"Anderson,_Kevin_J._-_Identity_Crisis" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anderson Kevin J)

BTL Headquarters.
At the edge of the offshore city, the hovercar landed on a metal-plated dock that extended to the edge of the calm water. The emerald doors raised up like an insect shrugging its carapace. Daragon emerged, standing straight in his dark trainee jumpsuit. The fresh wind struck his face, laden with salt and iodine.
The man who met him on the platform was well muscled, his stomach like a washboard, the tendons in his neck like cords. With his presence, he seemed to occupy a much larger physical space than his actual body required. His hair was short and dark, just beginning to speckle with gray. His eyes were wide-set, a chestnut brown. "My name is Mordecai Ob. Perhaps you've heard of me?"
"Certainly, sir!" Ob was the Bureau Chief, a powerful man who kept himself isolated, ambitious but rarely seen except by those in the inner sanctum of the Bureau of Tracing and Locations. Why would a person of such importance waste time greeting him, or pay any attention to a new trainee whatsoever?
"Walk with me to my offices. I'll show you more of how the Bureau really works." He squeezed Daragon's hand with an exceedingly muscular grip. "We expect great things of you, young man."
Ob led him down through connecting passageways that rippled with watery light, thick windows that looked out on an underwater world of fish and waving kelp. Lights dazzled from the outside, spotlights, attracting undersea creatures.
"We're linked to the mainland through computer and energy conduits," Ob said, "but BTL Headquarters is by and large self-sufficient. Much of our work can be done long-distance, invisibly. We try to be unobtrusive when possible." Ob flexed his broad arms, as if relishing the feel of his own muscles.
Daragon dutifully nodded, knowing that expert searchers could find just about anything in the data-universe of the pervasive computer/organic matrix. "I've been taught many of the services the Bureau provides. But the wealth of available data on COM is so vast, finding anything in particular is like finding a needle in a world full of haystacks."
Ob smiled. "Our people are most adept at searching for needles. Inspectors, Guards, Tacticians, Apprehension Specialists, Saboteurs, Data Hunters, rank after specialized rank."
Some operatives were skilled in evidence analysis; they could detect infrared footprints or pick up DNA tracings; they compiled physical clues to help build a trail for Inspectors to follow. Still others were medical technicians trained to unravel brain scans, the mental fingerprints of the specific person who had lived inside a particular body. Ob took Daragon through warm and humid biological reconstruction labs, frigid computer galleries, humming offices, dazzling map rooms, image libraries bursting with an incomprehensible amount of information.
Finally, his mind numb with everything he was seeing, Daragon turned to the brawny man. "Can I inquire which section I'll be working in, sir? They all look ... very interesting."
Ob's chestnut eyes shone. "Daragon, you are a true wild card. If you can _see_ people's personas just by looking at them, no matter which body they're inhabiting, without consulting an ID patch, you perform a function none of these others can do, despite all our technology."
Daragon's heart fluttered. He had always felt apart from the others, even Eduard. He'd been unable to hopscotch into different bodies, like everyone else. He didn't know who his parents were, or why he had turned out this way. He felt worthless, a freak.
But his mental abilities had turned inward. He couldn't reach out and exchange minds with another person -- but he could look at their souls and recognize them for who they were. He could _see_ the true person, their aura, no matter what body they inhabited. Now that he thought about it, Daragon realized just how important it would be for an Inspector to glance over a crowd and spot the mind he was looking for.
Ob beamed like a proud father. "In all the years I've been in the Bureau, you're only the second one I've found. There are only a few known examples in any generation. Having you with us gives the Bureau an extremely valuable tool."
Daragon flushed. "And I always thought I was some kind of ... throwback because I couldn't do what everyone else could."
Ob's generous laugh warmed the young man's heart. "Nonsense. Your telepathic breakthrough simply took a different form. BTL experts have been very interested in uncovering precedents in mental development. Way back at the dawn of time, the human race went through a 'bicameral revolution,' when our minds split into left and right hemispheres. _This_ is a similar evolutionary step, with consciousness becoming detachable from our physical brains."
Fascinated, Daragon nodded vigorously. "I had always heard that the first hopscotching was triggered by generations of people uploading and downloading to old-style computer networks and virtual reality environments. _That's_ how personalities first became detached from the body, and now most people can hopscotch with just a touch. But one thing has always puzzled me. The amount of data that needs to be transferred is so enormous, and to be done so quickly -- "
Ob brushed off his comment, faintly condescending. "Yes, but at the root level, it all boils down to a form of telepathy. No one's ever clocked a benchmark telepathic transfer rate." He smiled up as a small shark swam past the thick window, its torpedo body sinuous. "I know you must have a million questions, but there will be time. You will become familiar with all the theories and all the analytical methods as your training continues. Once you join us, you are a part of the Bureau for life."
They stood together, deep underwater, surrounded by girders and walls, curved windows that looked out into the sea. Ob patted him on the shoulder. "The world will be under your watchful eye, young man."
