Трой Николай. Internet Hate Machine

Internet Hate Machine

Tomorrow we shall be dead.

How will the world react?

START

Moscow, August 29

Alexey never thought he could run that fast. Moreover, he used to be quite unsuspecting that he could run at all.

"Stop, damn!"

His heart gave a chicken's quiver, he felt icy-cold claws on his back. He was not brave enough to look back: it was clear his chasers were close.

Agile like a farrow deer, Alexey leapt over the playground's low fence, though the day before standing up from the computer chair was enough to make him groan. He all but fell on the loose sand, kept his feet by miracle. Run again! Run as fast as he could, away from this primitive fear of fight, of those street predators who had suddenly turned their empty eyes to him.

Streets are almost empty. To his ill luck, it is the middle of working day, so everyone in the August sun-melted Moscow is in their offices. No hope for him...

Run across the parking lot, zigzagging among the cars that stand in three rows (on the grass too) and rush, to the loud slaps of sandals, along the house.

The open front door of a multistory building seemed a blessing of heavens. His instinct jerked him by collar and dragged there. Panting, Alexey burst into the dry coolness of the staircase. Not until then he allowed himself to stick to the dirty wall, to flow down as a gruel, gasping for air with his mouth wide open.

While he tried to recover breath, his fingers, trembling with fear, whisked involuntarily into his postal bag: USB cables, a palmbook with amplifying antenna, a box of cookies crushed into crumbs, some more rubbish... his heart was wrung to the size of a walnut!

"Where?!" Alexey cried silently.

When finally his fingers entwined around the sacred box, he almost burst into tears. In place! I still have it!

Suddenly Alexey recognized the strange noise below as footsteps. He listened to it with disbelief: yes, it were footsteps! They! Again!

The convulsive flow of thoughts changed. Those common for him in stressful situations (How could this happen? Why me?! Got myself in!) dissolved. Feeling the taste of icy-cold lead on his tongue, he realized: the house was strange, no one to ask for help. It meant his end. He was at bay.

At bay!

This thought exhausted him terribly, hitting under knees. But Alexey kept running. He did not hear the chasers anymore: just his own lungs wheezing in a spasm. Forcing his way through the shroud before eyes, he jumped from one stair to another. With either a lack of oxygen or whizzing-by stories, his head went swimming.

Between the ninth and the tenth floor, Alexey stopped. Held his breath with a convulsive clutch at the shaggy rail. For a few moments he only heard his own heart beat, then, in the air smelling of chlorine, he discerned the hurried slaps of footsteps.

Overcoming the fear that cut his nerves, he bent over the railing, blinked frequently to shake tears and beads of sweat off his eyelashes and... run with his whole soul upon the gaze of another man.

"Up there!"

Alexey recoiled. Those below hooted like jackals. Some panic squeal burst from his throat and came out as a moan. Wailing, Alexey dashed on the next floor.

He ran onto the sixteenth (and last) floor, completely dazed. He was aiming at the warts of doorbells when the dark exit onto the roof caught his eye. His fatal luck again: the door was open.

Like an actor at the moment of tragic denouncement, Alexey darted onto the roof. His sandals crunched on the gravel, which was glittery with the deposition of unburned kerosene thrown out by the engines of low-flying planes.

It took him ten seconds sharp to run around the perimeter of the roof and realize it was a deadlock. No superstructures, no other way out. Just the wind and satellite antennae.

A crunch behind. Slowly, Alexey turned round.

Three overmuscular beefcakes, three living tutorials on anabolic steroids for bodybuilders. Happy grins on their dull angular faces. The fourth one, the ringleader in rich smart threads, seemed to have no part in the chase. He must be staying in the car, waiting his faithful hounds back idly.

Alexey stepped back as the strappers went on him, forming a semicircle.

"Where're you going?" one smiled mockingly. "We won't hurt you, Vasya¹, `fraid not. You're no chick, damn!"

Another one neighed and echoed, "Don't piss!"

The roof parapet hit softly on the small of his back. Alexey looked back and got his insides wrung with icy fear: everything was terribly small there below.

"Calm down, you!"

For a moment he wished to believe it, but then his palm found by instinct the broad case within his bag.

"Lemme see," the strapper asked when Alexey took out a pair of black plastic glasses: they looked like 3D glasses but with very heavy sides. "We won't break `em, really..."

No, they won't, Alexey realized with a feeling of doom. They'll just bash me up and take the gadget. And then...

The decision came suddenly. Cold and desperate, it seemed to stop his heart.

"Hey!" the beefcake shrieked. "Stop! Vasya, damn!!"

Giving the chasers no time to recover, Alexey jumped on the parapet. A sudden gust of wind nearly threw him back, but Alexey kept his feet and, to mitigate his fear, put on the glasses.

When his finger pressed a small button on the side, everything vanished: the roof, the urban vultures and all the problems. Again, he saw the secret world.

And the confidence came. He is doing right: this secret should not be revealed. It must be hidden. At any cost.

From far away, a scoffing shout came: "You nuts?!! Stop, shit!!"

But Alexey had already turned away. And made a small step.

For a moment he was weightless, then the wind came rushing from below...

PART I. Smoke and Looking Glasses

Chapter 1. The Snail's Law

Korolyov, October 1

The walls are papered up to the middle only, to the wooden equator carved with runic patterns. Straight from under it, some unknown plants climb to the ceiling. It is a skillful painting on concrete portraying merry flower fairies who dance in the energy streams of happiness. The pictorial stems are beautifully entwined with real ones: the painted landscape is braided with natural ivy. The plant supports are almost invisible, it creates the illusion of being surrounded by thickets.

Higher, under the very ceiling, there are three expensive air conditioners. Magic waterfalls are dropping in the lights of violet, pink and golden LEDs hidden in the ivy. The air is moistened, the very sight ahead would pacify you and make healthy. Lots of suns above, colored the brightest and most unusual, can equally well belong to a LSD trip or make the landscapes of some fairy worlds in our endless universe. The room also has mercurial scatters of stars, and planets swinging in their rings.

Stepping softly on the gravel path, Dalia fingered the plants. The path seemed to be taking her into the wonderful garden. The thickets are about to reveal the secret world, full of calm and peace, and she will touch its deepest mysteries: stroke the soft hair of rabbits, snuggle up to the warm and fragrant bark of a hundred-year-old oak, hear the unicorn sniff softly... She was not likely to meet the unicorn, though. They say he would only come to virgins.

As a reaction to her move, the music system switched on. To the sounds of "Somebody to Love" by Jefferson Airplane, the girl stopped in the midst of the room, her eyelids fell down. Tender sunrays caressed her naked body. There, outside the broad window, the world is absorbing the last warmth of autumn greedily, but here it is cozy and comfortable at any time.

Dalia had invented such a room long before she bought this flat: it was when she just started working. Her yoga instructor used to say that everyone should have their own intimate space. Not simply his or her own room but something special, to serve like a snail's shell. A place where one would work and recreate gladly. Wu Wei, the concept of non-interference and contemplation of the world. Or, to put it differently, the endless moment of peace. It's the only way to divide your life ideally into yin and yang, into active interaction with the world and passive, which enables to see many things open-mindedly.

Now Dalia understood him. She is nineteen. She has a splendid job and very good salary. She is a strong vegan, a true fan of yoga and Apple products and, which is most important, a happy owner of a two-bedroom flat with this miracle concealed in one of the rooms. Although she had to put by for half a year to afford this "secret garden," and then to share her flat with her younger sister, a painter, while she worked on the "garden" design, the result was worth it. Though friends and acquaintances were surprised by Dalia's leaving the Moscow flat inherited from their parents to her sister and moving to Korolyov, a small town near Moscow.

Somewhere in another world the mobile phone rang.

Dalia inhaled deep in the end, feeling the pleasant echo of fresh air at the root of her tongue and went out. When the door closed softly behind, the world seemed to change. She really felt like a snail just out of her cozy protective shell.

The phone kept ringing. After a short search, she found it in the pocket of jeans she had been wearing the day before. "Hello?"

The voice on the line asked half-affirmatively, "Dalia Vernikova?"

"Yes."

"There's an order for you. Would you accept?"

"Sure."

"Well. I'll mail the details on corporate address."

"I'll be waiting," Dalia replied but the phone was already hung up.

When the "outer world" reminded her of work, walking around naked, even in her own flat, began to feel uncomfortable. Outside my secret garden, Dalia thought with a smirk, I need another shell. Clothes would suit.

Dalia slipped into a dressing gown and, having switched on the ultrabook on her table, left to make herself some tea.

The kitchen was reigned by irreproachable order and neatness, though Asya, Dalia's sister, considered her flat to be empty. They always disagreed about it. In turn, Dalia felt badly uncomfortable in her sister's home, with its constant "artistic" confusion, linen and clothes heaped on chairs, all rooms having dirty dishes and cups with coffee halos inside, often used as ashtrays. And the infinite number of irritating vases, statuettes, pictures (some not finished yet) and pebbles and seashells and souvenir charms, and real dominance of soft toys. A museum flea market, Dalia would name it, but no place to live in.

"But it's cozy," Asya parried venomously. "I'd rather live in museum than in furniture exhibition!"

"I prefer minimalist style," Dalia answered calmly. "House should be spacious for you to breathe with air, not dust."

