"Nancy Kress - The Sleepless - Sleeping Dogs" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kress Nancy)

"I'm fine," I say. "Tell me your address and give me your key. You have a terminal, Donna?"
"One came with the apartment," she says proudly. "Though I don't use it much except for vid. You're welcome
honey. You're welcome to anything you find there, except Jim."
She laughs, and I try to smile, and then I go to her place and get to work cleaning it up.

The next three months I work as fiendishly as I did at Denny's. Every day I take the new gravtrain to the city and
my cleaning job. They're glad to have me; I'm experienced with every kind of maintenance bot they have. Every night I
the terminal in the ten-by-ten living room of Donna's apartment, trying not to hear Donna and Jim making love
ten-by-ten bedroom.
I start with free code programs off the Net. I feed in all the data from the five blue plastic cards and run the prog
None of them makes any sense out of the data.
After a month I've saved up enough credits to download programs that cost money. None of them works either.
"What're you doing on that terminal all night every night, honey?" Donna asks. "You're getting circles under your
eyes. Don't you want to come out dancing with us and have a little fun? Jim's got some pretty peccy friends!"
"No, thank you," I say. "You seen Daddy lately?"
Her face goes flat. "Tomorrow. You know I go every Tuesday. You want to come with me?"
I shake my head and go back to the terminal. Donna doesn't say anything more. After she leaves, I can still sme
perfume, flimsy and sweet, in the stale air.

The best code breakers aren't programs you can buy. They're netsites that take your data and run it through thei
decryption algorithms. All are very expensive, although you can negotiate with them. They're on the Subnet, of course.
what I read, some of them use programs stolen from the government. The best ones might even be stolen from the m
Maybe.
The problem is guessing which ones might be best. Housemaids don't make a lot of money, not even when they're
cleaning bot technicians.
Finally I contract with a Subnet site called Bent. They seem to do business in Pennsylvania, New York, and Ohio.
heavily shielded transaction, although it uses regular credit, not a cash drop. I give them the data off the blue plastic
and they empty my bank account. Afterwards I close the account and open a new one with a different e-bank.
That night, for the first time ever, I dream about Precious. She's sitting in her high chair, dressed in pink overalls, lau
Whatever she's laughing at is behind me, and when I try to turn around, I'm frozen in place. Frantically I twist my bod
no muscles will move. Precious goes on laughing.

Donna and Jim bring home a chair. They've been saving to buy it. It's bright screaming green, and it gives off
different scents, including sex pheromones. They spend ten minutes trying to decide where to put it.
"In this corner, sweetie," Donna says.
"In the bedroom would be better." Jim leers.
"Carol Ann, what do you think?"
I think it's the ugliest piece of furniture I've ever seen. "I don't care."
"About anything," Jim says under his breath. I pretend not to hear him. He's getting a little impatient with me living h
long. But he won't say anything, because it's what Donna wants.
Donna says, "Okay, the bedroom," and she and Jim look at each other in a way that says I should leave the apar
for an hour or so.
I leave for three, walking the streets more or less aimlessly. When Bent tells me who the bastards are who sold D
the sleepless dogs . . . Daddy's gun is one thing he hasn't sold for whiskey. I know because I buried it before I left, well
behind the place the dog pens used to be. Ammunition doesn't cost that much. It can be ordered off the Subnet, no que
asked, no records kept. (Right.)
I would recognize the Arrowgene scientist anywhere. His appearance, his voice, his supercilious manner with people
are ignorant. Scientists aren't cops. They don't go around armed. They don't walk wary. I'm not a good shot, but wi
gun, I don't need to be.
It's not what I'd prefer, of course. I'd prefer to get him somewhere isolated, tie him up, smear him with blood f