Sergei Lukyanenko - Labyrinth of reflections

The world created by computers is too primitive, it can't be compared even with cartoons, not to mention movies. Thus, the real world is completely out of question. One could run around in the drawn labyrinths and castles, fight with monsters or with his own friends who sit by the computers as well. But even in the worst feverish ravings it was impossible to confuse reality and illusion.

Computer networks allowed people all over the world to communicate, but it was nothing more than exchanging character lines on the screen… in the best case – the drawn face of your interlocutor could be on the screen too.

The real virtuality required too powerful computers, extremely high quality communication lines, titanic work of millions of programmers. It would take several dozens of years to build the city like Deeptown.

Everything had changed dramatically when Dmitry Dibenko, the former hacker from Moscow (now the wealthy US citizen) invented The Deep: a tiny program influencing human subconsciousness. They say he was crazy about Castaneda's books, liked to meditate and smoked grass. I surely believe in it. His former friends confess that he was cynical and lazy, a sloven and very so-so professional. In this I do believe too.

But it was him who gave rise to the deep. Ten second clip displayed on the screen is harmless by itself. If shown on TV (I heard it was dared to be done in some countries), the TV watcher won't feel anything and will not become a movie character. Dmitry himself just wanted to create a pleasant meditation background for his computer, and he did, let it circulate along the Net and didn't suspect anything for two more weeks.

But then, one day some Ukranian guy looked at the colorful plays of the Deep program, shrugged and launched his favorite game – Doom: drawn corridors and buildings, terrible monsters and brave hero with a shotgun in his hand. A simple 3D game, the whole era of 3D games was started with it.

And he 'fell' into the game.

An empty floor of the Patenting Bureau (it was a late evening) where the guy worked, disappeared. He couldn't see his computer anymore. His fingers were hitting the keys making the drawn figure to move, to turn, to shoot, but it seemed to him that it's HIM running along the corridors, ducking the fiery balls and snarling monsters' mugs. He understood that this is just a game, but he didn't know why it became real and how to exit it.

The only thing he could do in this situation was to go until the very end. And he did it despite the fact that it turned out to be much more difficult now.

The slight wound now became not just the lowered percent of 'strength' on the screen, but something the wound is supposed to be: pain, weakness, fear. He realized that the bloody floor becomes slippery, that the stony slab behind which the shells are hidden is really heavy, that ejected shells are hot and rocket launcher's recoil nearly knocks him off his feet, that the health potion is bitter and loathsome, that the armor turned out to be made of thin metal plates and is pretty lightweight – but a little too baggy and has uncomfortable ties on the back. In around three hours the shotgun trigger started to jam, he had to hit it slowly and carefully, moving the finger from side to side.

By 5 am he finished the game. The monsters were cast down. The game menu had appeared on the stone wall before him and he pushed the shotgun's barrel into it with a scream.

The illusion dissipated, he was sitting by the peacefully droning computer, his eyes watered, the keyboard under his stiff fingers totally ruined. The key he was using as a shotgun trigger was stuck.

The guy shut down the computer and fell asleep right by the table. The employees that soon arrived noticed that his face and hands were badly bruised.

He told about what happened and of course nobody believed him. Only by the evening, thinking about what could happen, he remembered about Dibenko's meditation program and suspected wrong.

The whole world was in fever a week later. All corporations except computer and software ones suffered tremendous losses: everybody starting from programmers and ending with secretaries and janitors, wanted to visit the cyberspace personally.

With Dibenko's light touch the program was named 'Deep' and began its march all over the world. The studies proving that around 7% of people are not affected by the abyss were still ahead, as well as those proving that being in virtuality for more than 10 hours a day might lead to nervous disorders and pseudoschizoid syndrome. Just a month left until the first death in virtuality when an aged man whose destroyer was burned in a space war above the intellectual purple reptiles' planet, died of a heart attack right by the keyboard.

It couldn't scare anyone anymore.

The world have immersed itself.

Deeptown was created by Microsoft and IBM on the Internet.

The main advantage of virtuality was simplicity. It wasn't necessary to draw buildings and palaces, human faces and machines in all detail, just the general outline and several small recognizable hints. The brown wall divided into squares is a brick wall. The blue above is the sky. Blue pants – jeans.

The world submerged and wasn't going to surface back. It was so much more interesting in the deep. Even if it was yet not available to everybody, intellectual elite swore it's allegiance to the new Empire.

To the Deep.

It was midnight when I finally cleaned the computer up from the postcard virus and packed the bagged file (in virtuality it'll look like the ordinary diskette now). The head stopped aching and the sleepiness disappeared completely. No Deeptown inhabitant sleeps at night, right?

– Vika, restart, – I commanded.

The thoughtful female face on the screen frowned:

– Really?

– Sure.

The screen dimmed slightly, the image blurred. Then the hard drive started blinking indicating system restart. My machine is just Pentium, not a 'serious' one but I still can't make up my mind to substitute it with a newer computer. It's reliable enough.

– Good evening Lenia, – said Vika, – I'm ready for work.

– Thanks. Connect to Deeptown… use the regular channel.

Modem chirped dialing, I put the helmet on and sat down.

– 28800 connection, the channel is stable, – said Vika.

– Turn the Deep on.

– Done.

Light blue on the screen, flash, then – colorfulness.

How did you manage to create the deep program, Dima? With your shattered mentality, basic knowledge in psychology, and no knowledge in neurophysiology? What helped you?

Now, when you're rich and famous, what are you trying to do? To understand how it dawned upon you or to invent something more amazing? Or just lead your dissolute life and smoke the grass as much as you want? Or wander along Deeptown's streets all around the clock looking at your creation?

I wish I knew that, but – not to be in your shoes, because you're not more than the ordinary virtuality inhabitant, even with all your millions and Octium prototype as a home computer. The Deep holds you as tightly as any provincial programmer from Russian remote who saves money for months just to visit Deeptown once.

You're not the diver, Dima, and this is why I'm happier than you.

… The same room, but there are neon sign flashes and slight noise of moving cars outside.

– Is everything okay Lenia?

I look around.

– Yes. I'll go for a walk, Vika.

I pick up the diskette and put it into my pocket. The portable CD player lies on the shelf among several books and the pile of CDs. I insert ELO's CD into it, put on headphones, push 'play'. 'Roll over Beethoven' – just what I wanted. Accompanied by the cheerful music I leave the apartment and shut the door.