"Not minimalist but pedantic! You even bought all household appliances from one firm..."

They could argue about it endlessly. Asya was stubborn, so each of them reserved her own opinion. Though she might have been right to some extent: to other people, Dalia's flat could actually seem too empty. Very little of furniture, much of glass and space. Everything, except for the "secret garden," in the same range of colors: classic black-and-white.

Having filled the electric kettle with water from the Swiss filter, Dalia turned it on. To brighten up her waiting, she pulled the beads of earphones out of her pockets and switched the random playback on her iPod. At once the sounds were drowned by Melnitsa's² romantic ballade.

While the kettle was on the boil, Dalia watched the tiny robot cleaner pick the invisible specks efficiently up from the tiled floor. At her feet it stopped, thought for a moment, wheeled round with displeasure. Its lid of photosensitive plastics showed a mad smiley: the program's normal reaction to pieces of furniture moved or to any other unexpected obstacle.

She poured the green tea over with boiling water and came back into the room. The macbook revived obediently, Dalia opened the browser.

Her inbox had hundred and forty new messages: mostly newsletters from the specialized forums where she had registered for work purposes. After skimming through the mails, she deleted spam and printed the two letters from her dispatcher.

One, just as promised, contained the new client's address and contacts, while another - a text file named "Updates." Such forms are sent by Blue Djinn regularly: a respectable company should not be static. This time her company informed on a special offer: each client who ordered the fulfillment of wishes for the third time would receive a hundred percent discount and the client card of a restaurant Dalia did not know.

After memorizing it, Dalia returned to the first letter.

Hardly any details at all. Though, if to judge by the client's surname often mentioned in Russia's political news, the wish would be a difficult one. Half a year ago, one politician's son had ordered real mermaids for his father. "No hang-ups," he said. Dalia wasted a week explaining him that Blue Djinn had nothing to do with sex trade, no matter what sums of money offered. There would have been a scandal if not for her boss's name, not less famous than the client's. And Dalia managed to settle the order so that the client was happy all the same. His father never discovered that the three mermaids cleaving the water in the wake of his yacht were actually a team of professional swimmers.

Since then, she had been working non-stop. A flawless professional, as her boss described her.

After finishing her tea, Dalia put the cup into the dishwasher and went to dress.

Chapter 2. Neo_Dolphin

Moscow, October 1

After two days and nights of almost incessant work on the keyboard, his fingers grew numbs. Danil looked at his palms with surprise, guessing how to take off the weariness. He had a wish to get his first-aid kit but then had a second thought and entered the internet again. Summoned his blog page called Notes by Zombie Apocalypse Survivor, clicked on the "new entry." Giggling, he wrote:

O Great Internet! Owing to you, people will undergo constant evolution! The next generation of babies will be born with fingers trained for printing in advance: crooked, thick and strong as those of nose-picking apes.

He had barely published it when comments by his friends rained down...

That's all. I can have some rest now.

The music from a popular anime series stopped automatically when the income call message cropped up in the display corner. The number was unknown.

After a moment's thought, Danil clicked to accept. The computer speakers brought a cheerful voice, "Neo_Dolphin?"

Danil winced, said through gritted teeth into the pea of the mike, "Decent people say hello and name themselves before they ask any questions. It's elementary ethics."

The other end of the line was stricken by astonished silence. Danil gave a hem. Not everyone is able to overcome such a surprise as Levitan's³ famous voice speaking to them by Skype.

Finally, the interlocutor came to and realized being fooled with the help of a simple synthesizer program. The voice from speakers came gloomy: "That's why you're hiding your voice? `Cause you tell your real name, don't you?"

"Don't be a smart aleck," Danil parried. "Who are you?"

"You don't know me, but I wanted to meet you for so long. The fame of Neo_Dolphin is resounding through all the internets..."

The bad-hidden flatter made Danil's fingers itch to disconnect. All those admirers and imitators were a pain in his neck. Despite his dynamic addresses and numbers, at least twice a month there always came someone willing to "meet" him. Some of them were completely inadequate: schoolkids who had read too much of Lurk⁴. They used memes, the origins of which they never imagined, with every other breath, sought to find out the details of his personal life, to have a part of his fame. "I count to three," he said with irritation. "One..."

"Emm, maybe I've put it wrong or..."

"Two..."

"Hang on, you!"

"Three," Danil announced with dark joy. His finger touched the hang-up button. "I'm off!"

"Internet Hate Machine!"

"The connection is interrupted," his virtual pager informed. "The call duration is..."

For a while Danil sat still, trying to understand whether he'd really heard it, whether his interlocutor actually meant...

A moment later, Danil dialed his number.

* * *

When the e-mail came from Wildman (that was how this sudden representative of Internet Hate Machine named himself), Danil was finishing his "powder joy:" two bags of three-in-one instant coffee in Mickey D's paper cup.

After the call, Danil had spent an hour and a half identifying the caller's personality and now he summed it up. In his mind, he created folders and shifted the data from sub catalogues into them. Tried to recall any rumors, any leavings that could sate his curiosity. However, the information was extremely scarce.

Wildman was a mystery. No results returned by all queries.

Though he did hear about the transnational community of Internet Hate Machine. He did not think everything people said about their actions was true: the bush telegraph would always exaggerate, but if even they carried out only the tenth part of those actions, they were not to be taken lightly. Serious guys.

The instant coffee made his eyes water. With effort, Danil suppressed the wish to open a medical handbook and read about similar symptoms. He stood, glanced the room over with dim eyes.

The wallpaper all over the room is ragged, the spots of bare concrete are covered with clumsy drawings in black marker pen or with stickers of hi-tech companies. The only window is coated with black automobile paint.

The room has two desks. On the first, a Dell powerbook is pressing the relict Macintosh, while the second is completely hidden under the heaps of spares, toolkits, wire bundles and used plastic dishes.

The single halogen lamp under the ceiling creates the impression that Danil is in a deep cellar, not a studio flat on the fourteenth floor in the center of Moscow. However, it was just what he wanted: a sensation that the apocalypse had come. It comforted him. Made him believe that the world had no hateful people anymore, that he was the last human here, in this concrete-and-silicon hi-tech bunker.

Danil approached the shelf made of many-colored Lego details. Stole an admiring glance at the collection of superhero figures, the Darth Vader mask and a brown paper bag with eyeholes, then buried himself in tins of allergy medicines. Recollecting the annotation, he measured out the volume of eye drops, instilled, winked. His spirits rose at once. Just in case, he also spilled a handful of ascorbic pills into his palm: those would never do harm.

Back at his desk, he felt some warmth arise in his chest: that made his back straighten and his shoulders square. His fame as the best internet detective is resounding, accumulating information by itself, without a drop of PR. Winning the reputation of a pro is worth a lot.

Finally, Danil made up his mind. Clicked on the sealed envelope. The mail from Wildman only read two sentences:

August 29. Alexey Toromyshev.

* * *

Danil always watched the films whose protagonist, living in the contemporary world, lost memory and could not recall his or her own self for months with a special cynical smirk. He knew best of all that getting lost nowadays is virtually impossible. The most you can do is imitate it.

Today almost every person older than ten has already left a considerable number of traces in the global information net. A page on VK, on Facebook, or a hundred of other social networks; no less than two electronic mailboxes; accounts in BlogSphere, web games, and on theme forums; virtual purses; registrations in online shops and torrents; photos found in search engines or even those deleted but remaining in cash! Not to mention plain governmental labels, such as passport, TIN and a dozen more.

Getting lost is hardly possible. No. Not today. The web has turned into a true weapon for the one who knows. Once Danil heard that intelligence services have special groups of psychologists and criminalists who make personality portraits and psychograms by such virtual traces. He was sure those rumors spoke truth. He is the same himself: a high-class professional in the web search of everything, either people or events, he can extract truth from self-praising posts, see the ins and outs of online snobbery and the lies of freaks who pose as esthetes. Unlike other, ordinary people, Danil knows the web also has personality shells that can tell much of their masters. Though such a shell is hidden and can only be tracked on the intuitive level, by the whole set of actions taken from the target's account: where he or she passed, by which links, what downloaded, what kind of music preferred, what is posted by the person and whether there are spelling mistakes. This is how the true character becomes clear - and, in turn, helps to predict the user's subsequent actions.

However, most people are used to be contented with what lies on the surface. The semblance of being anonymous on the web is enough for them.

"Nothing can be anonymous in the world ruled by money," he said.

Yes, it was exactly what he said when he connected again with representatives of Internet Hate Machine. This name sounded really clumsy if translated into Russian⁵. In a literary and florid fashion, it could be put as "the instrument of requital according to everyone's deserts."

"Can you get the information?" Wildman asked bluntly. "Will you cope?"

Danil glanced at the updated number of money in his virtual purse and grunted into the mike pea, "Nothing can be anonymous in the world ruled by money. Give me twenty-four hours."

Without saying goodbye, Wildman disconnected.

For a couple of minutes Danil thought what to start with, making the logically correct working schedule in his mind. Pensively, he took the inhaler out of the drawer but forgot it at once.

The usual fire of hunting excitement had already kindled inside.

The likes of him are called geeks on the web, but he used to think of himself as otaku of information space and urbanistic religion. The last two words were his own idea. Fast food with rustling wrappers and fast-sating ingredients, vitaminized drinks, sterile bathroom, the inert way of life and the sound of modem connection in the ferroconcrete cell of his flat - this is what he values above everything in the world...

