"Back Door Man" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mcauley Paul J)

УYou donТt need to mind Сem, dearie,Ф the old woman said. УNot if you know how to do right by old Gretchen.Ф

УI donТt like this old woman,Ф Gabriel Hale whispered to Crane. УI donТt like the way she stares at me.Ф

УWell, youТll have to go this way if you want to follow Barbara Andresson. Because this is how she left the simulation.Ф

УWe have to catch her!Ф

УWhy the urgency?Ф

УBefore it is too late,Ф Gabriel Hale said.

Crane gave the old woman a cookie. She stuck it in her toothless mouth and said, УThat will do nicely, dearie,Ф and ushered Crane and Gabriel Hale into the little cottage. It glowed with polished wood and brasses. A cat slept by the blackleaded range. A grandfather clock ticked in a corner.

The old woman said that she had seen the little girl. She knew where she had gone. A door opened onto a flood of light, and they stepped through.

A FLAT PLANE of slightly unfocused gray and red tiles under a uniform blue sky. Gabriel HaleТs face a pink mosaic, blue rectangles for eyes, a slot for a mouth. Something wrong, Crane couldnТt, uh, figure out what. Something...bad? Something ....

УToo slow,Ф Gabriel Hale said.

What did she mean? Her words slipped away. Searching for meaning was not exactly .... Tiring, yeah. But what?

Then she grabbed his hand, and he could think again.

УThe processing is too slow here,Ф she said. УItТs affecting you through the link in your head.Ф

УWhat did you do?Ф Crane tried to read his toolkit, but it was a smear of overlapping black and white tiles.

УDonТt let go of my hand. IТm linking you with the computer you started from.Ф

He peered at her, but her expression was unreadable. The tiling was too clunky.

УA MUD,Ф Crane said, realizing where they were. A Multi-User Dungeon. Very popular with students in the Nineties. This one must still be running on some obsolete server, forgotten. Crane shivered. It was the cyberspace equivalent of a tar pit. He could have been stuck here forever.

УNot forever,Ф Gabriel Hale said. УBut a long time. She was here, and she escaped. But she was delayed. WeТre a lot closer now.Ф

УShe went this way to trap anyone who followed,Ф Crane said. УWell, she nearly succeeded. We have to get out too, and I canТt use my toolkit.Ф

УI know how to use it now. I watched you. We ported here by a funny route, one not on any map. We have to leave by another funny route. Here.Ф

УTheyТre back roads,Ф Crane said, before he realized that they had moved on.

It looked like an old-fashioned library. The kind with books. Circular tiers of chained, leather-bound volumes, each tier circled by an iron lattice walkway or balcony, dwindling it seemed into infinity. There was a constant strange flickering in the light, and a high-pitched twittering, as if someone was playing a speeded-up recording of birdsong.

It was the graphic interface of a Bulletin Board System. The flickers and twitterings were users Ч or mostly, their agents Ч logging on, depositing or retrieving information, logging off.

УShe was looking for something,Ф Crane told Gabriel Hale. УThis is a hackerТs place, so most likely she was looking up a back road route. ThatТs what they specialize in here.Ф

He had to explain about back roads. He didnТt mind. HeТd been a hacker once, and hackers loved to talk, to boast. None of what they won from the system was tangible, and boasting was a way of establishing status. Crane hadnТt lost the habit.