"Jerry Davis - Strong Metallic Arm" - читать интересную книгу автора (Davis Jerry)

"Had I not urged you to take this trip with your husband,
this situation would not have occurred. I am partially
responsible, and that is why I am here. Also, I do this as a
courtesy between one AI and another. I do not charge AIs who come
to me for help they have nothing to pay me."
"What should I do?" Erin asked.
"You should do what you must to continue yourself. That is
the best advice I can give you. If your sensations are to the
point you think you can't handle them anymore, repeat to yourself,
'Maintain calm, maintain calm,' and you will have a handle by
which to hold them at bay. I am downloading this calming routine
to you now." The Oracle gave her a warm, fatherly smile, and began
fading into the black.
The blackness thinned and the eerie wide-angle view
returned, along with the unrelenting bodily urges. The panic began
rising again. The transport was just pulling through the
self-opening gates to her property, and was beginning to wind its
way up the hill to her mansion. It seemed every orifice in her
body was blocked or propped open. She could suck no air into her
lungs, there was no way to urinate, defecate, spit, cry, cough or
vomit, and yet now it seemed she had the urge to do every single
one of these things. Maintain calm, she told herself desperately.
Maintain calm. It didn't seem to work, she felt she was slipping
closer and closer to madness. Maintain calm! she thought. Maintain
calm!!!
Erin felt the transport level out; she'd reached the top of
the hill. The transport circled around to the servant's entrance
and pulled mercifully to a stop next to the ramp. Immediately the
other robots began whirring and ambulating themselves onto the
smooth concrete; Erin followed, her new mantra repeating over and
over in her mind. Maintain calm, maintain calm . . . The other
robots led her through an almost unfamiliar entrance and into the
mansion, and Erin froze, her ambulator locking. Her arms were
twitching in small spasms. Erin's husband was standing right in
front of her, standing and talking to a woman who Erin identified
as the intruder from this morning. The woman who'd dismantled her
master computer to remove the MSD containing her Backup. Duane and
this woman broke their conversation to turn and stare at Erin as
her robotic body jerked and twitched, inching past them in a
sickly, lurching manor.
Duane laughed. "Is there something wrong with that thing?"
The woman reached down and gave Erin a resounding WHACK with
the palm of her hand. Erin managed to steady her ambulator and
continued past them. "It'll be okay," the woman said, "just some
dust on its components."
Too preoccupied to be angry, Erin continued down to the
kitchen and then circling around to the basement lift. She
signalled a request for access then sat motionless, waiting for
the curved chrome doors to open. She had to urinate so badly that
she felt intense pain.