"James Patrick Kelly - Ninety Percent of Everything" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kelly James Patrick)

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Ninety Percent of Everything
by Jonathan Lethem, James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel
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Copyright (c)1999 by Jonathan Lethem, James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel
First published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, September 1999

Fictionwise Contemporary
Science Fiction
Nebula Award(R) Nominee

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The pix on my desk said, "There's an avatar on the line for you, Liz.
Ramsdel Wetherall, looking for an appointment."
Understand that I was as amazed by this as if it had said "Bela Lugosi"
or "William the Conqueror." The idea that Ramsdel Wetherall would want to talk
to me was that far-fetched. But my pix couldn't be wrong.
"Put him off. I'll take the meeting in eight ... no, ten minutes." I
needed time to see what I could learn about the reclusive mogul's latest
hijinks.
Then I'd decide if I wanted to let him hijink me.
_ProfitWeek_ called Wetherall's acquisition of seventy percent of the
island nation of Grenada the machinations of an eccentric genius.
On Mother's Day, a panel of experts on _NewsMelt_ debated Wetherall's
new infodump about management by avatar. They gave it a mixed review.
A transcript from _America, America_ hypothesized that the sixth
richest man in the world had gone into hiding because he'd come down with an
exotic disease, contracted from one or more of his myriad sexual partners.
No, said _Channel Lore_, the shitdogs had taken over his mind by
infiltrating his avatars.
_Hemisphere Confidential Report_ had pix of Wetherall indulging his
hobby in the smart lasso competition at the sixteenth annual Wyoming Tech
Rodeo. He placed second.
And just last week _Eye_ had interviewed several astonishingly
attractive women in whom Wetherall avatars had expressed a romantic interest.
His attorneys had asked them to sign pre-introduction agreements, which
prohibited disclosure of any personal encounter with Wetherall, should they
ever have one. None of them had. Or so they said.
The search had turned up about what I'd expected: too much speculation
and not enough facts. And my appointment was in two minutes.