"Tom Purdom - Sepoy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Purdom Tom)

тАЬThey said I should also make it clear they would have to pick the body type they give you. It's
apparently very important you look a certain way for the kind of jobs they have in mind.тАЭ

It was a subtle approach, but Marcia couldn't quite pull it off. Jason could have picked up the tension in
her voice if he had been listening to her through a concrete wall.That's the offer we're making you ,
Marcia was saying.You can have a real body. You can walk around. You can pursue women. You
just have to serve us. You just have to take the oath. To Us .
тАЬI'm also supposed to tell you some of the things they have in mind will be dangerous. They're not
offering you a picnic.тАЭ

тАЬI think you had better go,тАЭ Jason said.

This time every syllable he fabricated would have earned him a happy shout of praise from the speech
therapy program he had worked with when he was five. The pace he was speaking at, on the other hand,
would have given most people apoplexy. Jason had never walked along an icy street but he had long ago
learned that strong feelings affected him the same way slippery walks affected pedestrians. He could only
handle them by creeping along syllable by syllable.

тАЬI ... would ... ap ... pre ... ci ... ate ... it ... if ... you ... would ... take ... me ... out ... of ... this ... bed ...
and ... go.тАЭ
****

Two minutes after the door closed behind her, Jason was sitting in front of his desk with his wheelchair
plugged into his information system. He had been working when Marcia had rung his bell and the work
still had to be finished before the end of the day.

There were people Jason knew who would be happy to argue that he already had a functioning body.
Some of the more radical techies would even have claimed the artificial physique he already possessed
was bigger and more powerful than the best merely organic body the tucfra could grow in their medical
centers. Every important item in Jason's apartmentтАФthe refrigerator, the cooking units, the doors,
everythingтАФwas linked to a dual-input interface that would respond to two types of instructions: voice
commands and signals from the control panel built into the right arm of his wheelchair. The personal
service unit in his bedroom had even been outfitted with attachments that could handle most of his routine
dressing and undressing. Jason spent 23 percent of his income on a personal service agency that sent two
people around once a day, but he could sit here in his room alone, manipulating the devices that were
linked to his computer, and do most of the things he needed to do without any help from anyone.

The speakers on his entertainment system could respond to the subtlest variations in bow pressure a
violinist could transmit to the human ear. The entire ten by twelve wall on his left could be converted into
a high-resolution screen. His communications equipment connected him to a net that could provide him
with companions and entertainments that could be located anywhere in the world. He had received so
many calls from his friends last week that he had been forced to set up a privacy block just so he could
have some time to himself.

What difference could a new body make?

The image on Jason's primary screen was the score of a string quartet by M.K. Sun, a composer who
had written over a hundred and twenty quartets during the thirty years she had been an active producer.
The first great Oriental composer to write in traditional Western forms, Sun had been a successor to the