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

voltage of money flowing through the cables of the City's finance web was so great nobody was going to
risk shorting it out. So Nigel and his kind were still allowed to play their fast, adrenaline-high game.

Bathing in the timid blue phosphorescence of the monitors, he drank down information, hungry for the
elusive patterns that bespoke success. When he found one, a bond, a rights issue, a commodity, he
pumped money into the precious new find, guarding the knowledge until the stock rose and his
investment grew ripe for harvest. He bred money from money, a nexus between data and currency
arranging diabolical matings. Always on the hunt for new brides. A search he could run on autopilot these
days. Same as his life.
And so unlike Miranda, the young redhead who had unsettled him. A teeny-rebel, making money and
having fun, delighting in life. She made him realize that his own secret promises to himself had been
broken; that his technicolour dreams had been pawned to pay for a permanent place on the trading floor.
Freshness for stability.
That drink in The Swan had turned into two before she would even tell him her name. Then when he'd
offered to take her to dinner she'd narrowed her eyes at him.

"It's a good thing I'm older than I look," she said, fingering the stem of her glass.

"Why? How old do you look?" The stupidity of this question didn't strike him until long afterwards.

He'd collected her from The Swan later that evening. Later than he intended, actually. The floor had gone
through one of those unexplained jittery days; as if nervousness had suddenly mutated into an airborne
virus, circulated by the slow-spinning rooftop fans of the City's air conditioners. End-of-month figures
showed African imports of electronics were down, reducing the continent's borrowing. Rumour-quakes
ran gleefully through the money market. Several blue chip companies turned slightly pale. He hated days
like that, hated the disorder.

Miranda had waited, though, an encouraging measure of her eagerness to sample the good life. She'd
applied too much make-up, and that a little carelessly, but it didn't diminish her. He broke the speed limit
thanks to his new box and tried to impress her by taking her to a Chelsea restaurant supposedly used by
Princess Di, knowing she'd be completely out of her depth. Princess Di wasn't in, but it looked as if the
ma├оtre d' was operating a beauty code for patrons.

"Hot dump this, eh?" Miranda said as they sat. Her gaze hardened as she took in the designer dresses by
Lang, Versolato, Rocha, and Westwood. Her own dress was some not-quite-Goth purple velvet with a
low front and black lace sleeves.

"All the best TFBs come here," Nigel assured her.

"?"

"Trust Fund Babes. Never done a day's work in their lives."

"You normally go out with women like that?"

"Only when they're slumming. They tend to go for farmers who own half of Sussex."

Miranda ordered the same dishes as him; she watched him carefully when the food arrived, mirroring his
movements, and choosing the same cutlery. It wasn't as amusing as he'd expected. She was so bloody
determined. He knew that for the rest of her life now she would always select the right fork, would tilt her