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*III*
Eduard's first regular job after leaving the orphanage a year ago, had been a tedious and boring routine, despite its superficial thrills. It was hot and dirty work, high up on the outside of the mirrored skyscrapers. Wearing a mag-lock harness that attached him to support struts between windows, he hung seemingly miles above the pavement. Below, the street crowds and hovervehicles swirled about, so far away they looked like colored pixels on a grid of the city.
Eduard spent his days with a cleaning and repair kit, zipping up and down the building exteriors, one structure after another, cleaning windows, patching cracks, strengthening bricks and blocks that had showed signs of wear after decades of weathering.
Eduard could dangle up where he could feel the breezes, sense the tantalizing drop below him. It made him _alive_, spending his days on the edge of peril. Such a contrast with his childhood with Daragon, which had been safe and protected and calm. Riding high above even the topmost airlanes of hovercars, Eduard had felt happy and fulfilled ... but then his restlessness had kicked in again.
His work partner was a lanky and unambitious man named Olaf Pitervald. Olaf had big-knuckled hands and scarecrowish arms and legs. His pale skin flushed easily, and his pale hair was a colorless mass that covered his pink scalp.
Eduard could single-handedly cover the entire side of a skyscraper faster than he and Olaf could do it together, but the lanky man liked to hang beside him in his harness. Olaf spent more time in incessant conversation than actually doing his job. "We get paid the same, no matter how hard we work," he said with a jerky shrug.
As Eduard diligently patched chinks using his polysteel compound, Olaf would gaze through the windows, searching out attractive female bodies. He would make cat-calls, treating any women he saw as a sex objects, emboldened because he knew they could never hear his words through the glass. He was unmarried, probably because he'd never found the nerve.
"How do you like that one, eh?" Olaf pushed his face close to the glass, where a buxom cinnamon-haired woman sat in a lobby area directing visitors.
Eduard had no idea whether it was even a woman or a man inside the body; some corporations simply rented sexy females to act as living artwork in the reception areas. Then the corporations hired pleasant and competent employees to swap into those beautiful bodies during the workday.
Suspended in his harness, Olaf loved to stare, barely keeping the drool from coming out of his mouth. Eduard scowled. "So save up your credits, rent yourself the body of a stud, and go date one of those women." Olaf balked, though. He was stingy with his money, but also preferred his imaginary conquests to risking failure. Rolling his eyes, Eduard went back to work.
One day Olaf seemed to be more unsettled than usual, doing very little work. He hung in his harness next to Eduard, though he didn't seem to want to talk, offering only occasional bitter or surly comments. Finally, Eduard grew disgusted. "Either tell me what's wrong or leave me alone. You're even less pleasant company than usual."
"Facial surgery," the lanky man finally admitted. "Dental prosthetics. I have to get three teeth replaced." Grasping the harness with the crook of his right arm, Olaf jabbed his fingers along his jawline. "In here. They're going to laser-cut some molars and install organic prosthetics. Too much enamel damage, they say. Easier to replace than to fix."
"So?" Eduard said.
"I don't like the idea of somebody cutting up my mouth," Olaf pouted, "taking pieces out of me." He fretted in the harness.
Eduard frowned. Minor surgery didn't seem a terribly pleasant prospect, but nothing to be terrified about. No problem. "Are you worried about the operation itself? Or is it that you just don't want to be there when it's happening?"
"I want it to be all over with, and not have to sit through it and feel the pain." He moaned pathetically.
"Yeah, right." Eduard looked over at his partner as they both swung high, high above the streets. His eyebrows knitted. "How many spare credits do you have?"
"What do you mean?" Olaf looked suspicious all of a sudden. "Do you need a loan, eh? I don't lend money."
"Not to loan it. To _pay_ it. You pay me, and I'll swap with you. I'll go sit through your dental surgery for you. You won't feel a thing."
Olaf stuttered, swinging in the harness. "No, I don't think so. I couldn't ask that of you.... Uh, how much would I need to pay?"
"A thousand credits."
"What!" Olaf couldn't believe what he was hearing. "I can't afford that!"
"Yes, you can."
"But I have to pay for the surgery, too. And miss a day of work."
"If you swap into my body, you don't need to miss a day of work. But, if you'd rather sit there all alone while they go into your mouth with their lasers, chopping up your teeth, ripping them out.... Have you ever smelled burning blood, Olaf? Smoke drifting out of your mouth and into your nose?"
"I can spare five hundred. That should be enough. It's only going to be a few hours."
"For five hundred, _you_ can put up with it for a few hours," he said. "Give me nine hundred and you won't have to feel a thing until it's all over."
Sweat broke out on Olaf's brow, despite the sharp and cool breezes. He could see in Olaf's watery eyes that the other man desperately wanted to agree, and Eduard refused to haggle further. Nine hundred credits. Finally Olaf agreed.
At the end of the workday, Eduard swapped with him, spent the next afternoon in a polished office with all the high-tech surgery needs: anesthetics, quiet music, soothing scents that masked medicinal smells, and a competent dental surgeon with robotic assistants and absolute precision. It wasn't so bad at all.