– Run! – growls the wolf, jumping up from the motionless bodies, the bloody saliva drips from his fangs, the fur stands on its ends. I step towards Romka, pat him on the back and whisper – "thanks."

Man Without Face is the last one alive, he stands there quietly watching the demise of his guards.

– Run! – the Wolf growls again, not averting his glare from Dibenko.

– The Fellowship of divers? – says Man Without Face mockingly, – I never expected that.

He's too calm. I nod to Vika and Unfortunate and obediently they start retreating. Me and Roman stay – two against one. But this one is too unruffled.

– Again I suggest you to bethink yourself Leonid, – says Dibenko to me.

– Get out of here, will you?! – hisses the wolf glaring at me with greenish human eyes and leaps on Man Without Face.

A nice leap, this time even quicker and more accurate than the previous one from the roof. The jaws click squeezing Dibenko's neck, forepaws scratch his chest. Now, standing on his hindpaws, the wolf is much higher than a human.

– You sucker, – says Man Without Face.

He lifts the wolf by the scruff with one hand and throws him back towards the Elvish hut. The blow is so hard that the wall gives way and the wolf almost flies into the corridor, but jumps back up immediately and leaps on Dibenko again. The blow wasn't just a blow – the wolf's hide flames with a pale glow. The virus was stuck in Romka after all. He must have turned all the security off for the sake of speed and accuracy. But even now, when the virus is mincing his computer, he still fights.

I run. Everything else is not important. Romka was watching me – just how did he manage? He lunged into this fight to give me the chance and it's stupid to lose it.

Vika stops Deep-Transit's cab ten meters further down the street, pushes Unfortunate inside and waves her hand to me. Then her face distorts in terror.

A disappearing howl of pain scratches my ears from behind and in the next moment Man Without Face grabs me by the shoulder. It's too hard to compete in speed with somebody who has 'octium''s prototype as a home computer. One blow – and I fall on the pavement. Man Without Face who invented the Deep, leans over me.

– I was patient, – he says.

I spit into the grey foggy mask, just a symbolic gesture – the ability to spit is not implemented into the virtual body. I'll have to make a hint for Computer Wiz…

Dibenko moves his hand along the face as if wiping the spit off, but in fact he's not that squeamish: his fingers scoop a handful of fog and form a sort of a snowball, looking as if made of a dirty city snow.

– Get it diver. Happy dreams to you.

Then the snowball flies towards my face, unwrapping into an endless cloth. It's not gray anymore – it's colorful, sparkling, reflecting, cheerful and pattern-covered. Too late I understand what does this colorfulness remind me.

Abyss-abyss…

Too late.

Deep-program covers me and there's no strength to duck it.

Abyss-abyss…

The cloth still burns and doesn't seem to fade as the honest lawful deep-program should…

Abyss-abyss…

I dive deeper and deeper, I fall into this colorful chasm, into the endless chain of false reflections, into the colorful labyrinth, into the madness and unconsciousness.

There's no timer on my machine and nobody will come to my door with the key.

Abyss-abyss…

I can't surface as fast as the colorful whirl pulls me down!

Abyss-abyss…

111

Composure first of all.

As I heard, it's a favorite saying of some of our cosmonauts, but just who remembers the heroes of the past days now?

Composure.

The panic kills faster than the bullet.

The endless kaleidoscope surrounds me: the rainbow, the fireworks, the working deep-program. How simple – and unexpected. The diver can surface but what would he do if the water comes in faster than he swims up?

I don't know yet.

I make a step and succeed as strange as it might seem. The world have lost its reality, turned into the mad abstract artist's painting. The swirling orange band flies by, curls into the ring, tries to tie around my head. I tear it off: I can't see my hands, but the band flies aside as if in hurt feelings. The small fountains of white dust rise from under my invisible feet, an emerald rain starts falling, each drop is a tiny crystal, painfully stinging the body.

And the silence, a dead silence, almost the one Unfortunate was talking about…

Be calm.

Where am I now? Walk along Deeptown's streets with outstretched hands and looking forward blindly? Or fell down somewhere into the depth of Dibenko's computer? Or maybe I'm spread throughout the whole Net like some mythical character?

Be calm.

First of all, I'm at home. I'm at home, before my old computer, in the helmet and the suit. The keyboard is somewhere before me, the mouse to the right. If to grope the keys and to enter the exit command manually…

No, it's impossible, and not just because I won't feel the keys beneath my fingers. My consciousness got used to just imitate the movements long time ago: I don't stretch my hand, but just jerk it weakly, I don't jump but just raise from the chair a little, not walk but move my feet under the table. Illusions. The Deep.

– Vika! – I say, – Vika! Exit from virtuality! Vika, I cancel immersion! Exit!

No effect.

I took the possibility to communicate with Windows-Home from the Deep for granted, to download and to transfer files, to exit the Deep, to inquire about the machine resources. If it were so simple… there wouldn't be any need for divers. Now, in the common virtual dweller's hide I'm in the common rights.

I can't feel the real world.

I can't cry for help.

I'm drowning.

Be calm!

I try to take off the helmet that I can't feel. Useless. I run, pull away hoping to tear the wires. Hardly have I moved even a bit.

I close my eyes. I need to switch off from the deep-program, not to see it, not to dive deeper.

Abyss-abyss, I'm not yours, let me go…

I repeat this hundreds of times – the poor pupil in the diver's school, dolefully writing the same sentence in the notebook over and over again.

Abyss-abyss, I'm not yours, let me go…

Nothing changes.

There, in the infinitely far real world, my motionless body sits by the computer and the deadly rainbows reflect in my opened eyes.

Dibenko have got me.

Did he invent this trap accidentally, trying to learn how to surface, to invent the life-buoy but actually invented the cement bowl attached to the feet instead? Or was it exactly what he wanted to do: not to pull all virtuality dwellers to the divers' level but to descend us to the common one?

Maybe I'll never know that.

What happened to Romka? Did Vika have time to jump into the car or is she wandering in the colorful snowstorm too while Unfortunate walks away with Dibenko, silent and submissive?

I need to return to find out.

The world around calms down a bit. Either the color storm gained some system or I got accustomed to my surroundings. Let's assume that the emerald rain falls from above, so I now have one reference point. Let's try to walk… slowly, easily… to that stubborn orange band for instance that is still fidgeting there before me.

The band lets me to come close, then flies away. I have time to notice that the emerald rain tattered its edges. The orange band is curled into the Moebius ring, as if it's… it's independent from the space that surrounds it!

Looks a bit too intricate for the deep-program…

I move towards the band again – and again it doesn't let me touch it and flies away.

What's going on anyway? Have this mad world formed around me or is it just a trick of my own subconsciousness?