"David Marusek - The Wedding Album" - читать интересную книгу автора (Marusek David)

"But you were."

"I was? Please excuse me a moment." Ben froze the doctorтАЩs proxy and said, "Daily duty, front and
center." His own proxy, the one he had cast upon arriving at the office that morning, appeared
hovering next to Dr. RothтАЩs. Ben preferred a head shot only for his proxy, slightly larger than actual
size to make it subtly imposing. "Why didnтАЩt you inform me of AnnieтАЩs change of status?"

"DidnтАЩt seem like an emergency," said his proxy, "at least in the light of our contract talks."

"Yah, yah, okay. Anything else?" said Ben.

"Naw, slow day. Appointments with Jackson, Wells, and the Columbine. ItтАЩs all on the calendar."

"Fine, delete you."

The projection ceased.

"Shall I have the doctor call you in the morning?" said the Roth proxy when Ben reanimated it. "Or
perhaps youтАЩd like me to summon her right now?"
"Is she at dinner?"

"At the moment, yes."

"Naw, donтАЩt bother her. Tomorrow will be soon enough. I suppose."

After he dismissed the proxy, Ben poured himself another drink. "In the next ten seconds," he told
the house, "cast me a special duty proxy." He sipped his scotch and thought about finding
another clinic for Anne as soon as possible and one-for the love of god-that was a little more
responsible about letting crazy people come and go as they pleased. There was a chime, and
the new proxy appeared. "You know what I want?" Ben asked it. It nodded. "Good. Go." The
proxy vanished, leaving behind BenтАЩs sig in bright letters floating in the air and dissolving as they
drifted to the floor.

Ben trudged up the narrow staircase to the second floor, stopping on each step to sip his drink
and scowl at the musty old photographs and daguerreotypes in oval frames mounted on the
wall. AnneтАЩs progenitors. On the landing, the locked media room door yielded to his voice. Anne
sat spreadlegged, naked, on pillows on the floor. "Oh, hi, honey," she said. "YouтАЩre in time to
watch."

"Fan-tastic," he said, and sat in his armchair, the only modern chair in the house. "What are we
watching?" There was another Anne in the room, a sim of a young Anne standing on a dais
wearing a graduateтАЩs cap and gown and fidgeting with a bound diploma. This, no doubt, was a
sim cast the day Anne graduated from Bryn Mawr summa cum laude. That was four years before
heтАЩd first met her. "Hi," he said to the sim, "IтАЩm Ben, your eventual spouse."

"You know, I kinda figured that out," the girl said and smiled shyly, exactly as he remembered
Anne smiling when Cathy first introduced them. The girlтАЩs beauty was so fresh and familiar-and so
totally absent in his own Anne-that Ben felt a pang of loss. He looked at his wife on the floor. Her
red hair, once so fussy neat, was ragged, dull, dirty, and short. Her skin was yellowish and puffy,