"Brantingham-OldFreedom" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brantingham Juleen)

always told me when he was after a rabbit or a feral cat or a skunk; sometimes
he'd even let me talk him out of it. "Is there a bitch come into season?" But it
couldn't be that either; Free wasn't shy about his needs.

He shook his head and kept on trotting like there was a string tied to his nose,
pulling him along.

Last time Free had gone off by himself, three years before, he'd fallen down the
cellar hole of an abandoned house, broke his leg and couldn't get out. I'd never
have found him if it wasn't for the Enhancement. I was never sure how far that
link could reach and I'd never dared test it.

Since the accident Free had stayed pretty close to me. He was only ten and with
help from the medbots I figured he'd outlive me.

I decided a long time ago that when my time came I'd go out in the wilds where
the medbots couldn't find me and hook me up to life-support and the VR world,
like it or not. [And I wouldn't: people say it's realer than real but how can
your mind and your soul be alive when your body is lying in a dark room, never
moving, never smelling the fresh air, never feeling the sun on your skin, never
. . . But you get the idea. By now you've decided I'm a crank who just doesn't
understand and I'm proud to say you're right.) We'd never talked about it but I
thought Free would want to go with me.

"You're not sick, are you?" I said, feeling half sick myself at the thought.
"Wait. Let me call a medbot. Wait up! I said, wait up for me, you damned
fleabag."

I could tell by looking that Free wasn't sick. The way he was moving along it
was like he was getting younger and livelier with each step.

Finally he condescended to answer me. * Not sick,* he said, grinning his tongue
hanging out. *Going away. Chasing and bitches and wild smells and rolling in the
grass forever and hot meat and no pain and no dying.*

I suspected then it wasn't just Free, that it was all dogs everywhere, like the
Enhancement. It scared me because if it was something big like that, not just a
sudden fit on Free's part, then there was nothing I could do.

I trailed Freedom down one street after another, past empty windows and the
jungles that have grown up around the houses. I don't know which spooks me more,
thinking of the people, my former neighbors, lying in their beds with wires
hooked to their skulls like they were being sucked dry by electronic vampires or
thinking of the 'bots they run with their minds, doing the jobs they used to do
their own selves. Living by proxy, that's what it amounts to. Knowing every time
I run up against one of those 'bots, the systems, farms and factories and right
down to the delivery 'bots and the people-tenders -- knowing there's a mind
hooked up to it that's giving no more real thought to what it's doing than my
own mind gives to the gushing blood in my arteries or the working of the muscles
in my arms and legs.