"Rudy Rucker & Marc Laidlaw - The Perfect Wave" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rucker Rudy)

THE PERFECT WAVE
by Rudy Rucker & Marc Laidlaw

Rudy Rucker, author, mathematician, and computer-science professor
extraordinaire, also edits and publishes an online SF тАШzine called Flurb
(www.flurb.net), where Marc Laidlaw is a regular contributor. Rudy is
currently working on a cyberpunk trilogy in which nanotechnology augments
human mental powers but threatens to destroy Earth. The first volume,
Postsingular, appeared from Tor this fall and is also available for free
download at (www.rudyrucker.com/postsingular). You can stay abreast of
the authorтАЩs multifarious activities via his illustrated blog,
(www.rudyrucker.com/blog).

Marc Laidlaw, the author of DadтАЩs Nuke and The 37th Mandala, has, for
the last ten years, worked in the videogame industry as lead writer for the
popular Half-Life series. He won the 2005 Game DevelopersтАЩ Choice
Award for Best Writing for Half-Life 2.

****

ItтАЩs a pleasant June evening in the funky California beach town of Surf
City. Shadows lengthen across the state university campus, nestled amid
redwoods and pastures above the town; on the bay, wetsuited surfers bob
and slide on the tubes off Parker Point, their waves gilded by the setting
sun.

The Boardwalk amusement parkтАЩs chains of lights are coming on;
squeals burst irregularly from the roller coaster. Low cars creep down the
beachfront avenue, pumping beat-heavy music. Couples and families stroll
about; kids play in the yards of the grimy pastel homes in the side streets
off the Boardwalk; skaters grind and flip along railings, stoops and curbs.
Borne upon the cool evening breeze, the smells of grease and oregano
waft from a waterside warehouse restaurant.

The establishmentтАЩs marquee displays a long-snouted grinning
cartoon rat holding a surfboard and an oversized slice of pizza, the slice
flopping down to drip a cheese-strand onto the ratтАЩs gnarly bare toes. The
rat wears a top hat and a long red T-shirt labeled C.R. The marquee sign
reads:

Cheezemore RattтАЩs Surf Shack

Pizza, Games, and Family Fun!
 Yes, We Have тАЬThe Perfect WaveтАЭ(R)TM

A tall, skinny young man with a shock of straight platinum blond hair is
spraypainting a mural onto a concrete block wall facing the mostly empty
parking lot, the mural potentially visible to the cars trolling the beachfront
avenue. The painter is Zep: avid surfer, amateur scientist, temporarily
unhoused. His recently acquired companion Kaya sits on the ground,