"Paul Di Filippo & Bruce Sterling - The Scabs Progress" - читать интересную книгу автора (Di Filippo Paul)

The pair entered a maze of cholla. The famously vicious Southwestern cholla cactus,
whose sausage-link segments bore thorns the size of fishhooks, had been rumored
from time immemorial to leap free and stab travelers from sheer spite. A soup├зon of
Venus flytrap genes had turned this Pecos Pete tall-tale vaporware into grisly
functionality. Ribo Zombie had to opt for brute force: the steely wand of a back-
mounted flamethrower leapt into his wiry combat-gloves. Ignited in a pupil-searing
blast, the flaming mutant cholla whipped and flopped like epileptic spaghetti. Then
RZ and the faithful Skratchy were clambering up the limestone leg of the Federal
cache.

Anyone who had gotten this far could be justly exposed to the worst and most
glamorous gizmos ever cooked up by the Softwar Department's Counter-
Bioterrorism Corps.

The ducts of the diatom structure yawned open and deployed a lethal arsenal of
spore-grenade launchers, strangling vegetable bolas, and whole glittering clouds of
hotwired fleas and mosquitos. Any scab worth his yeast knew that those insect
vectors were stuffed to bursting with swift and ghastly illnesses, pneumonic plague
and necrotizing fasciitis among the friendlier ones.

"This must be the part where the cat saves him," said Tupper McClanahan, all cozy
in her throw rug on her end of the couch.

Startled out of his absorption, yet patiently indulgent, Fearon McClanahan froze the
screen with a tapped command to the petcocks on the feedlines. "What was that,
darling? I thought you were reading."

"I was." Smiling, Tupper held up a vintage Swamp Thing comic that had cost fully
ten percent of one month's trust-fund check. "But I always enjoy the parts of this
show that feature the cat. Remember when we clicked on those high-protein kitty
treats, during last week's cat sequence? Weeble loved those things."
Fearon looked down from the ergonomic couch to the spotless bulk of his snoring
pig, Weeble. Weeble had outgrown the size and weight described in his
documentation, but he made a fine hassock.

"Weeble loves anything we feed him. His omnivorous nature is part of his factory
specs, remember? I told you we'd save a ton on garbage bills."

"Sweetie, I never complain about Weeble. Weeble is your familiar, so Weeble is fine.
I've only observed that it might be a good idea if we got a bigger place."

Fearon disliked being interrupted while viewing his favorite outlaw stealth download.
He positively squirmed whenever Tupper sneakily angled around the subject of a
new place with more room. More room meant a nursery. And a nursery meant a
child. Fearon swerved to a change of topic.

"How can you expect Skratchy Kat to get Ribo Zombie out of this fix? Do you have
any idea what those flying bolas do to human flesh?"