Then there was a lapse again. Eddy remembered only that Max had fallen and couldn’t get up, and then he’d lifted him on his back and had carried him. Max had protested weakly, electric discharges had been crackling around, some stupid violet cloud had been chasing them, and Eddy had been walking with what was left of his strength, cursing with just invented words...

Until he saw the light.

...Flashes were blinking from all sides, the barrels of TV cameras were openly aimed at them, and some guy in a white tuxedo and with a dazzling smile was shouting constantly into the microphone, and Eddy couldn’t get what this guy was talking about.

“Eddy McGrave... the winner... the pride of the nation... a prize of one thousand life-cards... progress of Mankind...”

“You idiot!” shouted Eddy, grabbing the man in the tuxedo by his lapels. “Max, tell this...”

Then he saw Eyeglasses in the crowd, smiling and waving at them, and finally fainted...

The three of them were sitting in Eyeglasses’ small flat (Eddy had never found the time to ask his name), drinking coffee and synth-Cognac. Eyeglasses was talking for about five minutes, but Eddy didn’t hear him. Only one thought was beating in his mind: “We did it!..”

Gradually, however, Eyeglasses’ voice made its way through this thought:

“Bastards! They themselves don’t understand what they have created! This is hell... and the satisfied, doomed devils in pyjamas, burdened with families and debts, are feasting their eyes upon the suffering of the dying sinners... before bedtime! As if there were no tomorrow.”

Eddy reached out for a glass of cognac – or rather, he wanted to but didn’t, because the glass slipped into his hand by itself. He didn’t even notice how it happened. “I’m going mad”, thought Eddy. But then he remembered the single-charge grenade launchers that were shooting a hundred shots, his own unmistakable choice of way in “the labyrinth”, Max’ “life line”...

They were supposed to die. But they are sitting and drinking coffee. They became human beings. Or not quite human beings. Or quite human beings. What did they become?

“This is not hell”, thought Eddy. “He is wrong. This is a purgatory. You didn’t pass it – you get into hell. You did...”

And then Eddy noticed that Eyeglasses was silent and was looking at him sadly.

“Eddy, my friend”, said Eyeglasses quietly. “Do you really want your children to become human beings only after they pass all the eight circles of the Subway?..”