"Kathleen Ann Goonan - Nanotech 02- Mississippi Blues" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goose Mother)

are out of scale, bigger than the deserted L. Steele Department
Store just outside of Dayton. I am relieved when they darken again
for I can forget that they exist when I donтАЩt see them.
Everyone IтАЩve ever known is dead, or gone, or, in the case of
Verity, changed to some sort of inhuman being. Hot tears course
down my cheeks. I collapse on a bench. I nod and take a beer some
ecstatic soul presses into my hand before she reels away and swig it
down, suddenly angry with everything. I clench my head between
my trembling hands and a huge, single sob rips through me.
I leap from the bench and run, uphill, into the City, away from
the wildness. Panting, drenched in sweat after three blocks of
running, I stop, and sway.
Yes, this is a quiet street. Blessedly so, for I remember more of
my story. I wasnтАЩt really aware of what was happening so itтАЩs just a
story to me.
Okay. My chest was ripped open from JohnтАЩs rifle shot. Verity
wrapped me in nan sheets that flashed with tiny lights. I was not
conscious but my body did not deteriorate. Had John known that
those sheets were there in the attic for so many years, he surely
would have destroyed them. It would have made him supremely
angry to be saved by them, as apparently he was, though he may
still lie dead within them, somewhere. Verity braved the wilderness
between Miamisburg and Cincinnati, stashed me (still alive but
suspended) in Union Station, and dared to enter Cincinnati, this
fortress surrounded by a nan-generated wall, enlivened within by
nan.
ThereтАЩs that flickering again. ItтАЩs unsettling. Verity said thatтАЩs
part of the rebooting process. Oh, GodтАФa picture of VerityтАЩs face!
ButтАФnow itтАЩs gone, leaving just a blank gray wall. It shone from
the side of the building. For a moment itтАЩs hard to breathe.
But it really is like a dream here, so IтАЩm not going to run
screaming through the night, as seems appropriate. I canтАЩt get
upset over every little thing. I keep walking.
Anyway, Verity did all this to find out how to revive me. But
then, from what I can gather, she freed Cincinnati. IтАЩm not sure
what she freed it from. Something about how it was programmed,
and how the people were filled with the thoughts and lives of others
almost like slaves, year after year, and were stored somehow,
suspended, between their brief flashes of lived time.
IтАЩm about six blocks from the river and itтАЩs quiet. I
rememberтАФitтАЩs not too far from the library. Verity tried to get me
to go in a little while ago but I refused. I see a lovely building on my
right called the Netherlands Hotel and admire the beautiful
phrasing of matter Verity says is Art Deco. But then it all twists
and blurs before my eyes. IтАЩve never been sick in my life and it is
just awful to be this way. Queasy, uneasy, and afflicted with visual
processing problems, thatтАЩs what Sphere called it.
Down the street, in the center of a sort of mall, a black man sits
on the base of a fountain, playing a guitar.
He is a lone, dark figure, and his shadow-double looms large on