"Harry Harrison - Bill 2 - On The Planet Of Robot Slaves" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Harry)

filled with caffeine. It tasted repulsive. But he could go on now. Crashed
open the door. Saw the encrusted gleam of chrome machinery, the small man who
was their master. "Shut door. Draft," Chmdu ordered as imperiously as the
last emperor. His prosthetic left hand whined latinly. It was of Italian
manufacture originally designed to open spaghetti pots. He used it to pick his
nose obscenely.56 "You think you got it in you? Become voodooman. A
keyboard killer?" "I know. Don't think. I cut my first tooth chewing a
computer mouse." "Hard do." "You can do?" "Nobody can do what
Chandu can do. I teach." The prosthetic slurped with a sound like sucking
spaghetti when he pointed to the leering console that almost filled the room.
"80386 CPU. 2 meg RAM. Math coprocessor. Pixel dedicated VDU." "Forget
the basics." He caressed the VDU obscenely. "This is mine. My VDU. I will be a
voodooman. Slap the dermatrodes to my skull. Hook me into the circuit."
"To skull? What you smoke? Surging currents from VDU surge your brain to fried
mush. Need body to absorb surges. Far from brain. This is suppositrod."
"Suppositrod!" his senses reeled. "You are not going to fix it to my temples?
You are going to stick it up my ass?" "You got it in one." Now he knew
why there was a hole in the seat of the console chair. But his physical
body was forgotten as the current surged succinctly. He was one with the VDU,
a voodooman. His senses hurtling through the bowels of the computer. All
black, all white." "Can't you afford color?" "No believe propaganda,"
the disembodied voice whispered into the core of his being. "Just for holo ads
in subways. Get suckers sign up. All black and white. Needs less RAM."57
Cold whiteness of ice, hot redness of red slid from his memory and crashed
into empty oblivion. Something loomed from the darkness, came closer, towering
out of sight. A skyscraper-size filing cabinet. Made of wood. Covered with
cobwebs. "What gives?" he screamed into the blackshot darkness. "Gives
a filing cabinet. No better way represent computer functions. What you expect?
Infinite blue space? Grid of pale blue neon? Color-coded spheres? Bullshit.
Holofilm crap for kiddies. How can chemical speed operating human mind follow
computer one-hundred thirty million operations a second? Can't. So program
written follow what is happening. That program generate this image for slow
human brain to follow. Is file cabinet. Open. More file cabinet inside. Open
drawer. Find program, card. Go to subprogram. All boring." "All boring as
buffalo chips!" His errant soul roared arrogantly into the susurrating
darkness. There was no reply. Chandu had fallen asleep. Cy learned. It
took every buknik he had. And more. He wanted to be a keyboard killer. More
than he wanted sex, drink, pot. Wanted it so bad he could taste it. It tasted
lousy. He still didn't mind. But more money was needed. And only one place
to get that. In the Spunkk. The subcity below the city. A world aside. Never
entered by authority who did not want to wade in the sewer that was the only
entrance. Cy waded. Kicked free of the last curl of encoilingly oleaginous
water and strode into El Mingatorio. Yellow light the color of a baby's bad
dream washed over the clientele. Which was a good idea since most were pretty
repulsive. Cy shouldered58them aside and slammed his fist on the
microscarred plastic of the bar. "Ouch!" he said. There was broken glass
there. "We're all out of Ouch," the bartender sneered through the sneer
permanently painted on his lips. With indeliblepaint. "The usual?" Cy
nodded. Distractedly. He had forgotten what his usual was. The obscenely fat
bloated walrus of a man draped across the bar to his left was drinking