"Nancy Kress - Steamship Soldier on the Information Front" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kress Nancy)

over from the generation that could name a computer after a fruit and a communications
language after a hot beverage. Still, some of those geezer geeks still had it. Worth a skirmish.
"Your car is waiting at these coordinates," his wristwatch said, displaying them along with a
route map of Logan. "Thank you for using the Micro Global Positioning System."
Allan tacked through the crowd, past the fast food kiosks, the public terminal booths, the
VR parlors crammed with kids parked there while parents waited for flights. The driver, who
had of course been tracking Allan through MGPS, already had the car door opened, the
schedule revisions from Jon, the max-effish route. No words were necessary. Allan sank into
the back seat and unfolded his meshNet.
This was Haller Ventures' latest investment to come to market. Allan loved it. A light,
flexible cloth meshed with optic-fiber wires, it could be folded almost as small as a
handkerchief. Yet it could receive as much data as any other dumb terminal in existence, and
display it in more varied, complex configurations. Fast, powerful, keyed to both Allan's voice
and to his chosen tactile commands for max effish, fully flexible in interacting with his PID and
just about every other info-device, the meshNet was everything high-tech should be. It was
going to make everyone connected with Haller Ventures rich.
Richer.
"Jon message," Allan said to the meshNet. "Display." And there was the information about
Figgy Pudding: stock offerings, annual reports, inside run-downs put together and run through
the Haller investment algorithms with Jon's usual efficiency. Nobody on the information front
could recon better than Jon, unless it was Allan himself.
Carefully he studied the Figgy Pudding data. Looking good, looking very good.
"Five minutes until your first scheduled stop," his wristwatch said. A second later, the
phone buzzed, then automatically transferred the call to the meshNet once it verified that the
meshNet was unfolded. Cathy's icon appeared on the soft metallic surface.
"Cathy message," Allan said. The driver, curious, craned his gaze into the rearview mirror,
but Allan ignored him. Definitely no ground to be gained there.
"Hey, love," Cathy's voice said. "Schedule change."
"Give it to me," Allan said, one eye still on the Figgy Pudding projections.
"Suzette made it. She's in for the Denver Preteen Semi-Final Skating Championship!"
"That's great!" Allan said. Damn, but he had great kids. Although Charlie ... "I'll send her
congratulations."
"Good. But she needs to leave Tuesday, on a nine-twenty a.m. plane. I have to be in court
in Albuquerque on the Darlington case. Can you see her off at the airport?"
"Just a sec, hon." Allan called up the latest version of his schedule. "No can do. Patti's got
me in Brussels from Monday night to Tuesday afternoon, with a stop at a London biotech on
the hop home."
"Okay," Cathy said cheerfully. She was always cheerful; it was one of the reasons Allan
was glad she was his wife. "I'll get a driver for her, and Mrs. Canning can see her off. Consider
it covered. Are we still on for dinner and hanky-panky Wednesday?"
"Let me check ... yes, it looks good. Five o'clock at the Chicago Plaza."
"I'll be there," Cathy said. "Oh, and give Charlie a call, will you? Today?"
"What's with Charlie?"
"Same thing," Cathy said, and for just a moment her cheerfulness faltered.
"Okay," Allan said. "Don't worry."
"You on your way to Novation?" Cathy of course received constant updates of his
schedule, as he did of hers. Although she had fewer updates; even consulting attorneys as
good as she was sometimes stayed in the same city for as long as three days. "Novation is
the biorobot company, isn't it?"
 "Yeah," Allan said. "Patti's pushing it pretty strong. But frankly, I don't have much faith in