"Murder In The Solid State" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mccarthy Wil)

"I see," David said. "Obviously, it had to be a giant conspiracy, right? You really should have been a tabloid reporter."
Bowser lost some smile at that remark, and turned greater attention to the road ahead of them, to the cars and trucks he was weaving around. "I don't know who killed Big Otto, my buddy. I don't know who shot Kennedy, either, or who blew up the Golden Gate Bridge. Giant conspiracies are out there, some of them not even very secret. Take the Gray Party."
For a moment, David flashed on the memory, smothering and warm, of the Fellmer scan helmet locking in place over his chin, over his mouth and nose and eyes and ears. The scent of rubber was sharp and immediate in his nostrils, but then a gust of wind puffed at him and the scent and the memory were gone.
"The Gray Party?" he asked, feeling not entirely at ease. "What about them?"
Bowser shrugged. "The way they funded Vandegroot's research, the way they sheltered him. Vested interest. John Quince's name appeared on some of the Vandegroot v. Sanger documents that got lost. Witness for the prosecution, never called."
"That's all just rumors."
"Good rumors," Bowser said. "Well founded. Grays love the sniffer; they always have. How else do you restrict half the chemicals known to man? You drive around with a Vandegroot box until you catch a whiff of hemp, or gunpowder, or maybe it's baby oil this week, and then bang, you've got probable cause. Search and seizure warrant, coming right up, and you haven't even broke the Fourth Amendment."
David opened his mouth for a snide retort. . . and found that he had nothing to say. The Grays had promised to rid the streets of guns and bombs and drugs, and they had done exactly that. Crime hadn't gone away, of course; the armies of the dumb and vicious and desperately poor continued to swell, their rage turning boots and fists and everyday objects into weapons every bit as deadly as those that had gone before.
But things like poisonings and drug crimes and accidental shootings had all but disappeared from the American landscape, and for this accomplishment the Grays were vocal in their pride. They hadn't accomplished it alone, of course, not without the full cooperation of the police and the courts and the media, but the party had been at the center of the action right along. And the Vandegroot Molecular Sniffer had also been at the center, had been the center of the Crackdown on Crime. And as Big Otto's star ascended, the Grays had seemed to climb right along with him.
And he'd had all those patents. Two years of work, not even on the cutting edge, and Vandegroot had somehow managed to corner the entire classical nanotech market. And to hold it for more than a decade.
He's got friends in high places, people had said. He's Grayer than a circuit court judge.
"Aha!" Bowser cried out gleefully. "I made you think about it, didn't I? Didn't I!"
"Jesus," David said, turning to watch the trees and high, sound-blocking fences zip past them on the edge of the highway. "Sometimes I really hate talking to you. Nobody likes the Gray Party, Bowser. They're uptight and they're preachy and they've canceled all our favorite TV shows. The voting public hates them."
"Well, it's true they haven't won many elections at the national level, but then again they don't really need to. They've got the country by its roots. Any idiot can run for national office, sell his soul to the special interests, get beat up by the press . . . State and local control give you leverage. Get enough hearts and minds in your pocket-not a majority, mind you, just a good loud rabble-and the feds will come around to you, with that great big Uncle Sam hat held out like a beggar's cup."
David thought of the poster he'd seen on the wall at Druid Lake PD. America, the solid state. The stern but smiling face of John Harrison Quince floating gray and white above the words. "They're just a fad," he said quietly. "Like the Nouveau Whigs. Like the Birch Society. These things come and go."
"Most go." Bowser's tone was dark. "Some don't. We've got a disgruntled population facing poverty, facing crime, facing a government at least as repressive as the eighteenth-century monarchy it once overthrew . . . And the government has some scary toys this time around. You remember that twelve-hertz burglar alarm of yours, the one that broke your eardrum? That's nothing, it's a toy compared to what they've got for crowd control these days. Crowd control, you think about that.
"Opportunists look for times like these. Balance of power way off-kilter, tensions high, all that. Somebody gets mad, tears things up a little, and pow! The head-breakers have an excuse. A few bad eggs in the right places and we'll all be walking around with numbered tattoos. How'd you like to see a bar code scanner on every public building? 'You, come in; you, stay out. We don't like your face. We don't like your number.' "
"Jesus Christ, Bowser." David looked out the window again. His friend got like this sometimes, and there wasn't anything you could do but let him wind down. Arguing with him would just stoke his fires, and agreeing would have no effect at all. Not that David was inclined to agree; as obsessively suspicious as he was of everyone and everything, Bowser made an excellent gambler, an excellent computer programmer, and an even better attorney. He was great with taxes, too, finding loopholes the size of aircraft carriers and typing up long treatises to prove their legality, on the off chance that someone might someday question him. And somehow, he did all this with a wink and a grin and his feet on the table, in spare moments scattered among life's other games.
Only on the subject of politics did he grow serious. Politically, the sky was always falling for T. Bowser Jones, and if he chanced to look up he would crow and cry about it until he dropped from exhaustion. He was looking up today.
"How do you rise to power?" Bowser demanded, a full head of steam behind him now. "Easy; you find a constituency. Old people are good, because there are an awful lot of them, and the retired ones will work for you for free. So, you come up with a name and a story the old people can dig, and you give them what they want. Free money? Free medicine? Well, maybe a little, but those things are hard. Safe streets? Ah, that we can do. And then you're really moving, because everyone wants safe streets."
"Bowser," David said, unable to help himself, "I really don't want to talk about this. I'm a scientist, you know. I do science."
Bowser scowled at him for a few moments before returning his eyes to the road. "Do you think that frees you from politics? Grubbing for funding, complying with regulations, doing only the science they say it's OK to do? My friend, you are a slave to politics."
"Excuse me?" Anger jerked at David like a tow rope coming tight, pulling him along behind it. "Do you understand what molecular fabrication is? Do you understand what it can do? We are talking about reorganizing matter at its most basic level, turning it into anything we want. Free medicine? Free food? Free houses? With nanotech those things are easy. We're right on the brink of it: the end of poverty. The end of crime. The end of human suffering as we know it."
Bowser made a noise, part giggle and part derisive snort. "Wow. Wow. I don't know what to say." He paused, looked up at the Jeep's bare metal roof for a moment, and then spoke again: "The end of human suffering."
"Well, more or less," David qualified.
Bowser paused for still a longer time, but after a few seconds he grinned and cast a sidelong look at David. "You realize, of course, you'll never get away with it."
And then, suddenly, they were both laughing.




