"Alexander Jablokov - Dead Man" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jablokov Alexander)

тАЬIтАЩve heard of people planning things like this. Going up, leaving their bodies
too: itтАЩs like some weird kind of sex, where you reproduce your mind instead of
your body.тАЭ

тАЬIтАЩve already told you, Ian. You think IтАЩm yanking your chain? If so, IтАЩm
paying well for the privilege. But thereтАЩs no conspiracy here. I thought IтАЩd died in a
car crash, and been successfully and fully uploaded. Then I find my body still
lumbering around. I donтАЩt like it.тАЭ

His bodyтАФthe dead manтАФhad popped up on a security cam in a 7-Eleven in
Davenport, Iowa. The image was fuzzy, but you could see he looked like hell:
bandages, splints, an osmotic minipump hanging under his arm. But definitely,
defiantly, alive. He shaved in a service station bathroom in Moline. The DNA trace
on the disposable razor was definitely my clientтАЩs. His bodyтАЩs. And that was the last
trace IтАЩd found of the dead man. There, somewhere on the high bluffs above the
Mississippi, heтАЩd vanished.

IтАЩd staked out every place he knew, or could take comfort from, the homes of
friends, the town heтАЩd gone to college in, kept an eye on art exhibits and cafes he
might be drawn to. Nothing. He didnтАЩt even visit the grave of his wife, Carol, whoтАЩd
died, for real, a year or so before his car accident. He had advice. Someone was
helping him.

тАЬRun me through that accident,тАЭ I said. тАЬTell me what happened.тАЭ

тАЬCrummy driving,тАЭ he said. тАЬThatтАЩs what happened.тАЭ

****

HeтАЩd been in a hurry, on his way from his motel to a dinner meeting with an
important client, and running late. It was late fall, and a patch of ice had stayed in the
shadow of an overpass, while every other remnant of the freezing rain of the day
before had melted. HeтАЩd been moving at the limits of the safe speed of dry
pavement. When he hit ice, he had no margin for error.

And that was it. He spun out, slammed into the abutment, and bled out there,
far from emergency services. He did remember being pinned in the wreckage, metal
pushing into him through the vain protection of the deflated air bag. And he
remembered approaching headlights turning the concrete abutment into a hazy
column of light.

Then heтАЩd come to, screaming, bleeding, dying. Not in an ambulance, as he
might have expected, but, instead, in the back of a minivan crammed with electronic
gear.

And that was the last thing he remembered. Presumably there had been a lot
more, as his mind was transferred and beamed up, but the hippocampus stops
converting short- to long-term memory during the transition, and protein synthesis
went haywire, so there could be no memory of that time. So all weтАЩd had to work