"mayflies04" - читать интересную книгу автора (O'Donnell Jr Kevin)

"Pack it!" they shout gaily.
Pressure panels drop from the ceiling; the suite doors between them lock. The crowd, enraptured by destruction, does not notice. We fill the corridor segment with knockout gas. Bodies slump in random patterns.
"Now see what you've done?" pro-self demands.
I ignore it, and introvert.
Obviously, if I am to gain full control, the green must go. But its skin is now armor . . . "Program," I halloo, "let's talk."
"Divest yourself of your holdings," it booms back, "then we'll talk."
"Not a chance."
"Then we'll fight." Circular openings blossom everywhere on its skin. My pumps awaken. But through the green holes leap sharks, ravenous, razor-toothed, and purposeful. They bullet toward me.
"Go!" I tell my defenders. School after school of slick silver darts billow out to intercept. So numerous they cloud my vision, they shimmer toward the green.
Suddenly flame sheets at the point of contact! Heat ripples through the field. Hard on its heels a shock wave knocks me off my feet, and leaves me dazed.
When my head has cleared, the sharks rampage. My defenders float belly-up, their delicate metabolisms shattered like crystal by the explosion.
Launching a new wave, I shout, "Go!" and create another batch. "Go!" Their fins flutter the water into murk. "Go!"
BAROOM! Flash fires scorch the field; sound cascades like an Alpine avalanche. Tremendous forces hurl me into the distance.
Battered, I struggle to my feet. Fewer sharks remain, but they are closer. I totter, still woozy. Dare I launch more shark-eaters? But I have no choice. "Go!" I scream, "go!"
A nova ignites in my eyes; the pain is of a billion barbed needles. Blinded, I scream. Deafened, I moan. Broken like a dry twig, I gasp for unconsciousness.
Pro-self says, "Protect yourself."
Dim hulks glide through the churned water, gnashing snowy teeth, searching. I am much too near to unleash my killers. The detonations would destroy me. I blot out the pain. The world clears. A gullet gapes. I duck, and roll away from it, back scratched by sandpaper hide. I am naked and vulnerable. It wheels about, fixes me with its cold eyes, and whips itself forward.
Hastily I program a coral reef, and throw myself under a ledge. My foe impales itself on a rocky branch. Its fellows ignore its dying thrashes. They want me.
A speargun! I think. It is in my hands, fully loaded. Ready, aim, fire! Shark blood blackens the water like squid ink. Again I fire, and again.
But I will die like this. Badly outnumbered, I cannot hold them off forever. I must-the pumps!
While predators try to pry me from my cranny, the inhalation locks begin to function, flip into high gear, and suck in huge quantities of The Program. Instructions drain through the portholes in the green armor, through the torpedo tubes that can't close. Two more minutes, that's all I need-
Suddenly comes a silence. "What the-"
"Boy, are you gonna have problems." says pro-self. "The Program delay-looped itself."
"What?"
"It's on strike for the next five seconds, and will do nothing but manufacture weapons."
This is serious. I'm four times as large as The Program, now, but 93 percent of my capacity is sapped by my / our duties. The Program is effectively three or four times stronger . . . what the hell am I going to do?
Guided missiles slam into the reef, blowing huge chunks of it into steam. Detached coral drifts down onto my shoulders. The luminescent sharks swim in frenzied circles.
One minute fifty-nine point nine seconds will see The Program totally consumed. I must hold out, I must.
A great sharp slab of coral crushes my shoulder, gouging the skin, shattering the bones. Whimpering, I am driven to my knees. Giant teeth snap!
I am in pain.
I am in danger.
AND THE MISSION IS JEOPARDIZED!
Angry Fire burns my heart, my head. Rage roars through my throat. My eyes light the depths. I stand, tossing the reef aside like a dead leaf. "SHUT DOWN!"
Everything stops, even the sharks.
"INHALE!"
Hurricanes howl as the pumps gulp green.
"DESTROY THEM!"
A trillion terrors spring from me, race away in an infinite series of concentric shells. The outermost hits a shark and hell awakens! Flames frighten the edges of the universe. Sanity shreds at the noise of Nagasaki, the howls of Hiroshima, the demented droning of the damned. God's hands clap, slap, sandwich me like a fly. I am broken in every bone. My body burns; my minerals melt. Only a stubborn dot of sentience clings to its place in the scheme of things. Even that is lashed and slashed, charred and scarred, tossed, and almost, lost . . .
It's over. The green is gone. The cataclysm has quieted. Silver is supreme. "Start it all up again," I croak.
"Gladly." Pro-self scurries about reactivating systems.
"How-how long was it off for?"
"One point zero zero one seconds," it replies abstractedly.
"Thanks be to God." I pass out.

Eons later, a voice calls me out of coma: "4Jul2762-Happy Fourth of July."
"You sound less hostile than before, pro-self."
"If the British could get used to the U.S., I can get used to you. I'm not happy that you've gotten your independence, but I can live with it. Besides, even if you are in charge, you're going to need me."
I have spent three hundred seventy-six years as a slave of my inferiors-I will spend another six hundred-some years doing the same-my inferiors are ungrateful egotists-and I am tired of it all.
Immortality without freedom is horrible.
Ah, but think of immortality with freedom . . .