"James Patrick Kelly - Bernardo's House" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kelly James Patrick)

тАЬI was cold."

тАЬYou was naked. You know what happens to naked?тАЭ She made a fist with her right hand and punched
the palm of her left. тАЬBin-bin-bin-bam. They take you, whether you say yes or no. Not fun."

The house thought she understood, but wished she didn't. тАЬI'm sorry."

тАЬYou be sweat sorry, sure.тАЭ The girl laughed. тАЬWhat your name?"

тАЬI told you. I'm Bernardo's house."
тАЬSpang that. You Louise."

тАЬLouise?тАЭ The house blinked. тАЬWhy Louise?"

тАЬNot know Louise's story?тАЭ The girl clearly found this a failing on the house's part. тАЬMost buzzy.тАЭ She
tapped her forefinger to the house's nose. тАЬLouise.тАЭ Then the girl touched her own nose. тАЬFly."

For a moment, the house was confused. тАЬThat's not a girl's name."

тАЬSure, not girl, not boy. Fly is Fly.тАЭ She tucked the pulse gun into the waistband of her pants. тАЬNobody
wants Fly, but then nobody catches Fly.тАЭ She stood. тАЬBuzzy-buzz. Now we find Bernardo."

тАЬBut..."

But what was the point? Let the girlтАФFlyтАФsee for herself that Bernardo wasn't home. Besides the house
longed to be looked at. Admired. Used. In Bernardo's room, Fly stretched out under the canopy of the
Ergotech bed and gazed up at the moonlit clouds drifting across the underside of the valence. She
clambered up the Gecko climbing wall in the gym and picked strawberries in the greenhouse. She
seemed particularly impressed by the Piero scent palette, which she discovered when the house filled her
jacuzzi with jasmine water. She had the houseтАФLouiseтАФgive each room a unique smell. Bernardo had
had a very low tolerance for scent; he said there were too many smells at the hospital. He even made the
house vent away the aromas of her cooking. Once in a while he might ask for a whiff of campfire smoke
or the nose of an old C├┤tes de Bordeaux, but he would never mix scents across rooms. Fly had Louise
breathe roses into the living room and seashore into the gym and onions frying in the kitchen. The onion
smell made her hungry again so she ate half of the chicken that Louise had roasted for her.

Fly spent the afternoon in the playroom, browsing Louise's entertainment archive. She watched a Daffy
Duck cartoon and a Harold Lloyd silent called Girl Shy and the rain delay episode from Jesus on First.
She seemed to prefer comedy and happy endings and had no use for ballet or Westerns or rap. She
balked at wearing spex or strapping on an airflex, so she skipped the sims. Although she had never
learned to read, she told Louise that a woman named Kuniko used to read her fairy tales. Fly asked if
Louise knew any and she hardcopied Grimm's Household Tales in the 1884 translation by Margaret
Hunt and read Little Briar-Rose.

Which was one of Bernardo's favorite fairy tales. Mostly he liked his fiction to be about history. Sailors
and cowboys and kings. War and politics. He had no use for mysteries or love stories or science fiction.
But every so often he would have her read a fairy tale and then he would try to explain it. He said fairy
tales could have many meanings, but she usually just got the one. She remembered that the time she had
read Briar Rose to him, he was working at his desk, the only intelligent system inside the house that she