"Greg Egan - Distress (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Egan Greg)

opalescent laser port.
Gina called out from the kitchen, "Are you performing unnatural acts with that machine again?"
I was too tired to think of an intelligent retort. I snapped the connectors together, and the
console lit up.
The screen showed everything as it came through. Eight hours' worth in sixty seconds-most of it an
incomprehensible blur, but I averted my gaze anyway. 1 didn't much feel like reliving any of the
night's events, however briefly.
Gina wandered in with a plate of toast; I hit a button to conceal the image. She said, "I still
want to know how you can have four thousand terabytes of RAM in your peritoneal cavity, and no
visible scars."
I glanced down at the connector socket. "What do you call that? Invisible?"
"Too small. Eight-hundred-terabyte chips are thirty millimeters wide. I looked up the
manufacturer's catalogue."
"Sherlock strikes again. Or should I say Shylock? Scars can be erased, can't they?"
"Yes. But . . . would you have obliterated the marks of your most important rite of passage?"
"Spare me the anthropological babble." "I do have an alternative theory."
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"I'm not confirming or denying anything."
She let her gaze slide over the blank console screen, up to the Repo Man poster on the wall behind
it: a motorcycle cop standing behind a dilapidated car. She caught my eye, then gestured at the
caption: DON'T LOOK IN THE TRUNK!
"Why not? What's in the trunk!"
I laughed. "You can't bear it anymore, can you? You're just going to have to watch the movie."
"Yeah, yeah."
The console beeped. I unhooked. Gina looked at me curiously; the expression on my face must have
betrayed something. "So is it like sex, or more like defecation?"
"It's more like Confession."
"You've never been to Confession in your life."
"No, but I've seen it in the movies. I was joking, though. It's not like anything at all."
She glanced at her watch, then kissed me on the cheek, leaving toast crumbs. "I have to run. Get
some sleep, you idiot. You look terrible."
I sat and listened to her bustling around. She had a ninety-minute train journey every morning to
the CSIRO's wind turbine research station, west of the Blue Mountains. I usually got up at the
same time myself, though. It was better than waking alone.
I thought: 1 do love her. And if I concentrate, if 1 follow the rules, there's no reason why it
can't last. My eighteen-month record was looming-but that was nothing to fear. We'd smash it,
easily.
She reappeared in the doorway. "So, how long do you have to edit this one?"
"Ah. Three weeks exactly. Counting today." I hadn't really wanted to be reminded.
"Today doesn't count. Get some sleep."
We kissed. She left. I swung my chair around to face the blank console.
Nothing was over. I was going to have to watch Daniel Cavolini die a hundred more times, before I
could finally disown him.
I limped into the bedroom and undressed. I hung my clothes on the cleaning rack, and switched on
the power. The polymers in the various fabrics expelled all their moisture in a faint humid
exhalation, then packed the remaining dirt and dried sweat into a fine, loose dust, and
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discarded it electrostatically. I watched it drift down into the receptacle;
it was always the same disconcerting blue-something to do with the particle size. I had a quick
shower, then climbed into bed.