"Peter F. Hamilton - The White Stuff" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Peter F)

It was crazy. They marched into a jeans shop that was chromed, strobed, and shaking with some classic
Pulp. A bored girl assistant read a tatty X Libris paperback behind the counter. The boys clustered at the
back, sunburst xenon pulses segmenting their movements to robotic jerks as they stuffed jeans into plastic
carrier bags. Then they sauntered out casually. The assistant never even glanced up.
Nigel started after them, slackjawed; then he saw the two white pillars on either side of the open door.
Why not? he thought. If they can cobble up something that'll scramble a radar trap, then why not
something to jam a shop's security tags?

Outside on the pavement a man was struggling past, carrying what looked like a huge painting, an oblong
of brown wrapping paper five foot by three foot, barely an inch thick. A furtive look in his eye suggested
he'd just snapped up a bargain.

Nigel raised a finger. "Excuse me."

It was a flatscreen television. No need to use up valuable living room space with a bulky black cabinet,
just screw it on the wall, neat and out of the way. The screen was edged with a solar collector frame, so
it didn't need to be plugged into the mains. Better yet, the man confided, it wouldn't register on TV
detector van equipment, no need for a licence. And all for a hundred pounds.

Nigel knew that the corporate giants like Sony, JVC, Goldstar, IBM, and Racal had spent most of the
last decade and hundreds of millions of dollars into cracking the concept of flat wide screens.

The blue chips would be haemorrhaging white tonight.
"Mobile phone, mister?" A dreadlocked Asian boy smiled winningly; two missing front teeth turned him
into a juvenile vampire. "It's got a floating clone number, you never get a bill. Twenty quid folding, or a
sovereign."

"Sod off."

***

Miranda was waiting for him on the leather settee in his lounge, denim shirt unbuttoned to show off a
small black bra.

"How the fuck did you get in here?"

She grinned, and held up a snow-white version of his HiSecure infrared key. "Fair's fair, Nigel. You got
the key to my panties."

"You shouldn't be carrying that kind of gadget round with you right now. People are starting to realize
what afto-aspro can be made to do."

"Sure they are. They've seen what's coming; they're gonna be carrying themselves pretty soon. Just like
Ilkia said. Have you seen the way it's taking off? Stuff's flooding out of the sink estates. There's kids in
every city got a breeder chip now. Nobody's going to stop it."

He glanced up from the Twenties glitz-mirror cocktail bar. "A breeder chip? You found out something?"

For once the youthful confidence was missing. She shivered a little as she took the Pimms he'd mixed.
"Yeah. I got Ilkia to take me to the Cameroon boys' squat. They showed me. All you need to make