Sergei Lukyanenko: Labyrinth of reflections

No bugs this time. Standing on the sidewalk, I raise my hand and stop the cab. This time the driver is an aged man, stout and very intelligent looking.

– Deep-Transit is glad to welcome you Lenia.

I get inside and nod:

– To the 'Three Piglets' restaurant.

This address is well known to the driver. We move fast, a couple of turns and we're before the odd building: partially stone one, partially wooden, partially built of straw mats.

I enter the too familiar restaurant and look around. It is divided into three parts – Eastern cuisine is served in the 'mat' one, European – in the stone one, and Russian

– in the wooden one obviously.

I'm not really hungry; virtual food subjectively satiates, and being in dire straits I usually eat in 'Three piglets', but now I just have to wait for my partner.

I walk directly to the bar, behind which the robust man is standing, taking off the headphones as I walk.

– Hi Andrei.

Sometimes the owner serves his virtual customers himself, but today it's obviously not the case. The bartender smiles but it's just an automatic courtesy:

– Hi! What would you like to drink?

– Gin-Tonic with ice, as usual.

I watch bartender mixing the drink. Tonic is the real Shweppes, Gin is the decent Beefeater. The liquor companies allow to use their trade marks and products' images in virtuality for just a symbolic charge: it's a good advertisement. Pepsi is free at all: it was their marketing trick. Coke costs as much as in reality though.

And it has good sales.

I take the glass and sit by the empty table, watching the guests: it's always interesting.

The number of men and women is approximately the same. Absolutely all women are perfectly beautiful and of all types: from blond Scandinavians to charcoal black Africans. Most men are terrible freaks. No, it's not true of course, just my subconsciousness notes all follies in men's virtual shells – disproportionately muscular figures and too recognizable physiognomies of movie stars glued to body-builders' bodies.

Exception is made for the women though: they all are beautiful.

I take a sip of Gin and lean on the table relaxed: oh it feels good…

No real bar or restaurant can be compared with the virtual one. They always cook great here. You never have to wait to be served. The huge dose of alcohol won't cause hangover.

But having a real life experience, one really can feel drunk… and subconsciousness dives into the alcohol drug cheerfully. They say that the body's natural narcotics – endorphines start being produced then. True or not, intoxication doesn't disappear instantly when one exits virtuality.

– Sorry, may I please?… – the young girl sits down by my side. Blond hair, clean, slightly dim skin, a simple white suit, a little golden medallion on her neck: most likely, a program of some sort. She's pretty cute and thanks God, not recognizable: either she designed her face by herself or used some rare seen painting as a model or found a cute but not too familiar face in some movie.

– Sure, – I turn to her. The bartender already gives her a glass of wine: 'Emperor', the Chilean one. This girl has a good taste.

– I see you here pretty often, – informs the girl.

DZZZ! the alarm signal in my head.

– Amazing, – I note, – I don't visit this place so often really.

– But I'm here almost always.

Lies.

I can exit virtuality right now and check a couple of dozens of control photos stored in the computer: the visitors of the bar for the last two months. It's always useful to remember new faces. But what for, I know well enough that I never met her before…

– I was wearing different faces, – looks like the girl guesses my thoughts, – while you always wear the same one.

– Changing faces is too expensive, – I begin my self-humiliation, – It's stupid to botch up Schwartzenegger or Stallone from yourself, and I can't afford hiring the image specialist.

– The Deep itself is expensive enough.

She calls virtuality with a Russian term and I like that…

…But not her overall behavior…

I shrug. What a strange talk.

– Excuse me… you're Russian, right? – asks the girl.

I nod. There are lots of Russians in virtuality: nowhere else in the world the computer time usage is controlled as poorly as in our country.

– I'm sorry… – the girl bites her lips slightly, she is obviously excited, – Of course I'm terribly tactless but… What is your name?

I understand.

– Not Dmitry Dibenko. This is what interests you, right?

The girl looks at my face intently and nods, then quickly drains her glass dry.

– I'm not lying. Honest. – I say softly.

– I believe you, – the girl nods to bartender, then reaches her hand out to me, – I'm Nadya.

I shake her hand and introduce myself:

– Leonid.

So now we know each other and can be less ceremonious. The deep is casual: overly polite tone is offensive here.

The girl casts her hair back from her forehead, the natural and graceful gesture, then gives her glass over to bartender; he refills it quickly. She looks around the hall.

– How do you think, does he really visit virtuality?

– I don't know. Probably. Are you a journalist, Nadya?

– Yes, – she hesitates for a moment, then takes out a business card from her purse and gives it to me, – Here…

The card is complete: not only Email, but also phone number, first and last name. Nadezhda Mesherskaya, the 'Money' magazine, a reporter. Windows-Home is silent, it means that the card is 'clean' – it's really just a card, without any hidden surprises. I put it in my pocket and nod:

– Thanks.

Sorry, it'll be no return courtesy, but it doesn't look like Nadya expects it.

– This deep is a strange thing, – she says sipping her wine, – I'm in Moscow for instance, you are in Samara somewhere, that boy – in Penza…

'That boy', looking like the cute Mexican from a soap opera notices her look and raises his chin proudly. Yes, one can't deny her power of observation, he's really Russian…

– There's a crowd of Americoses, – she goes on without a glimpse of respect, – that weirdo is a Japanese obviously… just look at the eyes he drew for himself. Every nation has it's own complexes… And here are we, playing the fool in nonexistent restaurant, having nonexistent drink, hundreds of computers burn up energy, processors heat up in effort, megabytes of senseless data are pumped over the phone lines back and forth…

– Data is never senseless.

– Yes, maybe, – Nadya glances at me quickly, – Let's better call it not topical one. And what, is this really a new era of the world's technology?

– But what did you expect? The file exchange and discussions of processors' quality? We're humans after all.

Nadya frowns:

– We're people of the new era. Virtuality can change the world, but we prefer to mask it to fit the old dogmas. Nanotechnology used to imitate a drink is worse than a microscope used as a hammer…

– You're Alexandrian, – I make a guess.

– Yes! – she replies with a slight challenge in her voice.

Alexandrians are the followers of one Petersburg sci-fi writer. They either proclaim the merge of the human with a computer or expect some sort of fantastic blessings from virtuality, I'm not sure.

– What are you doing in this senseless place then? – I ask.

– I'm looking for Dibenko. I want to ask him, did he really imagine it like this? Does he think that what's going on is right?

– I see. But don't you really like this place?

Nadya shrugs.

I stretch my hand and touch her face.

– The warmth of the hand, roughness of wine, coolness of the evening breeze and flowers' scent, splashing of the warm waves and prickly sand under your feet, don't you really like it?