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

The lights came back up, AnneтАЩs thoughts coalesced, and she remembered who and what she
was. She and Benjamin were still standing in front of the wall. She knew she was a sim, so at least
she hadnтАЩt been reset. Thank you for that, Anne, she thought.
She turned at a sound behind her. The refectory table vanished before her eyes, and all the gifts
that had been piled on it hung suspended in midair. Then the table reappeared, one layer at a
time, its frame, top, gloss coat, and lastly, the bronze hardware. The gifts vanished, and a toaster
reappeared, piece by piece, from its heating elements outward. A coffee press, houseputer
peripherals, component by component, cowlings, covers, and finally boxes, gift wrap, ribbon,
and bows. It all happened so fast Anne was too startled to catch the half of it, yet she did notice
that the flat gift from Great Uncle Karl was something sheтАЩd been angling for, a Victorian era
sterling platter to complete her tea service.

"Benjamin!" she said, but he was missing, too. Something appeared on the far side of the room,
on the spot where theyтАЩd posed for the sim, but it wasnтАЩt Benjamin. It was a 3-D mannequin
frame, and as she watched, it was built up, layer by layer. "Help me," she whispered as the entire
room was hurled into turmoil, the furniture disappearing and reappearing, paint being stripped
from the walls, sofa springs coiling into existence, the potted palm growing from leaf to stem to
trunk to dirt, the very floor vanishing, exposing a default electronic grid. The mannequin was
covered in flesh now and grew BenjaminтАЩs face. It flitted about the room in a pink blur. Here and
there it stopped long enough to proclaim, "I do."

Something began to happen inside Anne, a crawling sensation everywhere as though she were a
nest of ants. She knew she must surely die. They have deleted us, and this is how it feels, she
thought. Everything became a roiling blur, and she ceased to exist except as the thought-How
happy I look.

When Anne became aware once more, she was sitting hunched over in an auditorium chair idly
studying her hand, which held the clutch bouquet. There was commotion all around her, but she
ignored it, so intent was she on solving the mystery of her hand. On an impulse, she opened her
fist and the bouquet dropped to the floor. Only then did she remember the wedding, the holo,
learning she was a sim. And here she was again-but this time everything was profoundly different.
She sat upright and saw that Benjamin was seated next to her.

He looked at her with a wobbly gaze and said, "Oh, here you are."

"Where are we?"

"IтАЩm not sure. Some kind of gathering of Benjamins. Look around." She did. They were surrounded
by Benjamins, hundreds of them, arranged chronologically-it would seem-with the youngest in
rows of seats down near a stage. She and Benjamin sat in what appeared to be a steeply sloped
college lecture hall with lab tables on the stage and story-high monitors lining the walls. In the
rows above Anne, only every other seat held a Benjamin. The rest were occupied by women,
strangers who regarded her with veiled curiosity.

Anne felt a pressure on her arm and turned to see Benjamin touching her. "You feel that, donтАЩt
you?" he said. Anne looked again at her hands. They were her hands, but simplified, like fleshy
gloves, and when she placed them on the seat back, they didnтАЩt go through.

Suddenly, in ragged chorus, the Benjamins down front raised their arms and exclaimed, "I get it;