"Richard Kadrey - Metrophage" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kadrey Richard)

an ancient MGM musical played in the background: I want to be
loved by you, by you, and nobody else but you... The words
CARNABY'S PIT periodically superimposed themselves over the scene
in Kana and Roman characters.


file:///C|/2590%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20E-books/Metrophage.htm (3 of 191) [12/28/2004 12:40:39 AM]
Richard Kadrey: Metrophage

Jonny pushed his way through a group of Pemex-U.S. workers
negotiating for rice wine at the weekend mercado that covered the
street near Fountain Avenue. The air was thick with the scents of
animal waste, sweat, roasting meat and hashish. Chickens beat their
wings against wire cages while legless vat-grown sheep lay docilely
in the butchers' stalls, waiting for their turn on their skewers. Old
women in hipils motioned Jonny over, holding up bright bolts of
cloth, bootleg computer chips and glittering butterfly knives. Jonny
kept shaking his head. No, gracias...Ima ja naku...Nein..."
Handsome young Germans, six of them, all in the latest eel-skin
cowboy boots and silk overalls (marked with the logo of some
European movie studio) lugged portable holo-recorders between the
stalls, making another in their endless series of World Link
documentaries about the death of street culture. Those quickly-made
documentaries and panel discussions about the Alpha Rats (who they
were, their intentions, their burden on the economy of the West)
seemed to make up the bulk of the Link's broadcasts these days.
Jonny swore that if he heard one more learned expert coolly
discussing the logic of drug and food rationing, he was going to
personally bury fifty kilos of C-4 plastique under the local Link
station and make his own contribution to street culture by liberating
a few acres of prime urban landscape.
At a stall near the back of the place, an old curandera was
selling her evil eye potions and a collection of malfunctioning robot
sentries: cybernetic goshawks, rottweilers and cougars, simple track
and kill devices controlled by a tabletop microwave link. The sentries
had been very popular with the nouveau riche toward the end of the
previous century, but the animals' electronics and maintenance
had proved to be remarkably unreliable. Eventually they passed, like
much of the mercado's merchandise, down from the hills, through the
rigid social strata of L.A., until they landed in the street, last stop
before the junk heap.
There by the twitching half-growling animals, the crew set up
their lights. Jonny hung around and watched them block out shots.
The film makers infuriated him, but in their own way, Jonny knew,
they were right.
The market was dying. When he had been a boy, Jonny
remembered it sprawling over a dozen square blocks. Now it barely
managed to occupy two. And most of the merchandise was junk.
Chromium paint flaked off the electronic components, revealing
ancient rusted works. The hydroponically grown fruits and