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

Fake dogs. The man was selling fake dogs.

I thought of all the stupidities I'd seen in my life, this was a new low.

The people who got them were laughing and carrying on as hard as they'd been
weeping a few minutes before, tear stains still on their faces. How could they
do it, I wondered. The dogs had been made out of wire and chemicals and puter
chips. How could a living, breathing, caring human being settle for a fake dog
once they'd known the love and trustingness of the real thing? I thought, maybe
the people are fakes too, and I shook my head and turned away.

Before I got more than a couple steps I started hearing this growling noise in
the branches over my head. I stopped to try to figure out what it was and just
then something darted along the branch next to me like a monkey. It jumped on
the peddlar, knocking him down. It was a boy, a tad with yellow hair and bare
feet and rags for clothes. His growl turned into a scream and he was dancing and
flinging himself around and waving his arms. First thing you know he'd upset the
trundle truck and spilled out the fake dogs and he was stomping on them,
stomping them to shit.

I laughed to beat hell.

The other people, though, they didn't like it much. The ones who already had
their fakes clutched them tighter and ran away. The ones who hadn't gotten
theirs yet began to chase after the boy and try to stop him. They had a hard
time getting their hands on him, he was so quick, but there was so many of them
that he never had a chance. As quick as that the show was over. Someone started
yelling for the copbots.

To tell the truth, I don't know what got into me. The boy wasn't anything to me.
Maybe it was the thought of him being dragged into a dark room and hooked up to
the electronic vampire and "reeducated" to take his "proper" place in the VR
world. Maybe it was because I was just so damned mad about losing Freedom. Maybe
I just wanted to hurt somebody. I plowed into that crowd, yelling and stomping
on the fakes the boy had missed. They squished and crackled and crunched under
my shoes. Then the peddlar and his customers were yelling and grabbing at me;
they ripped my shirt, knocked off one of my shoes, and punched me. I was
laughing fit to bust a gut. Oh be joyful! In the confusion I saw the boy slip
loose.

I took a few swings at the people who were in my way, just from general
cussedness, crunched my knuckles on somebody's skull, but managed to cause
enough confusion that I broke away. I ran after the boy and caught his hand and
dragged him along with me. Old Free had once shown me a place where the brash
looks thick but there's a path through the worst parts. We ran for all we were
worth, that angry mob screaming at our heels, both of us laughing so hard we
were almost pissing ourselves. In spite of that we lost the mob in the jungle.

When the stitch in my side got so bad I couldn't take another step, I collapsed