– Stop! – I shout into his back and he stops, waiting indifferently, – You shouldn't return here anymore, – I say.

Cap smirks – the first emotion on his face, but it looks so mechanic as if I'm talking to a program instead of an alive person.

– What do you want here?

Looks like it's the question that he's ready to answer.

– Some collective psychology research.

– Conduct it elsewhere.

His pale eyes examine me from feet to the head.

– Do you work here?

– No.

– You're mutant then.

I feel myself lost after such a weird characteristic and Cap explains:

– The loss of social and ethical orientation. Personality decomposition. What an inevitable and disgusting metamorphosis.

Already opening the door, he adds:

– Boring…

…Vika's voice reaches me by the exit:

– Leonid, wait! Don't!

It's quite difficult to get back to my senses. I realize that my right hand clings to the belt and the left one squeezed in a fist. I look at Vika feeling how my fury slowly fades.

– Was it Cap? – I define just in case.

– Yes.

– I think I'm starting to understand your reaction.

– Have you cooled down already? – inquires Vika, – Good boy. Let's go.

I'm already feeling uncomfortable of my recent outbreak. Strange, I never thought it's so easy to start me, by in general quite meaningless words.

– Who is he, Vika?

She feels that she'll have to answer this question.

– Nothing special. Just a person who thinks he has a right to judge everyone around.

– Virtual prostitutes for instance?

– Not only. I know a couple more places where Cap conducts his experiments.

– He said something about psychology…

These words amuse Vika for some reason:

– The person that is unable to be creative always tries to justify his destructive behavior. Very often this is done in a form of aloof watching of the world's imperfections, especially ones such as our brothel…

We enter the door from which the black kitten is smiling, and Vika goes on:

– Psychology is a very simple science according to the general opinion. People aren't able to hammer the nail in by themselves or to rhyme at least a couple of lines never doubt in their ability to understand – and to judge others. In extreme cases it becomes the essence of their lives and the source of self-confidence.

– Who are you, Vika?

– A psychologist. PhD, if you want to know.

She sits down, sweeps the gravel from the table. The room obviously needs cleaning after the earthquake. Since there's no second chair here, I just squat nearby.

– And your Thesis' subject is?…

– "Abnormal behavioral reactions' sublimation in the virtual space environment".

As if in apology, she adds:

– It's common to formulate this way.

I see…

– You're studying those like Cap? – I ask, – The real hunter for the fake ones?

– No, and for a long time by now, Lenia. It was interesting to study for half a year or more. But now – all they are similar, that Cap and others alike. All pathologies are the same and if you know one psychopath, you can guess the behavior of thousand of them.

– Then why?..

– Because they exist. The destruction that comes out of them can hurt just a couple of people here. In the real world they'll leave a trace of broken lives, poisoned love, ridiculed friendship after them. Maybe even blood. But here they are harmless, all their arrogance, animal reactions and self-conceit is just a dust, dust on the wind.

– But it's hard for you here!

– So what? It's not real me who is hurt but a drawn one.

– Vika…

– I beg you – don't meddle in the Institution's business. Otherwise Madam will cancel your access.

She smiles and I feel confused.

– Okay, I'll not meddle in the Institution's business inside it.

– What about outside?

– This is a matter of my personal freedom.

Vika parts her hands.

– Leonid, how old are you?

– What about exchange? – I ask quickly, – Information for information?

Nobody does advertise their biographical data in virtuality but Vika doesn't have any idea how much am I not used to it.

– Okay Leonid. I'm 29.

Before I answer, I have time to rejoice.

– 34.

– I'd never think that, I'd give you just a little more than twenty.

It's not necessary to mention that my fears were quite opposite.

– Virtuality is deceitful.

– No, virtuality is like an ice, we freeze into it once and forever. It's impossible to take off our first mask. We can invent hundreds of bodies afterwards, but that, very first one will be evident always.

– Madam was your first mask?

Vika picks the purse from the table, takes the cigarette from it and lights it.

– Yes Lenia. We had got a grant for the research of human sexual behavior in virtuality, the Westerners were a little crazy about that… at least one third of all information in the Net was tied to sex somehow. So I've invented this personality – a brothel owner, self confident, experienced, the one who saw everything in this life.

– You were successful, – I admit.

Vika exhales the smoke and asks with a slight irony:

– Maybe I'm really like that deep inside, how do you know?

– I don't care.

I'm lying of course but Vika doesn't argue.

– Did Zuko reassure you?

– Almost.

– He's a good specialist. You can confidently bring your friend here.

I look at the watch, there's still some time left.

– It's not that easy, Vika. It's very important to guess right and come to fetch him in time.

– You hackers are funny folks, – says Vika. How interesting. Geez! I was considered a cool programmer.

– Will you allow me to sleep here for a while?

– What?

– To sleep. I'm in the Deep for almost 24 hours while it'd be better to work with a 'fresh' head.

Vika – how wonderful – approaches this business-like.

– Do you want me to wake you up?

– Yes, in two hours.

– Sleep, feel yourself at home, I'll wake you up myself.

She pats me on the head, the gesture that would fit Madam better but I'm pleased anyway. She nods at the bed and exits through the door that leads into costumier room. In a minute Madam will come out and will go to order the girls around.

In the meantime I do something not very polite, I get a spool with a thin thread from my jacket's pocket, the little weight is tied to the end of it.

The wind doesn't calm down outside the window, the thread is waving but I let it go to the end nevertheless. When the weight touches the slope I glance at the thread: each meter is marked with red paint.

Seven and a half meters (~24 feet). Bed sheets won't help here. Ah well, there must be some ropes in the brothel, at least in the rooms intended for sadomasochists.

I throw the spool outside feeling a little uncomfortable but convincing myself that most likely Vika would allow this little experiment. Haven't she said to feel myself at home anyway?

I plop down at the narrow bed, right on the comforter and close my eyes. But just before I allow myself to fall asleep, I exit virtuality anyway and order Windows-Home to wake me up in two hours.

The sleep comes almost instantly. For some reason I hope to see something prophetical and with a plot again, like as it was the last time when Alex shoot Unfortunate but what I see is a complete mess.

The rainbow shining above Deeptown, its blinding bright flashes look like deep program, but this rainbow is built of ledges, it's the biblical stairway to Heaven. I walk along it just as Computer Wiz in his slippers. I realize that the colors have different density – I fall in being on violet and blue layers, lean against the green ones slightly and step against the yellow ones confidently. The city below me is colorful and bright, I can see it through the multicolored mist.