"Garbage Day" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mccarthy Wil)

behind, occupied by perhaps a dozen people of varying ages. None of them looked
especially old, but then again who did? Conrad guessed a minimum age of around
twelve Ч just old enough to be let out of the house Ч and a median in the low
twenties, with the oldest men and women just edging into their Age of Artifice.
Thirty or forty years old, when the fax filters stopped merely harassing the
aging process, and began simply to arrest it. Lock it up, lose the key.
There wouldn't be many folks older than that, except maybe as part of the
restaurant staff Ч this wasn't the kind of place you came to with your parents,
it was the kind of place you came with your friends, to drink watered-down beer
and coffee and feel independent. Not much draw for the older crowd. You could of
course stay in the Children's Cities as long as you liked Ч some people stayed
on as teachers or administrators or whatever, and a few remained as passive
consumers, unable or unwilling to grow up, or else making up for an actual
childhood spent someplace less raw. Calcutta, for example, was famous for its
"Peter Pan Ghettos." But there were better places for people like that, where
stronger intoxicants were available and everyone was above the age of consent.
This place was what they called a "kiddie cafe" Ч no identification required for
admittance. Whatever bona fide grownups you found here were probably up to no
good. Which Conrad supposed was the whole point.
The name of the establishment appeared to be "1551," although maybe that was its
street address, or possibly even the year it was built. Here, a flock of teenage
boys was apparently considered less alarming than it was downtown. Only a few
people looked up at their arrival, and any surprise they showed probably had
more to do with dorky camp uniforms than anything else.
Bascal seemed to take this nonreaction personally; his easy stride broke into a
trot, and he uttered a quiet, ululating sort of war cry and made an overhand
"follow me" gesture to the boys behind him. They were officially taking this
place by storm, and yeah, that did get a bit more of a reaction. A young man
who'd been leaning against the doorway now shrank away from it, not caring to
test his luck.
The place was a lot warmer inside than the cool breeze flowing down along the
river. Poorly ventilated, Conrad thought, and with a wood face instead of a
wellstone one, it couldn't pump the heat out electrically, either. Very rustic.
Hell, it was almost like being back at the camp. The walls were an even mix of
wood and plaster and brick, with wellstone surfaces only at the serving
counters, of which there were several. A few animated posters hung on the walls,
but there was also a lot of static graffiti done up in plain ink, and the reason
for this was quickly apparent: each table had a big feather pen stuck
prominently into a built-in inkwell. You could even see a few kids in the act of
scribbling out their pent-up wisdom.
"They must wash these walls every week," he said to Feck.
Feck just nodded vaguely, his eyes on everything but Conrad.
A sign said "Please Seat Yourself," but there was also a staircase leading
upward, and although the place was crowded with plastic tables and chairs and
the people sitting at them, Bascal still had his momentum. A few zigs and zags
through the crowd, a couple of bumped chairs, and he was on his way up, with
Steve and Ho and Conrad right behind him, and all the other boys streaming after
in a long line. People looked up at this, yeah. Looked annoyed, looked maybe a
little worried.
The second floor was smaller, hotter, less crowded and less decorated. There was