"Justina Robson - Quantum Gravity 01 - Keeping it Real" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robson Justina)

'Good luck, Lila.' The line cut dead. It was the first time since she had been Mended that she was
really and truly on her own. Where Cara and the NSA office had been a constant, monitoring presence
fresh zones of silence opened in Lila's head. She smiled and the bike traced an arc of beautiful speed into
the traffic heading downtown.
CHAPTER TWO




The bike didn't talk. There were versions that did but Lila didn't want more machines in her head than
were already there. Besides, she had every A-Z of Otopia available to her from the memory chips in her
skull. The address that the studio gave her for Zal's rental home was high in the Lightwater Hills in the
most exclusive area of Bay City. She rode without a helmet, her red curls rippling in the wind as she lay
low across the gas tank and sped through the streets.
Her route took her around the Bay itself, where whitecap waves were dashing in ones and twos
across the water, over the vast towerless span of the elf-built bridge - the Andalune - and through the
dense woodlands which crept from the water's edge to the Heights of Solomon. Zal's house lay over the
ridge, the only clue to its presence a heavily barred iron gate set in stone posts that were almost hidden
by trees. There was no postbox and no speakerphone. Lila pulled up in front and glanced up at the
spikes. Behind the gates the forest thick-ened and the boughs of the trees leant over the road and
shrouded it in darkness. Within twenty metres the drive curved away from her and was lost to sight. In
the quiet she heard her engine and the sough of wind in the leaves. She was surrounded by trees.
Using the private contact numbers and her Al-self's communication suite - nested inside her head
where everyone else had to use a Pod or a Berry or a Seed to interface - she called to the security
people from Doublesafe who were already inside. The gates swung inward silently and Lila moved
forward in a steady glide.
The road snaked its way steadily uphill and then into a hollow which lay at the summit of the hill.
Solomon's Folly stood there - a giant white stone house facing south. It looked through a cut swathe in
the forest like a firebreak which ran over simple grassland down and down
and down to a crescent of white beach and the sea. It was three storeys high for the most part, and
roughly covered an area the size of two football pitches. Pieces of it had towers and other pieces had
glass roofs. It had many sides and angles. Some of them were lost among trees, others seemed to teeter
on or be built inside large boulders which piled along the north face of the house. It looked like it had
been built one room at a time, almost randomly, without thought for anything except a sea view and an
obsessive need for privacy, and so it had been. Lila felt almost ill looking at it. It was hideous. It looked
as though the hollow had been created by the house's incomprehensible weight, and that everything was
sinking into the earth.
She paused before the last descent to gawp and catch her breath. Pine needles and heavy loam and
other green and rotting smells were thick in the air because the day was hot and making them rise. To her
left and right she looked into the woods on maximum zoom and saw signs of a great number of wood
elementals but nothing of the elusive beings themselves. You would expect elementals around elves, and
in forests of any size, but you would never expect an elf to live in a house like this. It was a rental
property. There could be no other explanation. Lila recorded what she saw and went on down to the
main door. It stood open and as she dismounted a man in a Doublesafe uniform came to escort her
inside.
A woman wearing a gloriously expensive dress, very understated, and antique Jimmy Choo shoes
came to greet her. 'I'm Jolene, Zal's PA' she said and Lila shook hands with her. Jolene was the kind of
human Lila associated with elf groupiedom; smart, in control, stylish. It was difficult not to feel inferior,
especially without a slick manicure. Lila put her hands behind her back and reminded herself she wasn't
here to look great, only to carry out her job. Jolene seemed content with her authentication documents