"L. Timmel Duchamp - Quinn's Deal" - читать интересную книгу автора (Duchamp L Timmel)

QUINN'S DEAL
L Timmel Duchamp
A DF Books NERDs Release

Copyright ┬й1997 by L. Timmel Duchamp

Quinn awoke; and he found a robotic arm positioned over him, literally in his face. He blinked several
times, and pried open his lips. (His mouth was dry and grotty, his tongue thick and furry.) He twisted his
head, and saw at once from its cosmetic design that it was a med-bot. He cleared his throat and worked
at getting his saliva flowing. To make the robot understand him, he'd have to speak clearly. ? Where am
I?? he said. He was dismayed to hear the words come out like mush. ? And what am I doing here??

? L. Quinn, you are sufficiently recovered to be discharged,? the med-bot said in the tone of robot
speech designated ? friendly informational.? The tone struck Quinn as infuriatingly, inappropriately
casual.

? Discharged from what?? Quinn said, a little more clearly. A motor somewhere on the robot whined,
and a thinner, shorter limb, which Quinn only now noticed, retracted from his forearm. The sudden lifting
of pressure and the sensation of air brushing his skin made Quinn feel exposed and shivery. He realized
that his shirt had been removed. He struggled into a sitting position and glanced down at his arm. The
skin, he saw, had been bruised.

? This is the Indigent ER Unit,? the robot said. One of its arms forked over his stinky, sweaty tee-shirt.
? Your condition is stable. You cannot stay here.?

Quinn pulled on the shirt. ER unit. Med-bot. Yeah, it was coming back to him. He'd been feeling under
the weather all day, and by six, when he clocked out, really, really sick. He'd been drinking water like
crazy, because of what he'd figured was a bladder infection. Then, jumping down out of the back of
Eddie's van, he'd been hit with dizziness, cold sweats and bad shakes. Got so convinced he was going to
vomit, he'd dropped to his knees to do it, right there on the site. And everything had gone black...

Quinn slid off the table, then-seeing stars-clutched at it. Man, he felt wrung out. Like he'd been doing
Santa Clara for a week without coming down.

? Take the the printout, L. Quinn,? the robot said.

Quinn looked at the thing and saw a narrow strip of flimsy spooling out of one of several different-sized
slots that slashed the matte black finish of its ? chest.? Quinn had to work with robots; and because of
the work he did with them, he felt suspicious of what this one was up to. And so his mouth and eyes
scrunched as he tore the printout out of the slot, as though doing so was causing him pain.

The narrow strip of flimsy was about as crude as printouts got. L. Quinn. Male. Uninsured. Age: 36.
Admitted by Seattle Downtown Merchants' Authority to ER Unit 04.10.37; 18:23:44, condition
diabetic coma. Diagnosis: Diabetes Mellitus. Rx: Insulin pump or gene therapy. And that was it.

? Follow the orange stripe on the floor to the Bursar's Office,? the med-bot said.

Quinn felt a plunging sensation in his belly. He looked from the limp strip of printout dangling from his
fingers to the med-bot. Bursar's Office. Jesus! What was he going to do? Diabetes was one of those
things you had to deal with, or it killed you! Oh man, and on $9000 a year max (when he was getting