Labyrinth of reflections

Part 5. Unfortunate

In the begi

All the colors of the world have gone in an instant.

I didn't notice when and how it happened. The deep program just was here, but now there's nothing at all.

Maybe this is how divers die, falling to the very bottom of the virtual space, burning down their brains and not perceiving anything anymore?

But the darkness fractions into the mesh of tiny squares, changes brightness and colors return.

I'm standing with my forehead pressed against the wall, the drawn wall of the drawn house.

Weird. Looks like I've entered the virtual space without turning the deep program on at all, but I'm not just looking on the helmet's screens, I'm kinda really here! It's just the world isn't real anymore, it became drawn and cartoon-like.

I step back from the wall, squares merge turning into brown rectangles: bricks. I look at the sky – dark bluishness with sparse stars. Houses and palaces are lined along the street, looking like kids' drawings: sharp contours filled with colors. This little house is the brick one, this fence is wooden, fur trees in the garden… Steel tubes with yellow patches on their spikes are stuck along the street – lampposts… Fake, just a fake. More decent parts of the city are drawn better but I'm somewhere in the suburbs now, the world around was created with simple programs and is maintained by weak servers.

But the fu

A real human in the cartoon.

I start to shiver. This is something new, it never happened before. What did the deep program do to me, been run a thousand times? What did I do to it when surfaced from insanity?

The sound flows closer from behind. I turn around and see the bus moving along the street: a huge two storey rattletrap, made of glass almost completely. The bus is drawn pretty thoroughly, even its wheels are rotating. Caricature faces are glued to the windows: kids, adults, elders. The Deep-Transit's emblem is on the bus' side.

I just stand, gasping for air, looking at the motionless faces. Well, why would they be different – mimicry can be expressed only by very good, tuned programs, aimed for the single user. These are just tourists.

The bus stops, the people exit it awkwardly, an elegant gentleman dressed in bright– red overalls is in front: the guide. All men are dressed absolutely the same in suits with ties, just a single black guy in the group is in jeans and t-shirt. All faces are indifferently well– shaped, like a second line villains' in kids' cartoon series. The women are all in luxurious dresses, much better worked out than their faces, wearing jewelry. Also a flock of kids with cartoony big eyes and a group of elder men and women dressed in blinkers and with cameras. The guy in the wheelchair is the last to exit the bus with the help of others.

– 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.