"Alastair Reynolds - Digital to Analogue" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reynolds Alastair)

album cover. And it wasnтАЩt some landscape at all, but the radio signal of a
pulsar, a clock ticking in space. I couldnтАЩt recall whoтАЩd told me that, but it
seemed bizarre at the time, an icon from the heart of science manifesting
itself in a million bedsits, wrapped around a piece of hallowed black vinyl.
Like those Mandelbrot sets that started infesting album sleeves and vids,
for a few months. As if science was the ultimate subculture, somehow, the
stuff beneath the floorboards you donтАЩt want to know too much about. . .

Incidental detail: the table with the MIDI-stack also held something
chunky and metallic, with a pistol-grip, shaped like a Space: 1999 gun. An
industrial stapler. This must be what they mean by a bad trip, ha ha.

Concerning the walls: I think the operative term here must be Shrine,
in the sense that sheтАЩd pinned up dozens of monochrome photographs of
me, taken during the last year of my life, some in the street, my distant
figure outlined in red, others close-up in some club, my eyes blankly
uncomprehending. Just like CIA target acquisition images. And more:
complicated graphs and diagrams, scrawled over in felt-tip, fixed in
laminated confusion on top of one another. Sonograms, sound-spectra,
electrical circuit diagrams, tech-nical pieces about entrainment. . .Christ,
where had I heard that before, and why did it honestly matter, now? And
why did she have a map of the UK, webbed in dotted ley-lines?

I was beginning to sweat. Thinking maybe my subcon-scious had a
point; maybe this was a little unusual for a hospital.

She was fiddling with my head. I realised that I was wired up to
something, little electrodes around my temples. She was fixing them down
after theyтАЩd worked loose. SheтАЩd fixed things to my chest as well, white
disks trailing wires to a mound of humming machines. All I was wearing was
a pair of white, grass-stained jeans.

Click with the dictaphone. тАШLog entry, 05.45. Summary to date.тАЩ She
coughed before continuing in her soft, educated Tyneside accent. тАШMy
orders were to terminate the subject on sight, in view of the danger to the
community at large. At 2.45 a.m. I attempted to zero the subject in the
Drome. Termination was impossible without risk of substantial col-lateral
damage to the uninfected. I followed the subject from the Drome, hoping to
get a clear shot. At around 3.30, however, I decided to break protocol and
bring in the subject for captive examination. If all goes well, IтАЩll be finished in
a matter of hours.тАЩ A studied pause. тАШOur operational integrity will not have
been compromised, I promise. While my methods may be my own, IтАЩm
fully aware of the conse-quences for urban panic should our cover be
exposed.тАЩ She clicked off the recorder, fumbled in her pockets and lit a
cigarette from a black carton inscribed with a skull and crossbones,
dragging on it thoughtfully before restarting the tape. тАШI took a series of
EEG readings while the subject was under,тАЩ she said, fixing a fresh marker
in the little gripper of a pen-trace machine. There was a basket full of
output, etched in wavering ink. The machine hummed into life, the pen
gliding to and fro. тАШNow IтАЩm observing the subjectтАЩs waking responses to a