His eyes slid over the window covered with black auto paint, and his lips spasmed in a contented smile.

How could he forget the boarded-up door into that common mad world full of allergenic bacteria and bloody larvae of human society?

Chapter 3. Relict

Moscow, October 1

Voloshin never liked being summoned. If the Master calls him to his place, things are in a bad way. Ordinary tasks are sent to Problem Remover with bodyguards or agents.

But what could he do? He had to work off his bread, his comfortable life and dozens of visas in his international passport. So he dragged himself into the center, cursing the traffic jams of evening Moscow.

The security guards on the entrance to the Moscow elite house could have made perfect Life Guards of Her Majesty. Voloshin was searched thoroughly, questioned, made to leave his mobile phone and player. Not until permitted by the apartment's master did they allow him to the lift. And even then they stopped watching him for no moment.

Bulldogs, Voloshin thought with contempt.

While the summoned lift went down, Voloshin, just to while away the time, watched himself in the wall mirror. His absolutely ordinary appearance now seemed insufferably drab in this world of exceptional quality. As against locals, his haircut was inaccurate, his complexion wrong, not to mention his suit. Only his eyes were up to par. "I look in your eyes," the Master once told him in surprise, "and see a bullet reaching me!"

Voloshin allowed himself a faded smile. As though wiping an occasional speck, he touched the mirror's surface. There was no tiny gap between his fingertip and its reflection, which ordinary mirrors have. It meant he was watched through the one-way transparent surface. You don't say.

They wouldn't take any risk. In his mind, he spat again.

The spacious lift car, as though made for transporting grand pianos, had no buttons: just card readers. However, the problem solved itself: the guards turned out to be managing it.

The lift doors swept open, the wave of freshness pushed him gently on the face. Voloshin crossed the exotic garden on the staircase. A moment passed before he realized that it was actually an immense flat. He wondered whether journalists were allowed there to cover the life of those who rule Russia.

"Dima?"

Good heavens, Master in person came to meet me! Voloshin smiled with caution, observing strictly the line between being polite and friendly and being chummy. The Master is always the Master. Even with wenches in bathhouse.

"Come in, dear. Want a drink?"

Voloshin refused politely.

Silently, they entered the study. The Master subsided into the encrusted armchair that bore vague resemblance to a throne. Voloshin perched on the edge of sofa and prepared to listen.

"How are you, dear?"

"I'm n-normal, thanks."

No names. Even in the Master's house.

"How are your parents?"

"Alive. T-thanks to you."

"And your wife?"

Voloshin shrugged. "My ex-x-wife. Got married. Ag-gain."

"They are bitches all..."

The Master fell silent for a while, his eyes piercing the floor. At last, he sighed. "Well, Dima, let's get to it."

Voloshin felt a sort of relief. Almost a genius in his job, he never loved much talking.

"Do you remember my son? The elder one, Victor? Well, he's the reason you are here. This little stinker made a lot of trouble. They want to open a case against him"

Why not to sort it with just a phone call? Voloshin thought with surprise but said nothing.

However, the Master bothered to explain himself. "Dima," he sighed, "I'm in a very difficult situation now and can afford no risk. They're scheming against me, and I'm in the public eye. I have no one to trust in but you. You know who's around me. We are relicts, you and me. The young don't know the meaning of loyalty."

Voloshin nodded. "What he did?"

"Nothing special, in fact. Just fooled around with his friends. Wanted a bit of fright on some street boy - he must have vexed them. And that idiot went into hysterics."

"What k-kind of hysterics?"

"Jumped from the roof. A mutant."

"D-dead?"

"It was sixteenth floor. Surely he's dead!"

A nod again. "Can there b-be complications?"

The Master jerked his shoulders, cut short, "You should know better. Anyway, act very softly and accurately, understand? For no bitch to sniff!"

Voloshin answered nothing: the Master did not need it. What he appreciated was the result, not words. He was truly a relict.

Chapter 4. The Wishmaster

Korolyov, October 1

Clean underwear. After a moment's thought, Dalia put her favorite set by Victoria's Secret aside and chose the black lace one, with Wonderbra push-up brassiere. Her boyish figure in the mirror reflection was transformed at once.

A deodorant. A drop of perfume. Low-rise jeans. A brown pullover: not very see-through, just a bit. Her favorite player on the belt. iPhone and credit cards in a clutch bag.

And no make-up at all. It was her principle.

After snatching the car keys and the bag with ultrabook from the shelf, Dalia exited the flat. Having the door locked, she walked a floor down. Stopped at the door upholstered in shabby leatherette. As a response to her call, the lock clicked open and the door was set ajar.

"Good evening, Victoria Pavlovna⁷," Dalia smiled. "You'd better not open in full. It's unsafe now. You do have a door chain."

A small old woman withered by age and scarce pension gave a series of tiny nods. "I forgot it, dear Dalia. I keep forgetting it."

"I'm going to Moscow." Dalia did her best not to turn her eyes away while speaking. "Do you need anything?"

For some strange reason, she always felt ashamed while speaking to Victoria Pavlovna. She couldn't understand why: was it her youth? Or rather the fact that the old woman's grandchildren were unable to support her while she, Dalia, undertook to care about this person?

A couple of months ago Dalia had happened to drop into the local supermarket. It was just after she'd completed a task and got paid, so her credit card had more money on it than other people earned in half a year. She dropped there, and her heart missed a beat. Aside from the checkout, a hunched old woman wailed, choking with silent senile tears. She shifted coins in her palm, trying to make them out with her weak eyes, a shabby plastic bag quivering in hand.

The same kind of shame used to seize Dalia when she gave aims and was thanked. It seemed to be a kind deed, but all the same it caused a nasty feeling: you have a piece of plastic worth half a thou bucks on your belt, and these people are thanking you for hundred rubles⁶. This feeling is sometimes hard to overcome in order to give help to those who need it. Much more frequently one would pass by, looking aside like a coward...

Dalia overcame it. Ignoring disgustful and derisive looks from all around, she comforted the old woman and tucked into her pocket secretly the only five-thousand-ruble banknote she had. Dalia spent the rest of the evening running about markets and drugstores. If not for her, Victoria Pavlovna would have died of starvation within a week. It was what the doctor told Dalia, but she found it hard to believe. Can anyone really starve to death today?

"I need nothing." Victoria Pavlovna was confused. "Why are you fussing over the old hag I am?"

Dalia realized she had to act more decisively. "May I take some meat? For rissoles?"

"If only just a little bit," the old woman almost mouthed aside.

"Aha," Dalia cheered up. "Then you'll have it by evening."

* * *

Dalia drove onto the highway, turned the music down. The beeps on her iPhone were interrupted by her sister's voice, "Dal, you?"

"Hi. Do you know what meat they use to make rissoles?"

"I can't believe it! Dal, are you finally back to self?! Thank God, your veganism's over..."

"The meat's not for me." Dalia frowned. There were furious car signals, some crank went overtaking her on the right, along the roadside.

"Oh," Asya got sad. "Are you still messing about that hag?"

Dalia said nothing.

"Dal, I also have a thing to discuss with you." As usual, Asya paid no heed to such silly things like other speaker's pauses or intonations. If she were no artist (and quite a good one), Dalia would have defined her as egocentric egoist. Just this way, using both synonyms. Asya was one of those who are really sure of their being exceptional - and of the world's spinning around them.

"What?"

"I'm flying to New York with my pal in a couple of days. Can you look after my flat?"

"Will you stay there for long?"

"A couple of weeks. Or maybe more."

"Well."

When her sister deigned at last to give the vegan-useless information about rissoles, Dalia said a quick goodbye to her. Dialed a new number at once, checked against the printed e-mail and pressed the call button.

"What?"

"Victor Vladimirovich," Dalia articulated, "good evening. This is Dalia Vernikova. You've made an order in Blue Djinn."

For a moment there was hostile silence on the line. Then the voice (unpleasantly drawling, as if drunken) cheered up, "Ah, wishmaster. That's it, damn."

"Would you mind if we meet today? There are some details to discuss."

Chapter 5. Inside the Black Windows

Moscow, October 1

Information is never gone without leaving a trace: that's the nature of it. Even if the only person who knew the secret is buried, some rumors will arise anyway. That's the law. And for a clever one, as they say, even a hint is enough.

Danil leaned back in his armchair. The inhaler seemed to appear out of the blue. Danil took a deep breath, and another one. He felt better right away, but to make this picture complete he also needed vitamins. However, this thought vanished once he glanced at the screen again.

He easily found the mentions of Alexey Toromyshev on the web. The problem was that on the twenty ninth of August he experienced the gravitation, and his swan flight from the sixteen-storied house roof made him about ten centimeters shorter. And broader... No, not broader but, er, a bit more roundish.

That put a considerable restriction on the capabilities of Neo_Dolphin, the best virtual detective ever. The object drawing no response online is more difficult to find.

During the two hours' search, Danil revealed little. For instance, that twenty-six-year-old Toromyshev had worked nowhere since graduating from university but lived very high in the last two years. The total value of goods shipped to him by a web-store within the last month only was ten thousand dollars. All those were hi-tech gadgets. Danil failed to find out where the boy got all those money from. The suicide had no friends, no girl, no parents. No one at all.

