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From the food thrown by Vika through the window, only the glass jar of jam and the paper pack of crackers have survived, as if in mockery of the physics laws. The rest of the stuff slipped in the gap or was broken against the boulders. In my opinion, it made no sense to store any food but we picked up the jar anyway.

Maybe it's an inertia of consciousness, the panicked greed of mind that sees wild nature around.

– Do you have any plan? – I ask Vika.

– Why me? It was your idea to flee through the window, – she objects reasonably.

– We didn't have choice.

– We did. You're diver after all.

I nod at Unfortunate.

– And who is he?

Vika have grown tired of this question during a single last hour. We sit down on a soft grass, in the tree shade. A white smoke still whirls above the remains of the hut.

We silently watch Unfortunate who wanders over the slope, touches pine trees, picks up some needles and pebbles from the ground. The city dweller who have found himself in the wild for the first time, an If castle dungeons' prisoner who was able to escape.

– Leonid, I must have been speaking too emotionally about computer mind… – starts Vika, – So – he is a human. An ordinary human who takes you in.

– He is in the Deep for three days.

– Stimulants, or he's a diver too.

– His comm channel can't be traced.

– A well hidden one.

– Two big companies and Dibenko are after him.

– It's enough stupid people in the world.

Okkam's blade is a wonderful thing, it cuts all mystic off clean, together with meat.

– Vika, you're psychologist… are there any tests for telling people?

She laughs quietly.

– Sure not. These were never needed yet.

– I've seen a method to check in some sci-fi book…

– Do you really think that some scheme invented by a writer while drinking a cup of coffee would work?

– We should try at least, – I'm holding my ground, – There are institutes that study artificial intelligence problems after all. They must have something worked out. There are fans who invent abstract tests… for the future. I'll exit the Deep and will browse the Internet a little.

– And how are you going to return? There's no entrance into this space anymore. – Vika laughs bitterly, – I think it's lost at all, forever. A closed system, it will live in the computer by itself.

– A good hacker will be able to break a passage.

– It would be a different world then. The mountains will resist until the end, if somebody breaks in here, they'll lose their freedom.

I understand her very well but I hate such a prudent pessimism.

– You'll draw the new ones.

Vika doesn't feel hurt.

– Next time I'll draw the sea. The sea, the sky and islands.

– … And don't forget an emergency exit.

– Spaces live according to their own laws… – Vika stands up. – There might be an exit, Lenia. When these mountains were built, the program was searching for other landscapes, on all open servers. It was stealing pieces from there… – she smiles in confusion, – And it had left some loopholes, a tiny ones. If we manage to find one of those, we'll be able to exit.

– This sounds better already.

As a very last resort I have 'Warlock', but it's too risky to use it: the enemies would notice the trace of the virus.

– We must get out of here, – decides Vika, – We have 5 more hours until the dusk. If the attackers manage to restore the hut, it'd be better to be as far from it as possible.


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