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

"The nearest people in here are, like, an eighth of a mile away. I can't even make out
faces from here."
"That's not what I mean. The other groups here, they might be spying on us with gnat-au
stuff like that. They're all a bunch of bottom-feeders like Endless Media, you know. Nob
knows jack from squat, so they're all looking to copy me."
"You wish. It's good to have work, but you're going to get in deep shit, Dad. You're te
Endless Media you're down with the tech when you're not. You're telling them you can stab
a Big Bubble when you can't. You say you can keep tunnels from hooking into itтАФbut you
know how."
"Maybe I can. I have to test it some more."
"You test it every night."
"Not enough. I haven't actually gone inside it yet."
"Come on. I'm the one who has to put you back together after a bubble binge
great having an income from this gig, Dad, a better place to liveтАФbut I'm not going to let
vanish into that thing. Something just like it killed the whole DeGroot team five years ago."
His Dad turned Wendel a glare that startled him. It was almost feral. Chair screec
nastily on the tile, he got up abruptly and went across the room to a coffee vend
machine for another latte. Dad ran his card through the slot, and then swore. He sta
back over to the table long enough to say, "Be right back, this card's used up, I've got ano
one in my locker."
"You're not going to sneak up to the lab without me, are you? Our time-slot starts in
minutes, you know. At midnight."
"Son? Don't. I'm the dad, you're the kid. Okay? I'll be right back."
Wendel watched him go. I'm the dad, you're the kid. There were a lot of comeback
could've made to that one.
Wendel sipped his gooey stew, then pushed it away. It was tepid, the vegetables mu
made him think of bits of leftover food floating in dishwater. He heard a beep, looked tow
the vending machines. The machine Dad had run his card through was beeping, flashing a
light.
Wendel walked over to it. A small screen on the machine said, DO YOU WISH TO CAN
YOUR PURCHASE?
Which was only something it said if the card was good. Which meant that Dad
gone to the lab without him. Wendel felt a sick chill that made his fingers quiver . . .
sprinted toward the elevators.

The pocket was so swollen he could hardly get into the big testing room with it. Maybe
hundred feet in diameter, sixty feet high. Mercuric and yet lusterless. The var
measuring instruments were crowded up against the walls.
"Dad?" he called tentatively. But Wendel knew Dad was gone. He could feel his abs
from the world.
He edged around the outside of the Big Bubble, grimacing when he came
contact with it. Somewhere beneath the great pocket was the nanomatrix mat that prod
itтАФor attracted it? But it wasn't like you could do anything to turn the pocket off once i
here. At least nothing that they'd figured out yetтАФwhich was one of the many obsta
preventing this thing from being a realistic public attraction. "Show may last from one to
minutes world-time, and seem to take one hour to three months of your proper time." Ev
there were a way to shut the pocket off nowтАФwhat would that do to Dad?
Facing a far corner was the dimpled spot, the entrance navel. On these Big Bubbles
navel didn't always seal over. When Wendel looked into the navel, it seemed to swirl li
slow-motion whirlpool, but in two contradictory directions. Hypnotic. It could still be ente