Deep in thought, Danil crunched an ascorbic pill and noticed with surprise a tin of vitamins in his hand. When have I taken it?

After a short thought, he pulled the Linux powerbook closer. For a second he feasted his eyes upon the desktop picture showing a penguin on a cemetery, the writing on the nearest gravestone saying, "FreeBSD -- R.I.P." Then he summoned the terminal window. The initial stratum had been taken off, now he was to do some delicate work, and then time would came for really elaborate...

Neo_Dolphin froze. "What is this?"

Google Cash kept showing him innocently the dead link to a popular news website where there once used to be the article titled "The gilded youth threw a boy off the roof".

"Threw him off, you say?"

Gradually, the order began to appear in a new light. So those guys from the Internet Hate Machine want not to know everything about Toromyshev but to find... whom? His killers?

Stop! Let's not jump to conclusions.

* * *

By evening Danil had no more doubt that Toromyshev was not the main object of search. Wildman was interested in other participants of those events. Certainly it was none of his business how they were going to use the information he got, but he felt his back creepy. Serious guys. If even they joke, the fun of it is only seen to themselves. Hardly it will come to any good for that "gilded youth."

If only they existed at all, he corrected himself. I know this sort of news. It's too early to judge.

So he waited. While the neironet adjusted by him was recognizing images in search, he was loafing time away. He could play on console but had no mood for it. Neither he wanted to sleep, and coffee made him sick, which was a true sign of hunger.

Having checked against the web clock whether it was day or night (fortunately, the black windows prevented the heavenly bodies from imposing their rhythms on him), he called the delivery service. Forty minutes later, his doorbell rang.

Just by miracle the nearest Mickey D's food deliverman gave no start when the steel entrance door opened. To him, it was like getting into a mortuary. Standing on a threshold, there was a starveling so pale that he was almost transparent, with inflamed eyes and swollen eyelids. His T-shirt reading "42," jeans, unlaced sneakers - everything seemed to be two sizes too big. On top of that he was unshaved for two weeks and hadn't washed his black hair for a long time.

Having paid in silence, Danil locked the door securely. On the intercom he watched the deliverman leave without doing anything to his door, his door mat, or the web provider's switch. Not until then he came back into the room.

After taking a giant bite of a cheeseburger, he looked at the search results. Among all those luminiferous lines, there were three that drove his special attention: the familiar dead link to the news article, the cashed discussion on it, and its copy posted by someone on Lurk.

It seems the time for heavy artillery came.

His lips parted slowly in an evil smirk.

Chapter 6. Problem Remover

Moscow, October 1

Surely they did not arrest the son of such a powerful man. Victor was safe and snug in the womb of Ostozhenka⁸ penthouse his father had bought for him.

It was the third time Voloshin had to remove a problem caused by the Master's elder son, so he had all reasons to believe that this penthouse served the purpose of keeping the enfant terrible as far as possible. No other way to do it since Victor had sent his British university studies to rack and ruin. That made the Master bring the adolescent back home: solving his problems abroad was incomparably more difficult.

There were no problems in the police station. To find out the details about "a big man's son," Voloshin used his personal contacts. The cops met him halfway gladly. The complicacy arose when he discovered, by pure accident, which of the Master's political opponents was scheming against him. Such names, when listed as enemies, are a good training for your sphincter.

"It's your father's g-good luck," Voloshin said, "that they did it calmly and in compliance with democratic rules. V-very good luck."

While speaking, he did his best not to focus his eyes on Victor... who did the same.

Tall, with well-developed body, a rather good-looking guy, he aroused in Problem Remover a strange feeling of disgust. It was how you would look at the work of art having an appalling defect. Or at a physically healthy man who is a mental teenager and who is using drugs to drive himself even deeper into the abyss of personality destruction.

"He'll cope," Victor's lips moved apart. "My daddy is cool. But what am I to do?"

"Sit tight."

"How long? My ass is already flat of sitting. All this fuss about a croaked geek makes me feel a cluck..."

"About whom?"

"A croaked geek."

"W-what is "geek"?"

Victor winced with displeasure, fiddled with his earlobe. "A computer nerd."

The next was the question Voloshin had been formulating for half a day, putting it this or that way, but now he decided to put it blunt. Victor was not the one who could appreciate tactful behavior. "Why did you c-chase him?"

"I was on the wheels!"

"And your pals?"

Victor sighed. By his looks one could see how tired of this talk the Master's son was. "Does it matter? It just happened. Why all this fuss?"

He's lying, Voloshin detected unmistakably. How can I press on him? How to find his secret out?

For a second or two he tried to look into the space only. At last he stood. Spotted a small heap of white powder and a cellophane bag of colored dragees on the coffee table, and said again, "Sit t-tight. And keep in touch with me."

Victor looked up. "And the jerks?"

"Do you mean your friends?"

Victor replied with a nod.

"They'll have to do some time."

"At home?"

"In prison," Voloshin cut short. "Or the detention center at least."

"Can't we help `em out?" Victor reared.

Voloshin replied calmly, "If only they happen to have such fathers as yours, which is hardly possible. Then you will be jailed instead."

"Oh," Victor was losing interest in the talk rapidly. "Forget then."

After a moment's thought, Voloshin nodded. "Well, I have to go. A c-couple of other things to do. And what are you up to?"

Victor scratched his head. "A little sniff. Er... and sort out the party too."

"W-which party?"

"I want a thrash with folks."

For a moment Voloshin felt blood thicken in his veins, his heart beating heavier... but just for a moment. Before his brows could collide on the nose bridge, Problem Remover subdued his rage.

Well, he thought, let him do what he would. I have clear objectives and I will reach them. That's all I have to do.

He heard footsteps, then a cautious knock. The guard's head peeped into the slightly opened door: "Victor Vladimirovich, there's a girl."

Voloshin looked back with anxiety. "What girl? A journalist?"

The Master's son rose too, waved a hand. "Nope. A wishmaster from Blue Djinn. It's a kind of company."

"Wishmaster? A w-whore or what?"

"Nope... She helps with the party. Some sort of decorator."

Leaving the flat, Voloshin entered that "sort of decorator" into the list of those to be checked. Who is she? Whom the firm belongs to and who's the true owner? And, most important, are there any points of intersection with the Master? He knew by experience that each of truly "big" people has not only perverted strategic imagination but also a whole staff of planners. The Master said he was schemed against. That could mean anything. Up to the information war, one of the most popular methods used by such people. It was used especially often in the mid to late ninetieth.

On the staircase Voloshin lingered purposely near the two lifts. When one opened its doors, he let the girl out and stepped into. In just a moment, his photographic memory archived and saved the "decorator's" image.

Not tall, in simple but expensive and accurate clothes. He could even call them stylish: none of that vile glamour and epatage of the present-day youth. A short cut of black hair. A very pleasant smell: just a bit of perfume but enough to muffle the scent of detergent from her clothes.

Not what I like, Voloshin thought involuntarily. Some boyish type. A girl next door but no object of passion.

The lift doors came together softly. Problem Remover's thoughts shifted instantly to the next points of his plan. That was his credo: solving all the problems in good time, without getting obsessed.

Chapter 7. I Want Magic!

Moscow, October 1

Many times Dalia had heard people talk that the majority of Muscovites, even natives, have never been to all the corners of the capital city. And she belonged to that majority herself. Little wish to touch and study the history and geography of the city you're living in. It's far more important to get a good job and set your life right. However, once she used to date with a strange guy who wore a ring in his left eyelid. He was a digger and promised to lead her along the most secret paths. The end of it was banal: Dalia got cold feet and refused the night ramble.

And now she brought to mind all those stories of Muscovites who knew their city not.

Having worked her way through the gasoline-and-diesel jams of the Central district, Dalia found, with some effort, the client's house. And spent ten more minutes in her car, gearing up for it. This order must be difficult, if to judge by address.

She passed the twisted fence without hindrance. However, a couple of meters farther she noticed some black pegs in the grass: perhaps those were motion sensors. And when she looked up, her sight was caught by surveillance cameras. She wondered whether prisoners were guarded in the same thorough way.

The lane of ancient oaks and maples, smelling of eternity, took her to the entrance. Dalia did her best to conceal her feelings, though her insides were wrung with delight. This house resembled an ancient theater building: plenty of marble and forged gratings, plaster statues, high ceilings. When she pattered up the stairs and touched the door handle, her heart thrilled. There inside were the most beautiful stucco works, admirable chandeliers, tiles, gilding...

"Good evening. Who did you come to see?"

The sudden voice almost made Dalia squeak. She had to pull her up and remind what she'd came there for. "Dalia Vernikova," she answered to the guard who looked more like a hefty hero of Hollywood action films. "I'm waited by Victor Vladimirovich. His surname..."

"I see," the blond athlete nodded. Checked something on his tablet computer, whispered into the mike.

While he sorted it out, the other athlete seemed to appear out of the blue. He asked Dalia for her notebook bag politely, then made her pass through the metal detector and sign her name in the visitor journal.

Finally, the first guard said, "Yes, everything all right. You may pass."

Dalia cast an inquiring glance. The athlete pointed towards the lifts.

