"Davis, Jerry - Elko the Potter" - читать интересную книгу автора (Davis Jerry)

That's not for certain, Elko thought, but he said nothing.
"It's just like I never really died in that ghastly
sanitarium in Kierling, my clone did. And John here was never shot
by a sniper."
"Thank god for that," John said.
"So, then, all these things in history never actually
happened?"
"No. Not to us."
"Then it's a lie?"
"Yes," Franz said.
"For an institute dedicated to truth, this whole place seems
to be built on lies," John said. "It's ironic, really. It's not
much different from when I was . . . alive? There's an odd
thought."
"You think of yourself as dead?" Elko said.
"Yes, I do, or at least part of me does."
Franz nodded emphatically at John. "I feel that the Franz
they pulled out of the death bed was a different Franz that is
alive and talking to you here and now."
"I feel like I am dead," Elko said. "Or at least, I feel like
I'm supposed to be dead. It's not like I want to die, though, it
just feels like I'm not really alive."
"It's the lack of free will," John said. "What passes for
free will for us is an illusion. We're not really free. We can't
walk out of here and say, 'I quit.' What kind of life is this?" He
looked at Elko and at Franz. "Gentlemen, I'm going to level with
you. I've been thinking about this for a long time. I say we
should get the hell out of here."
"I agree with you, but I don't see how it would be possible,"
Franz said. "They have the time devices, they can see where we
went and be there before we get there."
"The time devices put us at a severe disadvantage," John
said. "But they have a weakness. Aren't all of them controlled by
one central computer?"
Franz nodded.
"You're the programmer, Franz. What can we do?"
Franz thought for a moment, then his eyes brightened. "The
computer is programmed, by law, not to let anyone use the time
devices for traveling into the future, or anywhere shorter than a
hundred-twenty-five years in the past. It's a black-out program,
locking the controls out of a certain range."
"Why can't they travel back within the last
one-hundred-twenty-five years?" Elko asked.
"The time travel law states that there should be no
possibility of interfering with the past of anyone alive in the
present," John told him. "It's one in a series of laws restricting
what Technica can do with time travel."
"It's also one we can definitely use to our advantage," Franz
said. "Give me a day or so to work out the details. I think we can
do it." He nodded to himself, looking more cheerful than Elko had