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

telephone handsets and reading five displays at once were long gone. After the holocaust of corporate
casualties afto-aspro had inflicted on the global economy, what remained was rock solid stable. The
international financial playing field still wasn't exactly level, but the disparity between the developed
nations and what had been the Third World was a lot smaller. In fact, the distinction between the two
was now measured in the amount of infrastructure a country had: industrial output per capita was
approaching equilibrium. As people suddenly realized, the Third World had a lot of heavy engineering
plants, most of them built by the multinationals who wished to exploit the cheap labour costs such
countries boasted as their principal asset.

Nigel walked down the row of silent, blank computers knowing how grave-robbers must feel. Dealers
just picked over the bones these days; they didn't control or dictate like before. But like everyone else,
he'd adjusted. He was good at picking over bones, spotting the scraps of flesh. His position was almost
as safe in the new order as it had been in the old.

"Some weird delegation in," one of the dealers muttered uneasily as Nigel sat at his station. "Austin's been
talking to them for forty minutes."

Four people were sitting in Austin St. Clair's glass wall office. Not the usual collection of Armani and
Yamamoto power suits either. Three black men and a red-headed white woman, all dressed in army
surplus fatigues and combat boots.
Austin St. Clair caught sight of Nigel, and met him at the door. "Trouble," he announced bleakly before
Nigel could get into the office. "Anarchist freaks from the London-Cameroon software collective.
They've made an approach to our board for improving the trading floor's performance. So they say."
As the door closed behind Nigel, he glanced over at the intruders, and froze. It was Miranda. Miranda
looking poised, taller, broader, delectable.

"Hi there, Nigel. It's been a while."

"Miranda?" He tried to retain his composure. "What's new?"

"Meet the boys from the collective. We're about to buy you out."

"Buy us out? Well, I see you joined the human race. I always said ex- anarchists make the best
capitalists." He tried an uneasy laugh.
"Not quite." She glanced at Austin St. Clair as if to decide his trustworthiness, then shrugged and relaxed.
"Actually, we're going to stamp you out, Nigel."

"No way."

"You like the way I look now?"

"What? Yes. Yes, I suppose so."

"It's the latest afto-aspro; our collective specialises in compositional programs for organic substitutes. I
had a few implants."

"They suit you. You suit you."

"We don't really give a fuck about cosmetics, of course; but it helps screw up the income for private
clinics. What we're concentrating on is providing enhanced automated intellectual services."