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

seconds before he'd passed out.) ? Uh look,? he said. ? I, well, I can't do that. I can't authorize the
debit. There's not much more than that in my account right now. And my pay period has about three
weeks to run yet.? Quinn grew painfully conscious of the woman behind him, waiting to use the teller.
He hated having to conduct his business in front of other people.

? L. Quinn, please stand by. A manager will be out shortly, to assist you.? The teller beeped and his
plastic card popped through the outtake slot.

Quinn stood away from the machine to let the woman behind him take her turn. ? Welcome to the
Bursar's Office,? the teller at once began its spiel. Quinn glanced around. The Bursar's Office did not, of
course, provide chairs for people who had need to wait. He was dead, zombie-tired. No way was he
going to go on standing, for all that the teller had used the word ? shortly.? He dropped to the floor and
propped his back against the rough, cinder-block wall (painted, of course, a screamingly impatient
orange). As far as he knew, only Harborview had an indigent ER unit. That must be where he was. In
which case he'd have to catch two buses to get home. Man. He was always zombie-tired at the end of a
long day's work. But he couldn't remember ever feeling this tired (except, of course, when coming down
off Santa Clara, which he hadn't done for five years at least).

Quinn waited for most of an hour. Again and again he opened the little strip of paper he kept folded in a
tiny square and read the verdict. Diagnosis: Diabetes Mellitus. Rx: Insulin pump or gene therapy.
Several times he considered setting out in search of a vending machine so he could get some water, but
each time decided he didn't want to risk missing being called. As he waited, a steady trickle of people
came to use the automated teller-to be taken to the cleaners, Quinn thought-but to his surprise, none of
them required the ? assistance? of a manager. They all either had insurance or (apparently) no problem
paying the sums demanded. Assistance, right. They figure they need a human to really turn the
screws, the way a robot isn't slick enough to do. Pay now, or we'll go to court, which will mean
paying two or three times as much by the time we're done with you. And of course they had to be
careful what things they programmed a robot to say. Though you couldn't hold a human responsible for
saying certain things if the human claimed they were ? slips? or whatever, everything a robot said could
(if one had the resources, which people generally did not) be held up to scrutiny. Lies used in
deal-making constituted fraud-if the liar were caught.

The trick, Quinn thought, was spotting the lies as they were mixed in with the truth. He wasn't on familiar
turf here. He was going to have to operate on guesswork and instinct. They wouldn't lie about the
diabetes. I mean, I have the flimsy. They surely wouldn't lie about that, man, would they?

His grandmother, he suddenly remembered, had had diabetes. That was the whole point of the scene in
the VA hospital, the whole point of his Uncle Kenny going to jail afterwards ... Diabetes, he thought, had
a good chance of being in his genes.

When the steel door opened, a robot hovered on the threshold and called Quinn's name. Quinn got to his
feet, but had to stand against the wall for a few seconds, until the blackness and stars had receded. Then
he followed the robot into a little reception area smelling of old, burnt coffee. ? Mr Penneman,? it said,
? will see you now.?

Quinn glanced around, found the closed, pebbled-glass door stenciled Philip Penneman, Ph.D. , and
walked on wobbly legs to it. He flashed on the scene-of which he had seen a CNN tape-of his uncle
holding the grenade in the VA operating room, and saying over and over and over like a mantra, She
was a Gulf War vet, for goddsake. It's her right, not a privilege, man. Of course no one could get
into any hospital these days without first being thoroughly searched for weapons. Even the smallest clinic