"Peter F. Hamilton - Adam's Gene" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Peter F)

cost anything. But the AV trade had remained reasonably stable over the last 20 years. No matter the
physical changes in lifestyle, people would always want entertainment. And there was still all of David's
generation left to cater for, the has-beens and real-life refugees, surviving on an AV diet of the
regurgitated past. Nostalgia, reliving the dead days, always paid.

The girls were dancing around Eve, guiding her off the road onto the broad verge. Eve walked slowly,
careful not to bump into any of the impromptu cortege, a passive smile elevating her delicate lips. She
stepped up onto the verge, dew from the ragged grass sprinkling her bare feet. And David could hear the
girls singing.

Eve's here to play

Eve's here to stay

Eve'll drive the past away

Grow Eve grow

One of the new nursery rhymes, more truthful than any of those it replaced.

Eve stopped in the centre of the verge, ten yards from the entrance to David's drive. Her eyelids closed,
and the girls whooped for joy, their dance redoubling in vigour, frilly skirts billowing, arms flapping.

From where he was the figure appeared as a blank doll. But distance didn't mean anything; 22 years and
David could still sketch in every feature of that adolescent temptress face.

In the late afternoon, when the ecstatic girls had abandoned their vigil for tea and bed, after all the local
adults had shambled past for their surreptitious look, David put the lead on Rusty, his ageing labrador,
and sauntered down the drive. Close up, Eve's face set off all the old pangs, those sad middle-aged
tingles and thoughts of what might have been. The Graften Park executives had known what they were
doing when they chose her for Adam. Almost, he reminded himself sorrowfully. They understood the
equations for lust, and completely forgot about love.

Eve's eyelids remained closed, wisps of hair blowing across her face. It was a shame, he would have
liked one last look into those enchanting green eyes. When he glanced down, he saw her toes had
already melded together. The soles would be sending their roots down, blind yellow worms burrowing
through the soil a hundred times faster than any natural plant.

Rusty was sniffing round her ankles. David was tempted to let him cock his leg on her, a last defiant
two-fingered gesture. In the end he was quite relieved he didn't have that kind of worthless spite.

*****

The first time David encountered Charlotte was back in 2007 when he was managing a band called
Castlestorm; back when the world was comfortably insane, and solid metal machines performed
industry's hard labour. Castlestorm was a five-piece band out of Manchester, playing what he called pixie
rock, rehashing the kind of thing Genesis had mastered in the '70s: long meandering tracks, poetic lyrics
not quite sung, not quite spoken. He didn't care about the music, they were a good investment, that was
all.