"Greg Egan - Singleton" - читать интересную книгу автора (Egan Greg)

SingletonSingleton by Greg Egan тАЬOracleтАЭ | тАЬSingletonтАЭ Miscellaneous
Fiction contents Back to home page | Site Map | Framed Site Map 2003 I
was walking north along George Street towards Town Hall railway station,
pondering the ways I might solve the tricky third question of my linear
algebra assignment, when I encountered a small crowd blocking the footpath. I
didn't give much thought to the reason they were standing there; I'd just
passed a busy restaurant, and I often saw groups of people gathered outside.
But once I'd started to make my way around them, moving into an alley rather
than stepping out into the traffic, it became apparent that they were not
just diners from a farewell lunch for a retiring colleague, putting off their
return to the office for as long as possible. I could see for myself exactly
what was holding their attention. Twenty metres down the alley, a man was
lying on his back on the ground, shielding his bloodied face with his hands,
while two men stood over him, relentlessly swinging narrow sticks of some
kind. At first I thought the sticks were pool cues, but then I noticed the
metal hooks on the ends. I'd only ever seen these obscure weapons before in
one other place: my primary school, where an appointed window monitor would
use them at the start and end of each day. They were meant for opening and
closing an old-fashioned kind of hinged pane when it was too high to reach
with your hands. I turned to the other spectators. тАЬHas anyone called the
police?тАЭ A woman nodded without looking at me, and said, тАЬSomeone used their
mobile, a couple of minutes ago.тАЭ The assailants must have realised that the
police were on their way, but it seemed they were too committed to their task
to abandon it until that was absolutely necessary. They were facing away from
the crowd, so perhaps they weren't entirely reckless not to fear
identification. The man on the ground was dressed like a kitchen hand. He was
still moving, trying to protect himself, but he was making less noise than
his attackers; the need, or the ability, to cry out in pain had been beaten
right out of him. As for calling for help, he could have saved his breath. A
chill passed through my body, a sick cold churning sensation that came a
moment before the conscious realisation: I'm going to watch someone murdered,
and I'm going to do nothing. But this wasn't a drunken brawl, where a few
bystanders could step in and separate the combatants; the two assailants had
to be serious criminals, settling a score. Keeping your distance from
something like that was just common sense. I'd go to court, I'd be a witness,
but no one could expect anything more of me. Not when thirty other people had
behaved in exactly the same way. The men in the alley did not have guns. If
they'd had guns, they would have used them by now. They weren't going to mow
down anyone who got in their way. It was one thing not to make a martyr of
yourself, but how many people could these two grunting slobs fend off with
sticks? I unstrapped my backpack and put it on the ground. Absurdly, that made
me feel more vulnerable; I was always worried about losing my textbooks.
Think about this. You don't know what you're doing. I hadn't been in so much
as a fist fight since I was thirteen. I glanced at the strangers around me,
wondering if anyone would join in if I implored them to rush forward
together. But that wasn't going to happen. I was a willowy, unimposing
eighteen-year-old, wearing a T-shirt adorned with Maxwell's Equations. I had
no presence, no authority. No one would follow me into the fray. Alone, I'd
be as helpless as the guy on the ground. These men would crack my skull open
in an instant. There were half a dozen solid-looking office workers in their