While walking, Dalia suddenly thought that the house looked a mixture of a Greek temple and an up-to-date office. The whole gardens of decorative plants under the diffusers of split system air conditioners. Granite and plastics, hi-tech and classics.

The silent lift raised her to the tenth floor of the "temple." There was a man at the door. Dalia almost spoke to him, mistaking for a guard, but he stepped towards the lift. Dalia was startled by how smoothly he moved: like water filling a vessel, without a single excessive motion. He was definitely the strangest oligarch she'd ever met, though his clothing was proper.

When the lift doors closed behind him, Dalia caught himself at being unable to recall any details of his appearance. Just the blurred image of his gaze: calmly efficient and X-ray penetrating.

Ugh, she summed up.

* * *

There was one more guard post on her way. Though not really a post, but...

"You may pass." A massive door, evoking the idea of castle gates, opened, and Dalia saw one more Atlas, imperturbable and mighty. He added, "Victor Vladimirovich is waiting for you."

An unbearably huge hall... No, Dalia corrected herself. My flat has a hall, and this has an entrance hall.

Everything, from the lamps in lusters to the invisible dust, looked indecently sumptuous. Who can live in Louvre?

The guard who was seeing her to the second floor stopped at the middle of the staircase and glanced back, puzzled. This time Dalia failed to hold back her astonishment and delight. What she mistook for a decorative waterfall at first, now appeared to be a staircase of armor glass. Inside the transparent stairs, an unknown design expert had made a mountain slope with white-crested water splashing over green mossy boulders and falling down into some chasm. Unblinking, Dalia stepped with great caution on the first stair, then on the second.

She had thousands of thoughts crowding in her head: about the work, about the client, about self-control, but a single one dominated: How scary!

Ascending the glassy stairs, when no footing is visible, just the raging stream below, was scary. Only at the end of it a thought came to distract her a little: The client must bloody love feeling like a salmon!

On the second penthouse floor, before the door of frosted glass, the guard stopped for a moment, then knocked. Dalia heard him say, "Victor Vladimirovich, a visitor to you."

Secret garden. Dalia closed her eyes for a moment. I have my secret garden, quiet and peaceful...

It was a bit of help. When Dalia entered the next room, big as if made for basketball team play, she was sedate.

"Good evening," she nodded and thought, He's the same as his voice.

A tall slim lad of about twenty five. Dalia found it hard to decide whether he was attractive. The whole impression was ruined by the client's face expression: lazy and sleepy, either drunken or world-weary... No, no, Dalia drove this thought away hastily. All people are good. Those are stereotypes about the rich speaking in me. It is known such bad thoughts are born of envy.

However, it took her some effort not to shudder when she saw the client's eyes. He seemed to have stripped her off in just a second, then twist her, force into the pose he needed, use her and throw away indifferently.

"Hi," Victor unstuck his lips. "Wishmaster, yeah?"

"Dalia Vernikova," she nodded. "Good evening again, Victor Vladimirovich. Well, what would you like?"

The client half-closed his eyes, sighed. His voice felt like melted caramel to her. "Well, I want a party. Just to relax."

Dalia nodded, took the macbook out of her bag. The screen flowered with the opening image of the program containing client files. She had created the inlay with Victor's name and surname before. "A party," Dalia printed. "So what would you prefer? Classics or..."

"Classics is dreck. It's too cheap today." Victor stood. Made a move to where Dalia had spotted a glassy table with a heap of suspicious white powder and a cellophane bag of pills but changed his mind. "I want everybody to rot! All, damn. And all of it to be happening, see?"

Dalia gave a calm nod and specified, "Do you have any special requirements?"

The guy stopped rubbing his earlobe and said, looking away, "I have."

He went out under Dalia's puzzled stare. When he came back, she spotted a pair of 3D glasses in his hand. They were broken and had strange reinforced sides. That was how some advanced virtual reality glasses might look.

Victor twiddled the glasses thoughtfully, then flung them to Dalia: she barely had time to catch. Her fingers got stained with some brown dust, or maybe rust. Really, a thought flashed, they are broken... and look as if they were run over by a dump truck...

The client's voice brought her back from thought. "Baby," Victor said in a too-even voice, "do it for me. Daddy wants magic."

Chapter 8. A Bit of Social Engineering

Moscow, October 2

By three in the night the sniffer finished its work. Danil only had to browse the DNS root folders, compare the facts - and that's that.

Danil felt little embarrassment of the fact that during the search he had to cut into the local police net. For a true otaku of his job, he loved to repeat in mind, everything is possible. Only a successful search should be rumored.

"Only successful," Danil muttered. He wheeled round in his chair and poked at the mirror. "No doubt I am the best of the best... What's this?"

Job-related thoughts vanished at once, he jumped up. For about five minutes he studied a tiny pimple under his lower lip. Wanted to search a similar one by Google but changed his mind at the last moment.

"No herpes," he uttered in confusion. "It seems no herpes..."

But all the same he stripped naked and studied, with triple care, whether the rest of his body bore that kind of rash.

"Neither herpes, nor allergy. What then?"

His question was addressed to the infinitely expensive sex doll nestled on his bed. Her bionic body could not be told apart from a real woman's even at a meter's distance. Danil knew items of such quality were only made by two craftsmen in the world. Lily (that was how he named his silicon girlfriend) was ideal except for her being, to an ordinary man's taste, just a schoolgirl's image pulled onto a well-developed female body. That body was ideal: no rubber smell, no vile feeling of a dummy. Even the hair on both her head and her pubis was real. And her clothes with homeopathic perfume (anti-allergenic, of course) were much more expensive than an ordinary girl could afford.

He expected no Lily's answer, and she gave none. Her silence felt piercing to Danil. For a long time he was dreaming of the moment when he'd fill her beautiful body with chips and gear. The robots who speak, embrace you in turn, even feel the warmth of your touch - they already exist. It's a pity they are not made for sex.

No matter, Danil thought. I think the next summer I'll get close to this matter... Close in all the meanings of it, huh! I'll make a tulpa⁹ of my own.

The powerbook signaled a call. Danil came close. The number was unfamiliar. Would any imitator or admirer ring in half past three? However, there is no time for web inhabitants. The call might well have come from another country.

The voice distortion program switched on automatically. "Who?!" Danil barked.

...and froze with surprise. The voice was female, full of languishing but energetic sexiness. "Hello-hello, Neo_Dolphin! How is it?"

Danil licked his lips. "Who are you?"

"Oh, dear, we are not acquainted, but we'll make up for it quickly. I'm Vicky."

"Glad to meet you." His lips curled in a smirk by themselves. Danil tried to sit more comfortable, square his shoulders...

But then he realized: a fake!

The insight was so sudden that his throat was squeezed with rage. Only that kept him from badmouthing the caller straight off.

Damn! It's quite in the spirit of Internet Hate Machine: finding the opponent's most vulnerable points. At the first time Danil showed no interest in his fan and follower (that sort had driven him up the wall with their calls), so now they chose a woman. Of course! Who else can be the primary interest of a single guy who never comes out and whose hard is crammed with porn?! That was how they'd get him talking and letting out what he'd rather not reveal.

Damn it. The elementary mechanisms of social engineering. The means to manipulate people without doing anything unlawful.

Danil licked his lips again, said in a husky voice, "The voice's too sweat."

"What?"

"You blew it, guys. Picked a wrong voice."

There was some subtle change, then the loudspeaker belched out the voice of Gadget Hackwrench: "But you've almost bought it, haven't you?"

"Don't tell me it was a joke."

Now he was spoken to by Wildman's familiar voice. "I won't tell it. `Cause you won't believe it."

"No, I won't."

"But you are good, lad. Indeed you are. They do have a reason to say you're the best!"

Again, Danil almost swallowed the compliment ruse. It seems to be really hard to withstand the psyche. The one of your own. Infantilism is a terribly weak spot. "Finish it," Danil said as calmly as he could.

Now Wildman sounded surprised. "Damn it..."

"I have well-developed frontal lobes of the brain. I can control my wishes. And I'm no novice to the web."

"Well, forget it."

I won't forget, Danil smirked in his mind. I'll find you, cowboy. A bit later, but I will. And wean you off playing tricks on Neo_Dolphin!

"How's the work? Is there any progress?"

"I'm almost done."

"You're just a legend, lad. I mean it!"

"I just have to sum up."

"What do you know?"

Danil pretended to be thinking for a while, then said with pleasure, "Names, addresses, phone numbers, passwords from accounts and credit cards, dates."

"Of all... er... all participants?"

"Yes," Danil replied with proper pride. "Certainly three of them are now going to jail but..."

"How you managed it? Neironet?"

"A bit of everything."

"Excellent, Neo_Dolphin. Mail the info. Here's the address..."

That was all. The work was done, and he could have a rest.

Neo_Dolphin looked askew at the downsized IRC¹⁰ window and sighed. To his regret, Cherry was off. He'd love to chat with her. Honestly, he'd just love to boast the new successful deal before her. But she was never on the web at night. As Danil had time to understand, the girl was a confirmed vegan following the healthy way of life. For the likes of her, sleeping eight hours at night is as inviolable as believing in freedom is for Americans.

He was about to switch the computer off when the mailbox he'd just registered on an anonymous host (he used it to send the letter to Wildman) got an incoming message. The subject line read: "In consideration of your splendid work," and the letter body contained a web link and a short writing: "Just look what guys are doing!"

