False Mirrors
Russian edition cover
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| Author | Sergei Lukyanenko |
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| Original title | Фальшивые зеркала |
| Country | Russia |
| Language | Russian |
| Series | The Labyrinth trilogy |
| Genre | Cyberpunk |
| Publisher | AST (Russian edition) |
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Publication date
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2001 (Russian edition), |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | 416 pp (Russian edition) |
| ISBN | (Russian 1st edition) ISBN (Russian 2nd edition) |
| OCLC | 49418668 |
| Preceded by | Labyrinth of Reflections |
| Followed by | Transparent Stained-Glass Windows |
False Mirrors (Russian: Фальшивые зеркала) is the second novel in the Labyrinth trilogy of cyberpunk novels written by Russian science fiction writer Sergey Lukyanenko. The novel takes place two years after Labyrinth of Reflections and describes the life of a former diver (person able to exit VR at will and "see" holes in programs) after the diver profession becomes obsolete. Deeptown, the virtual city created by Microsoft and IBM moves on and grows to accommodate an ever-changing world. The semi-peaceful life of the inhabitants of Deeptown is shaken when a hacker is killed by a virtual weapon.
Former diver Leonid is a virtual mover. His relationship with his wife Vicka is strained. Due to deep psychosis, he has trouble distinguishing reality from the deep. Unlike Leonid, Vicka (a former diver) managed to let go of Deeptown and rarely ventures there. Additionally, an upgraded deep-program includes a built-in mandatory 24-hour timer. Leonid finds out that a hacker broke into a small development company and was attacked by its security forces. One of the virus weapons used on him killed the hacker in real life. Leonid contacts his old hacker friend Maniac, who now lives and works in the US, and asks him if he knows the dead hacker. Maniac gives him a real-life Moscow address of a former acquaintance. Leonid goes there and finds himself in a luxurious apartment of a rich businessman named Chingiz. Another inhabitant of the giant two-story apartment is a hacker named Bastard and amateur hacker teenager Pat — Chingiz's protégé. Bastard explains that he was hired to hack the development company by a man calling himself the Dark Diver, who managed to retain his diver abilities. Bastard asked a 17-year-old hacker to help him break into the company and steal certain files. Apparently, the weapon use a modified deep-program to cause cardiac arrest, which can only be reversed by immediate CPR. When Bastard reveals that the hacker's name was Roma, Leonid realizes that the dead hacker was a former diver. Leonid asks Chingiz for a virus pack, as he goes to search for the files Roma stole.
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