CHAPTER EIGHT

David rang the doorbell a second time, and checked his watch. It was late for dinner, already past seven and getting toward dark, but Marian had insisted he come by to take her out. So where was she?
The door chain rattled, locks disengaging, and then the door opened, and there she stood. In the porch-light glare her hair was like fine copper, her eyes blue and sparkling.
"Hi," he said to her.
She took a step toward him, grabbed his shoulders, and kissed him. "Hi," she said when she was through. "Are you ready to go?"
"Yeah. Just let me get the door." She fumbled with her keys, nearly dropped them before managing to lock everything that needed locking. She seemed to avoid eye contact with David as she did this.
"Is everything all right?" David asked her. He had a funny feeling, suddenly. Like when the cops had come banging on his door, like when they had told him Vandegroot was dead. There was that inner lurch, his life switching tracks with an almost audible clatter. What was changing this time?
"Everything's fine," she said, still not meeting his eyes. "I thought maybe we could go to Deux Cheminees tonight, maybe soak our guts in butter and wine. It's kind of a schlepp, but it's still warm out, and-"
"Can't afford it," David said, quickly and automatically. It was something he said often. Then he thought about what she'd said and added, "Are you crazy? "
"No," she said quietly. "I'm not. It's my treat."
"Are you crazy? " he repeated. "Let's go to McDonald's. We'll get chicken sandwiches and soak them in butter; it'll be great."
Marian looked troubled. "I have the money, David. I . . . We need to talk."
"Oh," he said, drawing the syllable out. So that was it? That was the secret lurking behind her mask?
"No," she said quickly, catching his tone. "It's not what you think."
"Can't be seen with a murder suspect, eh?" David tried to make a joke of the comment, but it came out leaden. "Or is it the time thing again? Too busy for the best things in life?"
"David!" Marian was meeting his gaze now, and her eyes were blue as the hard, cold light of early morning. "I'm trying . . . OK, I guess this can't wait. I think there's a problem with our relationship."
"You just figured that out?"
She sighed, closed her eyes for a moment. "There's a certain . . . lack of warmth between us. A certain distance."