For a second or two Danil pondered over it. No, those from the Internet Hate Machine are no idiots to think he'd fall for this ad and open the virus link. Does it mean there's actually some interesting info and they only sent it by the most splendid web habit of sharing every interesting thing?

What if they reckoned on it? a sly voice said in his head. On Neo_Dolphin losing his vigilance?

No, never, damn them!

After having a couple of breathes through the inhaler, Danil pulled the Linux powerbook closer. Opened Google and printed the web address to which the link led in the search line.

He said the result aloud: "The augmented reality?"

Chapter 9. A Ghost

Moscow, October 2

Voloshin strongly disliked something about this affair. Though he was not the one to rely on intuition (he never liked all that mystical talk of it), now he could not help feeling there was some important thing he had missed.

The likes of the Master's son would never pay any heed to such a small fry as that roof jumper, Toromyshev, had been. And even if they would, it will all end in ordinary bashing and "punking" as they call it.

But the fact remains: they were chasing him.

Why?

Victor decided not to talk about it, so Voloshin had to visit the three "beaters."

The policeman, an old acquaintance of his, gave him a hearty welcome, especially glad to receive a gift: a standard set including a bottle of cheap whisky, a tin of caviar and a couple of green banknotes. With no more ado he allowed Voloshin into the detention center where Victor's helpers languished pending the trial.

Down in the cellar housing the local detention center, Voloshin asked his acquaintance, "Tolyan, I need no extra ears. It's a special issue."

"What you need?"

"Take these lads out. I'll speak to them here. I want no riffraff see me."

"No fucking problem, Dimasik!"

There was a clank of keys, the detention center door opened a bit, letting out a terrible stench of sweat, urine, cheap baccy and chlorine. "Hey, you three!" Tolyan barked. "Get out!"

Voloshin was astonished by the instant change in the policeman's voice. A moment before it was full of servile, a bit malicious cordiality; now it acquired some tinge of rusty metal.

Three sturdy fellows came out into the corridor, one by one. Two dull beefcakes, Voloshin determined with a professional eye, but the third one has been going in, seriously and for a long time, for some kind of wrestling. Sambo¹¹, most likely. It's now fashionable again.

"Who are you?" the sambist grunted, as he watched Voloshin closely from under brows.

Problem Remover followed the policeman with eyes. When he was in private with the lads, he said in a peremptory tone, "We have to talk."

The sambist had a wish to object but suddenly he met Voloshin's eyes. There, in a cold steel den, a poisonous snake lied in wait, ready to jump.

The lad choked down his objections and began to speak, doing his best not to look in the stranger's eyes anymore.

* * *

"Got what you wanted?" Tolyan inquired, closing the detention center door behind the lads.

Voloshin made a vague wave of head. The information he'd got was too ambiguous. He could not tell right away whether it was useful or not. Victor's guys confessed unwillingly that they'd seen Toromyshev doing rather odd manipulations with some unknown, apparently expensive gadgets. He did it in the street. What arose particular interest in the bored youth was a pair of strange-looking glasses. According to the sambist, Toromyshev seemed to be playing virtual reality.

Devil, a thought flashed in Voloshin's mind. Damn all these modern toys! Maybe I should have a specialist check it? Does it matter? It seems I've already helped Victor beat the rap...

Tolyan's voice brought him back from thought. "What?" Voloshin asked to repeat.

"Want a drink, I say?"

Voloshin had a wish to refuse when he recalled one more point of the list. Removing the Master's problems, one should be a complete pedant and miss nothing. "Y-yes," he agreed easily. "I'd love to."

They locked up in Tolyan's office. The bottle lid gave an appetizing crunch. The fridge yielded a loaf of white bread and some butter. Tolyan did not put the caviar on sandwiches properly; rather he sprinkled them with it, but Voloshin said nothing, out of prudence.

After the third glass, the fake whisky did not feel throat-burning anymore. When Tolyan smoke, Voloshin inquired, "Hey, bro? This T-toromyshev..."

"The spread?"

"What?"

Tolyan gave a guffaw. "Don't you know that old joke?"

Voloshin shook his head.

"There are, in short, Lenin, Krupskaya and Dzerzhinsky in the office. Lenin kinda says, `Can you, Felix Edmundovich, jump into the window in the name of revolution?' Dzerzhinsky answers, `No fucking problem!' and leaps down. And Lenin, well, comes to the window, looks down and says, in a kind of upset voice, `See, dear Nadia? They said: Iron Felix, Iron Felix... but he's a spread!' Ha ha ha... You see it? Got it? A spread!"

Voloshin knew this joke. He laughed just enough time for the guffawing Tolyan not to take offense, but it left a bad taste in his mouth. I'm no example to others either, he thought, but what has become to people? Toromyshev was just a looser, but he does not deserve...

He cut this thought short at once. It's all weaknesses! Let Tolyan neigh at what he would. Maybe it was his kind of professional deformation, similar to what the positive doctor Livesey had in Treasure Island¹². Let him... And Voloshin also had to talk with Toromyshev's parents. To give a kickback, as one may call it. So that everyone remains... well, not really contented, but they'll be silent at least.

"Have you q-questioned the relatives of Toromyshev?"

Tolyan crushed a butt in the ashtray with his oil-stained fingers and smoke a new cigarette right away, squinted at Voloshin through the smoke. "He had no bloody one."

Voloshin alerted. "What do you mean?"

"Just what I said. We found none of them in our databases. So funny and strange! He was alone. Like a sort of tamagotchi: no mother, no father."

"Whom did he live w-with?"

"Alone too. And you know what?"

Voloshin raised his eyebrow. Tolyan bent to him over the table, informed in a heartfelt voice, "His studio flat only had bare walls. Imagine? Bare fucking walls! It even had no bed! That Toromyshev was a man from nowhere. A real ghost! I'm just sorry this ghost didn't dissolve completely. They scraped him off for three hours... Shit, it makes me sick to recall... So what? Let's knock back another one?"

The unpleasant feeling of something being missed came over Voloshin again. However, this time it was a bit stinging.

Chapter 10. Virtual Love

Korolyov, October 2

After eating her breakfast (mashed potatoes with green peas and vegetable salad) with appetite, Dalia made some green tea.

Yesterday her boss had listened her report on the new wish fulfillment and advised her to be more attentive to this client. "Not that the point's about you," he said. "No, you are a clever girl, my best worker. Your honoraria are the proof. But we're all walking on thin ice here. Our people are seldom contented, though they want to do as little work as possible, and bad rumors travel very fast. So don't let me down."

Dalia had no doubts that she would not. But knowing that did not turn her head.

While her tea was drawing, she took small scissors, a trowel and a sprayer with special vitaminized water. With her gown off, she smiled and opened the door into the "secret garden." In response to the motion, the stereo system switched on. Drowning in the LSD-heroin sounds of "Strange Days" by The Doors, Dalia stepped into the other world...

She took no notice of two and a half hours that flew by: she was busy looking after the plants, taking her time to speak to the flowers and stems tenderly (that would make them grow healthy and beautiful). Then relaxing on the tatami, warming up and yoga exercise. And, finally, just sitting with her eyes closed, inhaling the smell of freshness and life. Sitting in the secret place only known to her, in the fairy world that only had sunlight, silence and serenity.

Sometimes it seemed to her that the plants around were animated but kept silence with tender care, lest they disturb her. Then Dalia imagined she was one of those flowers: it made her see the world completely different. As a stream of gold and green, as resilient youth, as the worldly wisdom that sounded very, very simple: Be happy! It relaxed her, filled her with positiveness and love to the world.

Submitting only to her natural clock, her inner timer, Dalia stood up.

Time to set to work.

Stepping softly on the shingle, touching the fern leaves at parting (they seemed to stretch towards her hand), she went out.

And the world changed again, as the door into the magic of simplicity closed.

With a sigh, Dalia slipped into the gown. Then walked to the kitchen. Enjoying the soursop aroma, she filled the mug with tea. Returned to the room that served her as both bedroom and studio.

Macbook squeaked on the table. Blowing on the mug brim, Dalia came close. The notebook display had a pop-up message that Neo_Dolphin was online.

She could not recall when she had met him. It seemed to happen about a year before, when she was completing one of her most complicated tasks. The client ordered to find, as a birthday present for his mother, the best friend of hers. The complication was that the client's mother was born in a village that could be found on no map issued less than twenty years ago and her friend used to live there.

After Dalia had lost any hope, she was simply browsing the web. The report to her boss about her failure was waiting to be sent when she encountered the address of some ideal detective. He could only find things on the web, in fact, but a drowning one would catch...

To put it short, Neo_Dolphin agreed to help.

And found the mother's friend!

It was a true miracle. And when Dalia asked his virtual purse number, in order to pay him for his work, he refused. And offered his job to be rewarded with... her friendship! It was extremely strange, especially given what Dalia had heard of him on the web. He was said to be the wildest misanthrope and nihilist, the embodiment of online vices and many other things that Dalia found to be repulsive.

However, Neo_Dolphin did not "let her down." His friendship offer was just as unusual as his image on the internet. At first Dalia refused it. What he suggested was an unusual form of virtual love.

