"James Patrick Kelly - Chemistry (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kelly James Patrick)

out
at Wally's?"
"This isn't about sex, Lily, it's about feelings.
Believe me, after they crank your hypothalamus you
won't
be able tell the difference between neuromance and
the
real thing."
"Says you."
"Emotions aren't magic, doctor. They are reproducible
 brain states."
This was something Lily knew to be true, but
preferred
not to think about -- like the correlation between
cheesecake and adipose tissue. "Anyway," she said,
"we
can't afford it."
"Love makes all things possible."
Lily doubted that, but she said nothing.
"I wonder what kind of men go out on a Monday night?"
Marja smirked. "Gourmet cooks. Don't fancy
restaurants
close on Mondays?"
Lily set her spex on the kitchen table, mirror side
down, so she wouldn't accidentally catch a glimpse of
herself goofing off. "Weekend weathermen," she said.
"Priests cutting loose after a long Sunday. I need to
study tonight, and so do you." She got up to stretch
her
legs, but of course there was no room. She and Marja
had
squeezed into an efficiency apartment off campus and
their stuff filled the place to overflowing. Two yard
sale dressers, two futons, a MedNet node, a whiny
refrigerator, a microwave on the kitchen table, two
plastic chairs. They had to wash dishes in the
bathroom,
which had once been a closet. The closet was a
clothesline stretched across the west wall. When the
place was picked up she could take four, maybe five
steps without bumping into something, but at the
moment
piles of hardcopy booby-trapped the floor like paper
banana peels. There was a word for their lifestyle,
she
realized. Squalor.
"How long have we known each other?" said Marja.
"Almost
two years and you haven't even breathed on a man.
They're not all Glenns, you know. Look, we can fall