"James Patrick Kelly - Itsy Bitsy Spider" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kelly James Patrick)

"Shit." I kicked the door one last time, but my heart wasn't in it. I shouldn't have been surprised that
he had slipped over the edge. He was almost ninety.
 "If you want to sit and talk, I'd like that very much." The bot gestured toward a banana yellow
beanbag chair. "Otherwise, I'm going to have to ask you to leave."


It was the shock of seeing the bot, I told myselfтАФI'd reacted like a hurt little girl. But I was a grown
woman and it was time to start behaving like one. I wasn't here to let Peter Fancy worm his way back
into my feelings. I had come because of Mom.
"Actually," I said, "I'm here on business." I opened my purse. "If you're running his life now, I guess
this is for you." I passed her the envelope and settled back, tucking my legs beneath me. There is no way
for an adult to sit gracefully in a beanbag chair.
She slipped the check out. "It's from Mother." She paused, then corrected herself, "Her estate." She
didn't seem surprised.
"Yes."
"It's too generous."
"That's what I thought."
"She must've taken care of you too?"
"I'm fine." I wasn't about to discuss the terms of Mom's will with my father's toy daughter.
"I would've liked to have known her," said the bot. She slid the check back into the envelope and
set it aside. "I've spent a lot of time imagining Mother."
I had to work hard not to snap at her. Sure, this bot had at least a human equivalent intelligence and
would be a free citizen someday, assuming she didn't break down first.
But she had a cognizor for a brain and a heart fabricated in a vat. How could she possibly imagine
my mom, especially when all she had to go on was whatever lies he had told her?
"So how bad is he?"
She gave me a sad smile and shook her head. "Some days are better than others. He has no clue
who President Huong is or about the quake, but he can still recite the dagger scene from Macbeth. I
haven't told him that Mother died. He'd just forget it ten minutes later."
"Does he know what you are?"
"I am many things, Jen."
"Including me."
"You're a role I'm playing, not who I am." She stood. "Would you like some tea?"
"Okay." I still wanted to know why Mom had left my father four hundred and thirty-eight thousand
dollars in her will. If he couldn't tell me, maybe the bot could.
She went to her kitchen, opened a cupboard, and took out a regular-sized cup. It looked like a
bucket in her little hand. "I don't suppose you still drink Constant Comment?"
His favorite. I had long since switched to rafallo. "That's fine." I remembered that when I was a kid
my father used to brew cups for the two of us from the same bag because Constant Comment was so
expensive. "I thought they went out of business long ago."
"I mix my own. I'd be interested to hear how accurate you think the recipe is."
"I suppose you know how I like it?"
She chuckled.
"So, does he need the money?"
The microwave dinged. "Very few actors get rich," said the bot. I didn't think there had been
microwaves in the six-ties, but then strict historical accuracy wasn't really the point of Strawberry Fields.
"Especially when they have a weakness for Shakespeare."
"Then how come he lives here and not in some flop? And how did he afford you?"
She pinched sugar between her index finger and thumb, then rubbed them together over the cup. It
was something I still did, but only when I was by myself. A nasty habit; Mom used to yell at him for