In the closed private chat he'd created exclusively for the two of them he wrote:

Don't hurry to refuse. Think it over. We are always eager to plunge into the adventure of virtual deception. We assemble a new personality of our broken dreams as if they were Lego details, think up our nicknames. Quite often we even tell lies about our real life. It's badly tiresome when you have to rake aside numerous skins to reach the true personality. What I offer is a different thing: a dream, a special secret world. What if we make our images by ourselves? Mind we don't know each other and will never meet in the real world. So - nothing on the way. I will deliberately not search any information about you or your photos. All I need is the feeling of you. I like it. I don't want to lose you now, so I offer to love each other virtually. We'll choose our fancy masks to communicate in. The beauty of it is that we shall never discover the truth, never be disappointed by the reality, never get tired. And never betray our friendship...

And Dalia agreed. But she spotted a strange thing. Once they agreed that each of them would invent his or her own biography and fake personality to love each other in a completely ephemeral way, like characters in fairy tales do, without any erotic gloss - thinking up suddenly became dull. Eventually, Dalia failed to invent anything. Suddenly she appeared to be fully contented with who and what she actually was. The only things she thought up were the nickname of Cherry and her experience of traveling around the globe.

After a sip of tea, she printed a message: "Hello!"

A minute later, the answer came with a flash: "Oh, dear Cherry! Hi from Baikonur!"

Dalia smiled. "What are you doing there?"

"Preparing for flight but don't worry, it won't last long."

"For flight?"

"Sorry, I can give no details."

"Are you secretive?"

"I'm modest ;-)"

"Indeed you are," Dalia laughed aloud.

A new message appeared on the screen: "I missed you, Cherry!"

"And I missed you, Neo_Dolphin!"

The smile lingered on her lips. Is it the romance of the twenty first century? Loving a man whom you don't know?

Sometimes thinking of Neo_Dolphin made Dalia sad. It seemed to her that people had grown so tired of interactions with reality that they invented the internet on purpose. Not for communication at a distance but for communication without a distance, for dating in masks, for loving a tale...

Neo_Dolphin did not hold out long. With a smile, Dalia read his traditional message about the new victory over some special task where no one but he could cope. For some reason it reminded her of the yesterday's client. And the broken 3D glasses in his hands.

"Look," her fingers went flitting over the white keyboard, "no one knows the world better than you, does anyone?"

"Question with a catch?"

"Rather with coquetry :-)"

"And what's the matter?"

"Could you take a glance at photo and tell me what it is?"

"Sure! Drop it."

Dalia had transferred the photograph of glasses from her iPhone to Macbook the day before. Now it flew at once to her virtual boyfriend.

The answer came soon: "Fantastic..."

"What's happened?"

"Cherry, have I told you the world is made of coincidences?"

"No, but I believe you."

"Literally this night I've come upon some info about your glasses..."

"What are they?"

Instead of answering, Neo_Dolphin threw a link. Dalia clicked it obediently and read the website name aloud: "The augmented reality technologies..."

Chapter 11. Smoke and Looking Glasses

Moscow, October 8

In the sad and incessant autumn rain, Dalia watched the adjusters.

She had contacted them a week before through the website to where Neo_Dolphin's link led.

She used to be quite unsuspecting that such a wonderful technology existed. The scientific and technological advance keeps gladdening us with the products of permanent revolution, and we are free to include their magical diversity into our personal price lists and lists of services. After that, she only had to discuss the core concept of the party with the client and, if he agreed...

Victor agreed without further talk. A half an hour later, her boss phoned to congratulate her with successful order completion. With happy relief, he said that Blue Djinn had already received the money and that Dalia could set safely to the idea implementation.

So here she stood, shivering with damp cold, under the umbrella in Ostozhenka and watched the adjusters work.

Strange silent guys were unloading big cardboard boxes packed in cellophane film from two minibuses. All of them wore the same grey overalls without any writing, even without the company logo. That made Dalia feel that their boss was not interested in advertising at all. Though, however, PR experts had stopped using old methods long before. No true genius today would film a cheap video ad or promote their clients through startling scandals or idiotic attires that make a person look like a Christmas tree on love parade. In general, the value of TV and internet advertising has decreased strongly. Now it is only used by homemade SEO makers, yesterday's blue collars and domestic pop singers.

What pros prefer today is viral marketing as the best kind of advertising, the one to evoke real trust. Whom will an average one believe: some dull advertising on the box or a successful pal telling about the good thing he or she had bought recently? The answer is obvious. That's why many present-day companies prefer not to irritate their customer. They stress the quality of their goods and film video ads, each of which has an average movie's budget, very seldom. They pay considerable fees to the agents who visit receptions and other occasions and tell people "by secret" about their good purchase. The agents' names are highly confidential, lest their authority is damaged. And - it works...

"We are ready."

Dalia looked back. The speaker was one of the adjusters, a rather young man with empty eyes. At that very moment his strange eyes were surveying the client's house behind the forged fence.

"Good," she nodded, "we are waited for."

Despite being waited, they had to spend about twenty minutes standing in the house vestibule while blond athletic guards checked their equipment. All this time the adjusters were apathetic. Emotions... at least a shadow of emotions was only shown by the empty-eyed young man who was their boss. Attentive as alligator, he watched his men uncover the pieces of equipment in the small guard room. Occasionally he dropped something like "careful with it" or "no way to open this, don't break the manufacturer seal."

Finally they were allowed in. Guys in overalls picked up their boxes and started for the lift. Dalia felt like a leader of ant procession.

* * *

With interest, Dalia watched them prepare the animation of the magic world of extended reality. The more she watched, the more resemblance to her "secret garden" she discovered. No stranger knew about her world, no one could look into it. She almost never had guests, and letting anyone into the "secret garden" was out of question. It is the same here: without glasses - without the master's permission - you won't see the secret world.

Two guys in overalls paced up and down Victor's vast apartment with palmbooks. They had GPS working, if to judge by sound. Two more workers kept on line with those, gazing at the notebook screens.

Their boss, the empty-eyed one, took out of the case a camera with such a thick and long objective that Dalia felt some strange embarrassment. For a long time then he was choosing angles and taking photos of the penthouse.

Victor was a bit strung. At last he stopped rubbing his ear lobe and came close to the photographing guy. "How does it work?"

The adjuster lifted his head. For a moment he looked through Victor, then spoke - very calmly, even lazily: "There are several kinds of augmented reality. Or, to be more precise, several variants of its localization."

"What?"

"Several ways to create an image in a specific place."

"Ah. What's next?"

The adjuster shrugged. "For instance, there's a way to activate the augmented reality file with the help of a marker. Let's assume we make a photo of your apartment. Fit an individual frame to this photo - it is desirable that the frame's very contrasting. And then, when you point the smartphone camera at the spot we've shot, the marker of the frame's individual bar-code will go off. When you connect to the internet, the bar-code will either summon the emerging windows with tips about this object or re-direct you to the website."

"Ah," Victor smiled, "I've heard of such things!"

The adjuster nodded. "Or we may use no-marker technologies. In this case we also take a photo. The principal requirement to the picture is high contrast. If this condition is met, then the logo, photo or landscape - any image may be used for the linkage of augmented reality objects. To implement the augmented reality system on the basis of no-marker technologies, you only need to have a computing device of any kind: a computer, a notebook, a pad, or a web camera with mobile phone."

"Jaw-dropping." Victor flapped his eyelashes in delight.

"There are also geo-locational projects," the adjuster continued. "They use GPS module, compass and gyroscope - all those included into the present-day mobile devices on the basis of iOS, Android and their analogues. Such technologies are used in tourist programs, so that people who film the monument on their cameras will be able to read the detailed history of it... or simply find out its true name."

"I've seen that too! Even used it in England!"

Now the adjuster allowed himself a smirk, dropped in a strange tone, "But for you we are making a special project. Now just a bit of talk, gesture or demonstration of some objects before the camera will suffice. Interactive solutions, yes. We'll use the glasses instead of controllers. And we'll be able to recognize automatically all those who come into the sight and perform the necessary actions with any recognized object."

Victor just shook his head. "I got not a bloody thing but it sounds cool. How, you say, it works?"

The adjuster smirked again, with a brief flash in his eyes. "Oh, it's really simple. Just what conjurers do - only smoke and looking glasses."

Amazed, Victor walked aside. Dalia used the moment at once: "Victor Vladimirovich, I'd like to discuss the design and subject of your celebration."

"Eh?"

"What would you like to see at your party? Which images?"

Victor watched the adjusters with delight. They were attaching to the walls some round devices that looked like web cameras, adjusting them, while their boss was placing wireless routers about the penthouse.

"I haven't thought of it..." Victor shrugged, but a moment later he wheeled round to Dalia so abruptly that she barely kept from starting back. "Oh! I want Halloween!"

"Halloween?" Dalia asked with doubt. "But it's too early..."

"Piss on it! Do it for daddy, baby."

Dalia nodded, bringing to her mind the contacts of artists and trying to figure out what it would look like. Then she relaxed, as she recalled that the adjusters had mentioned some professional designers of their own. Let them draw it.

Chapter 12. Enraged Shadows

Moscow, October 10

The speakers placed on every store of the penthouse are literally rending the air to shreds. People wiggle in smoky mist and flashes of light-show lasers. Trays with various alcoholic drinks or drugs are fetched by strippers only dressed in corsets and gartered stockings

The evening was turning rapidly into a mad club night.

