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was fooling around as I walked home, dropping into the Twilight in short bursts—I couldn't manage it for any longer back then. Then I began feeling out the people walking down the street, and at the entrance I ran into my neighbors. They're really nice people. I wanted to borrow a drill from them once, and Kostya's father, Gennady, a contractor, just came around and had some fun helping out with the concrete walls, demonstrating conclusively that the intelligentsia can't survive without the proletariat…
    And now suddenly I could see they weren't human beings at all.
    It was terrifying. The brownish-gray auras, the hideous pressure. I stopped dead, staring at them in horror. Polina, Kostya's mother, looked surprised; the boy froze and turned his face away. But the head of the family walked toward me, moving deeper into the Twilight as he came, walking with the elegant stride that only vampires, alive and dead at the same time, have. The Twilight is their natural habitat.
    "Hello, Anton," he said.
    The world around me was gray and dead. I'd dived into the Twilight after him without even noticing it.
    "I knew you'd cross the barrier some day," he said. "Everything's okay." I took a step back—and Gennady's face quivered.
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    "Everything's okay," he said. He opened his shirt and I saw the registration tag, a blue imprint on the gray skin. "We're all registered. Polina! Kostya!"
    His wife also crossed into the Twilight and unfastened her blouse. The boy didn't move, and it took a stern glance from his father to get him to show his blue seal.
    "I have to check," I whispered. My passes were clumsy; I lost track twice and had to start again. Finally the seal responded. Permanent registration, no known violations…
    "Is everything okay?" asked Gennady. "Can we go now?"
    "Don't worry about it. We knew you'd become an Other someday."
    "Go on," I said. It was against the rules, but that was the last thing I was bothered about.
    "Yes…" Gennady paused for a moment before he left the Twilight. "I've been in your home… Anton, I return to you your invitation to enter…"
    Everything was just as it should be.
    They walked away, and I sat down on a bench, beside an old granny warming herself in the sunshine. I lit a cigarette, trying to sort out my thoughts. The granny looked at me and said:
    "Nice people, aren't they, Arkasha?"
    She was always getting my name wrong. She only had two or three months left to live, I could see that quite clearly now.
    "Not exactly…" I said. I smoked three cigarettes, then trudged off into the house. I stood in the doorway for a moment, watching the gray "vampire's trail" fade away. I'd just learned how to see it that very day…
    I moped into the evening. I leafed through my notes, which meant I had to withdraw into the Twilight. For the ordinary world, the pages of those standard exercise books were a pure, unsullied white. I wanted to call our group's supervisor or the boss himself—I was his personal responsibility. But I felt I had to make the decision myself.
    When it was dark already I couldn't stand it any longer. I went up to the next floor and rang the bell. When Kostya opened the door, he shuddered. But he actually looked perfectly ordinary, like all of his family…
    "Call your folks, will you," I asked.
    "What for?" he muttered.
    "I want to invite you all for tea."
    Gennady appeared behind his son's back, appeared out of nowhere; he was far more skillful than me, the newly fledged adept of the Light.
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    "Are you sure, Anton?" he asked doubtfully. "There's no need. Everything's okay."
    "I'm sure."
    He paused and then shrugged.
    "We'll come around tomorrow. If you invite us. Don't rush things." By midnight I was feeling absolutely delighted they'd refused. At three I tried to get to sleep, reassured in the knowledge that they couldn't enter my home and never would be able to. In the morning, still not having slept a wink, I stood at the window, looking out at the city. There