"FWLS11" - читать интересную книгу автора (A Future We'd Like to See)

"One use installer, man. You just push that cube 'gainst
yer head in here, and bam, it's in there for good."

"Sounds rather... permanent."

"Hey, man, this COULD be the gaming wave of the century,"
Auto said. "You prog games. How would you like to miss some new
tech and end up a cruddy shareware coder for the rest of YOUR
life?"

"Shareware isn't that bad," I said. "I did a quick number
for DI Softcorp awhile back. They were working on some VOS
convert to a home video game system. Shame though, the cheap-ass
company made them take out all the good stuff in the game."

"Either way, if this soft widebands and sells millions,
you're gonna have missed your only chance to examine it first and
make a clone... money, money money for you."

"Alright, alright!" I caved in. "I'll take it."

"You won't regret it, man," Auto said, throwing the slippery
cube back to me. "It's the shit that dreams are made of. Gotta
jack, my mom's probably pissed that I missed dinner again.
Kudos."

The grubby image of Auto derezzed from the net. I examined
the cube again. It didn't look like much, just a constantly
morphing cube, writhing in my virtual hands.

Well, it can't hurt to try it out. But I'd better get some
backup assistance too. I took a deep breath, and pushed the cube
against my forehead.

BIP. Nothing. Cube gone, no weird feelings at all.
Normally, if this was a dramatic production, there'd be whiz-bang
special effects all over the place. In fact, I think I'd be
infinitely more comfortable if there were.

I jacked out, the loud but familiar setting of the
Peasluvdope club fading into view. My brain seemed to be
working... there was still the Looking Into Infinity look the
club had, but that's because of the mirrors everywhere, not any
fault with my brain.

I certainly looked normal. Baseball cap : backwards. Skin
: black. Species : human. Sex : male. Armpits... sniff, hmm :
acceptable.