"Gibson, William - Count Zero" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gibson William)

And Andrea had had to loan her the fare for the Eurotrans.
With a conscious, painful effort of will, she broke from the
circle of her thoughts and merged with the dense but sedate
flow of serious Belgian shoppers.
A girl in bright tights and a boyfriend's oversized loden
jacket brushed past, scrubbed and smiling. At the next inter-
section, Marly noticed an outlet for a fashion line she'd
favored in her own student days. The clothes looked impossi-
bly young.
In her white and secret fist, the telefax.
Galerie Duperey, 14 Rue au Beurre, Bruxelles
Josef Virek.

The receptionist in the cool gray anteroom of the Galerie
Duperey might well have grown there, a lovely and likely
poisonous plant, rooted behind a slab of polished marble
inlaid with an enameled keyboard. She raised lustrous eyes as
Marly approached. Marly imagined the click and whirr of
shutters, her bedraggled image whisked away to some far
corner of Josef Virek's empire.
`Marly Krushkhova," she said, fighting the urge to pro-
duce the compacted wad of telefax, smooth it pathetically on
the cool and flawless marble. "For Herr Virek."
"Fraulein Krushkhova," the receptionist said, "Herr Virek
is unable to be in Brussels today."
Marly stared at the perfect lips, simultaneously aware of
the pain the words caused her and the sharp pleasure she was
learning to take in disappointment. "I see."
"However, he has chosen to conduct the interview via a
sensory link. If you will please enter the third door on your
left .

The room was bare and white. On two walls hung un-
framed sheets of what looked like rain-stained cardboard,
stabbed through repeatedly with a variety of instruments.
Katatonenkunst. Conservative. The sort of work one sold to
committees sent round by the boards of Dutch commercial
banks.
She sat down on a low bench covered in leather and finally
allowed herself to release the telefax. She was alone, but
assumed that she was being observed somehow.
"Fraulein Krushkhova." A young man in a technician's
dark green smock stood in the doorway opposite the one
through which she'd entered. "In a moment, please, you will
cross the room and step through this door. Please grasp the
knob slowly, firmly, and in a manner that affords maximum
contact with the flesh of your palm. Step through carefully.
There should be a minimum of spatial disorientation."
She blinked at him "I beg"
"The sensory link," he said, and withdrew, the door clos-