"Rudy Rucker & John Shirley - Pockets" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rucker Rudy)

He hesitated. There was no way to answer that question honestly without having to a
Dad was in a pocket, and pocket-slugs had a bad reputation. "No, ma'am. But. . ."
He looked toward the pocket. It was getting smaller now. If things went as usual, it w
shrink to grapefruit size, then swell back up and burstтАФand Dad would be back. Occasion
a pocket might bounce through two or three or even a dozen shrink-and-grow cycles be
releasing its inhabitant; but it never took terribly long, at least from the outside. Dad migh
back before this woman hung up. She sounded like business, and that made Wendel's p
race. It was a chance.
If he could just keep her talking. After a session in a pocket Dad wouldn't be in any shap
call anyone back, sometimes not for daysтАФ but if you caught him just coming out, and pu
phone in his hand, he might keep it together long enough, still riding the pocket's high. We
just hoped this wasn't going to be the one pocket that would finally kill his father.
"Can I take a message, Ms., um, . . ." With his mind running so fast, he'd forgotten her na
"Manda Solomon. Just tell himтАФ"
"Can I tell him where you're calling from?" He grimaced at himself in the mirror by
front door. Dumbass, don't interrupt her, you'll scare her off.
"From San Jose, I'm a project manager at Endless Media. Just show himтАФoh, have you
iTV?"
"Yeah. You want me to put it on?" Good, that'd take some more time. If Dad
kept up the payments.
He carried the phone over to the iTV screen hanging on the wall like a seasc
there was a fuzzy motel-decor photo of a sunset endlessly playing in it now, the kitschy or
clouds swirling in the same tape-looping pattern. He tapped the tab on the phone that w
hook it to the iTV, and faced the screen so that the camera in the corner of the fr
could pick him up but only on head-shot setting so she couldn't see the pocket, too. "You
me?"
"Yup. Here I come."
Her picture appeared in a window in an upper corner of the screen, a pleasant-look
redhead in early middle age, hoop earrings, frank smile. She held up an e-book, tou
the page turner which instantly scrolled an image of a photograph that showe
three-dimensional array of people floating in space, endless pairs of people spaced out into
nodes of a warped jungle-gym lattice, a man and a woman at each node. Wendel recognized
couple as his dad and his mother. At first it looked as if all the nodes were the same, but w
you looked closer, you could see that the people at some of the more distant nodes we
Mom and Dad after all. In fact some of them didn't even look like people. This must be a p
taken inside a pocket with tunnels coming out of it. Wendel had never seen it before. "If
print out the picture, he'll know what it's all about," Manda was saying.
"Sure." Wendel saved the picture to the iTV's memory, hoping it would work. He d
want Manda to know their printer was broken and wouldn't be repaired anytime soon.
"Well it's been a sweet link, but I gotta goтАФjust tell him to call. Here's the number, re
to save? Got it? Okay, then. He'll remember me."
Wendel saw she wasn't wearing a wedding band. He got tired of taking care of Dad al
He tried to think of some way to keep her on the line. "He'll be right backтАФhe's way overd
expect him . . ."
"Whoops, I really gotta jam." She reached toward her screen and then hesitated, her
cocked as she looked at his image. "That's what it is: you look a lot like Jena, you know? Y
mom."
"I guess."
"Jena was a zippa-trip. I hated it when she disappeared."
"I don't remember her much."