Suddenly the music began to subside. At the same time the light grew brighter, the lasers went out slowly. When everything was quiet and guests turned round in surprise, the jock gave place near the microphone to Victor.

"Midnight, damn it!" Victor, rather excited, jerked his glass of beer up. The jock recoiled from the froth as it splashed out. "It's time for hell, heat and... sodomy, for instance!"

His last words were drowned out by approving shouts and women's squeals. The lads started to grasp the invited girls right away, tearing their clothing off with guffaws.

"Stop!" Victor shrieked. "Stop, you pigs! It's too early."

His guests turned round, confused. Someone in a drunken voice offered the master to go fly a kite. The speaker was quickly chucked out of the dance floor and suggested a bit of refreshing.

"That's it," Victor grinned. Took a sip of beer and said into the microphone, "You know, friends, that being invited to one of my parties means witnessing an extraordinary spectacle! My parties are imitated by others all over Moscow. They are. Whose parties are the best in the world?!"

"Yours!"

"What?!"

"Yours!!!"

"There you are... but Halloween is coming, friends. And it's a special holiday! It needs preparation. That's why today I prepared for you a special thing. Yes, special. It's unbearably cool and immensely terrific! Today's the party you will never forget! Hand out glasses!"

Guests turned to where Victor had addressed his shout. The door flung open, four master's bodyguards came in. Each carried a tray loaded with plastic glasses with very heavy sides.

"Don't be shy," Victor waved his glass. "Dive in, everybody!"

Everyone took a pair of glasses with interest, examined them and put on at once, without understanding their purpose. The next moment the guest took them off to examine this gadget with almost non-transparent lenses again.

"Let's plunge into magic world, friends! Today we shall all get to where we've only been carried by sugar cubes! I know, we all like to lick them."

The joke about LSD was liked: his guests burst out laughing, the tension subsided for good and all.

When each guest was equipped, Victor put on his pair of glasses and lifted his hands. "Let the sacrament occur, little bitches!! Daddy wants a tale!"

The lights went off. Girls gave a squeak, someone giggled, there was bustle and rustle in the darkness. Then dead silence hid everything.

* * *

Victor's heart froze, his back felt creepy.

Very slowly, a fire was flaming up in the middle of the dancing floor. Guests backed hastily, someone gasped with surprise. The small fire turned a blaze. Now its light was enough to discern those who stood nearest. There were gasps again, louder. Victor barely kept from gasping himself: luckily, his throat was squeezed with delight.

Three girls who'd had the looks of photo models a minute before now changed into dryads. Absolutely naked women with horns, cow tails and goat legs. And two lads near them became a couple of bluish, week-old corpses. Victor could make out clearly their yellow eyeballs and body liquids oozing from noses and mouths.

The fire rose gradually. Now they could see it was a proverbial kind of fire in which medieval witches and wizards used to find their death. The fire's foundation was made of thick logs topped with a meter-thick layer of brushwood. One could even discern a very thick log standing upright in the center, with merry specks of light dancing on the chains around it.

As Victor looked up, his lips curled in a contented, a bit insane smile.

His glasses distorted the looks of everything. The ceiling reached by flames was now made of crude stone blocks. In the firelight he could see black patches of moss on it, incrustations of poisonous mushrooms, some bats sleeping upside down.

Victor's contemplation was broken by a general gasp of surprise followed by laughter and mutual gibes. He turned his eyes to the crowd and neighed happily.

Now he could see all of his guests. People had changed into werewolves, fierce demons and vampires who bore no resemblance to those in Twilight or the magnetic character of Bram Stoker's book. No, those were vile creatures, bloodthirsty corpses: fat yellow carcasses in green spots, they had webbed fingers and exaggeratedly long ears.

The girls were most "beautiful." Old evil hags, snake-like monsters, whores of Babylon with sewn-up mouths and syphilitic sores on hands.

Victor turned round. His today's girlfriend had changed into anatomized corpse. It made him sick to look at her blue, a bit swollen naked body with the right big toe tagged. A glance at the dissected belly, where leftover surgical instruments glittered among her guts, made his stomach give a quiver. No, no! a thought flashed across his mind. Daddy won't fuck you, pretty!

"So," he yelled, straining his voice with delight, "let there be revelry!"

Guests answered with contented howls: the sound actually reminded of evil spirits whining. A moment's thought flashed that artists had chosen very fitting images.

Victor gave place to the jock. Noted with content that the dais of the stage had turned into a rostrum of bones that stood on coffins soiled in wet earth. And the jack became a mummy.

I need a mirror, Victor thought, to see what I've changed into.

And music struck up again. Rob Zombie howled the liturgy about the house of thousand corpses...

* * *

The next hour was a continuous chain of nightmares.

The augmented reality glasses became imperceptible after a couple of minutes, so Victor was plunged completely into the artificial world. And ecstasy made him believe earnestly that everything was real.

Forcing his way through the marijuana smoke, he went round his "new" penthouse.

The stairs had turned stone in bloody stains. Walls were covered with writings in soot - he failed to read them however hard he tried. The only thing he understood was that they were in Latin.

The floor is scattered with cut-off fingers, bones, bandages; some death caps push up between stone slabs. There are wisps of greasy ashes soaring in the air, old dusty webs on the walls are trembling in drafts.

While crossing his studio, which had become a crypt with a dozen of tombs, Victor nearly had his stomach turned. His guests were copulating right on a rack (it seemed to have been an ottoman before): a decrepit old man with a third hand growing straight from his spine was having, in a dog fashion, a Catholic nun covered with spiders and worms!

With a shudder, Victor turned away hastily.

His footsteps were drowned by the thunder of music when he entered the bedroom. It had a mirror to satisfy his curiosity, and no guest was allowed there...

* * *

For a couple of seconds he studied his new old room with interest.

Then his drug-drained brain was reached by the information of what he saw and his memory belched out recollections.

"This is..." he whispered, gasping for breath. "But..."

The bedroom had vanished, replaced by a piece of the familiar street in one of Moscow's bedroom districts. No floor but asphalt, no wall with pictures but a sixteen-storied house's wall in cheap tiles. At a distance he could see a parking lot, a playground and a grass plot.

Feeling creepy, Victor looked down. Jumped out of a bloody pool at once, his throat uttered a thin squeal.

There was a badly deformed corpse lying on the asphalt (in the midst of the room?!). Through the haze, Victor realized it was the body of that very geek whom he'd ordered to chase a month before and who had jumped from the roof! It seemed that the reason for chasing was a pair of glasses just like the ones that now opened this picture to him...

A vague motion made him take eyes off the corpse. From the four corners of invisible room, some shadows suddenly stepped out. Victor's heart stopped beating, he felt as if a block of ice were dropped into his stomach.

The black ghosts moved on, surrounding him. Their eyes flared up like crimson fires on black faces.

Victor heard a wrathful wheeze: "Well, hello, you scum!"

"NO!"

Screaming, he tore the glasses off. The scary vision disappeared, he was in his penthouse again. In his bedroom sheltered by night!

He felt relieved for a moment, but then his blood ran cold again. Ghosts were close! He simply could not see them now! He was helpless without glasses on!

He put them on with a jerk, his nose bridge hit by their side painfully. The ghosts burst into satanic laughter.

"Who are you?!"

Victor seemed to feel a cold puff on his neck that brought words: "We are the ones whom you cannot escape, who have the power to reach you even in Hell! We are those who came to revenge. Today you will die..."

Strangely, their words drowned the storm of music below. For some reason, it amazed Victor most of all. But a moment later he recalled that the glasses had loudspeakers in their sides. This thought brought forth a realization: nothing of it was real! Actually there were no shadows in his house! Neither they could do any harm...

A new burst of satanic laughter ruined his hopes. The next moment something changed. Victor did not understand what. His body was suddenly shaken by violent shudders, his soul filled with panics. He screamed in fear, and his shout crushed all thoughts to dust. Terror seized him: strange, bestial, merciless terror that seemed to have no reason at all.

Shrieking, Victor went dashing about the room. He felt no pain when running into the invisible pieces of furniture. When he stumbled, he jumped up at once. Tearing his clothing and scratching his flesh raw, he thrashed about, like an animal in a forest fire. Death was everywhere. He could not see it, neither understand it, but he sensed it nearby. Holding his ears, as some wild screech cut them deep to the brain, Victor yelled so loud that his throat began to bleed.

In that incomprehensible but scary madness he rushed about the room, only seeing "the street." Convulsively, he tried to break out of the shadow circle but the ghosts seemed to multiply. Each one shouting, guffawing, cursing him!!

Then everything was drowned by a screech. Nothing existed but blurry shapes before his eyes and wild, wild terror. Immense, fathomless, clumsy and all-absorbing. Victor seemed to dissolve in it, and that caused him insufferable pain.

After a couple of minutes that seemed an age to him, in the midst of the "street" there suddenly appeared a window. It just hung in midair.

He had no more strength to think or doubt. The dreadful screech had burnt out his nerves, ruined his personality completely, destroyed the whole of the man he was.

He had to stop this madness!!!

"Stop!!! Please!!!"

Still wheezing, Victor dashed to the window.

The sound of broken glass came with acute pain, which gave him a moment's strange relief. Almost the same was brought by the wind on his face...

Трой Николай : другие произведения.

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