes to make reports from Deeptown. It's funny for a philistine to watch cartoony landscapes and drawn people. Probably it's good that we're laughed at, if only we weren't feared… weren't hated…
I raised my head and glanced at the watch scared, they must have been stopped since yesterday. A usual thing, I always forget to wind it. I found the remote control lying by the bed and displayed the time on the TV screen.
7 AM. Good, I won't be late.
The whole body was feeling broken-down, the head was heavy as always after the series of long and frequent dives. A human isn't adapted to virtuality too well. Maybe a year or two will pass and the moment of requital will come to all Deeptown's citizens: some kind of paralysis, blindness, heart attacks. Then Dibenko's name will be dragged through the mud, the companies that made their bets on virtuality will ruin, and serious scientists will report that they foresaw it long time ago and were restlessly warning…