"Marc Laidlaw - Total Conversion" - читать интересную книгу автора (Laidlaw Marc)

MARC LAIDLAW

TOTAL CONVERSION

For those of you who have wondered about the recent absence of Marc Laidlaw's
fiction from our pages, here at last is the answer. Two or three years ago, the
prolific Mr. Laidlaw moved to Seattle and turned his talents to creating
computer games. (In fact, if you look closely in the bestseller Half-Life,
you'll spot a copy of Marc's novel The 37th Mandala in Freeman's locker.)

Our loss is their gain. But if this new story is any indication, Marc's current
line of work is not all fun and games...

ON HIS WAY HOME FROM CompUSA with the latest overdrive processor and another 128
megs of RAM chips in the tiny trunk of his Alfa Romeo, Barton Needles cruised
slowly past the high school and gazed through the chainlink fence at his
so-called peers. It was a scene that should have set him tingling with
nostalgia, like something out of a PG-13 teen romance movie: sociable kids
taking lunch in the quadrangle, running laps on the track, throwing themselves
at football dummies, laughing and shouting. But as the bell rang, calling the
students back to classes, Barton mouthed the word "Losers," and stepped on the
gas.

At home, he slung his backpack under the computer desk and nudged the mouse to
kill the screensaver, which played continuous looped demos of his personal
online Gorefest victories. A dozen e-mails sprang onto the screen, all received
since that morning. He icily scrolled and deleted with one hand while gnawing at
a tortilla smeared with peanut butter and jelly -- he needed fuel before getting
to work under the hood.

There were three messages from GoreX: more optimistic notes-on business plans
and the revised royalty offer for the Skullpulper total conversion. Total
bullshit was more like it. He would never work for them again, despite the
latest personal pleading e-mail from Tom Ratchip, GoreX's owner: "Bart, I am
asking you as a friend and as your biggest fan to please reconsider your
unreasonable position."

It took him about five seconds to type in, one-fingered, "TTML, AW" and sent the
message. Talk To My Lawyer, Ass. Wipe. In other words, his dad.

Ironically, Ratchip had forwarded a handful of semiliterate messages from
delirious garners, praising Skullpulper in what passed for gushing flattery.
"wOOpee! Man thass kewl!" "Barton Needles is GOD!" "wtf is Needles doin workin
on TCs? IMHO he shud have have his own fkn company -- and prolly will!"

My sentiments exactly, Barton thought; and how odd of Tom to send that one
along. He "prolly" thought it was magnanimous of him.