"Rudy Rucker - Chu and the Nants" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rucker Rudy)

"Daddy!" screamed Chu, a word he'd never used before. "Stop her! I'm not done!"

Ond came in and made Nektar leave the boy alone. "It's good if he learns the code," said Ond,
smoothing Chu's chestnut cap of hair. "That way there's a chance that--never mind."

When Nektar and Ond awoke the next morning, the house next door was gone.

"Maybe he set up the antenna wrong," said Ond.

"Their lawn's been eaten, too," said Nektar, standing by the window. "Everyone's lawn. And the trees.
Look out there. It's a wasteland. Oh God, Ond, we're going to die."

Indeed, as far as the eye could see, the once-fair village had been reduced to bare dirt. The air was
glittering with hordes of freshly made nants, a seething fog of omnivorous, pullulating, death-in-life. For
now the nants were staying away from Ond and Nektar's house. But the gasoline for the generator
wouldn't last forever. And, for that matter, at some point the nants would undermine the house's
foundation.

Chu was in the video room watching a screen showing his friend Willy. Chu had thought to plug the video
into an extension cord leading to the generator. Ond's dog-eared pages of code lay discarded on the
floor.
"It's radical in here, Chu," Willy was saying. "It feels real, but you know you're inside a game. It's like
being a toon. I didn't even notice when the nants ported me. I guess I was asleep. Jam on up to V-Earth
as soon as you can."

"Turn that off !" cried Nektar, darting across the room to unplug the video.

"I'm done with Daddy's code blocks," said Chu. "I know them all. Now I want to be a nant toon."

"Don't say that!" said Nektar.

"It might be for the best, Nektar," said Ond. "You'll see." He began tearing his closely written sheets into
tiny pieces.

"What is wrong with you?" yelled Nektar. "You'd sacrifice your son?"

Nektar kept a close eye on Chu that day. She didn't trust Ond with him anymore. The constant roar of
the generator motor was nerve-wracking. And then Nektar's worst fear came true. She stepped into the
bathroom for just a minute, and when she came out, Chu was running across what was left of their yard
and into the devastated zone where the nants swarmed thick in the air. And Ond--Ond was watching
Chu from the kitchen door.

The nants converged on Chu. He never cried out. His body puffed up, the skin seeming to seethe. And
then he--popped. There was a puff of nant-fog where Chu had been, and that was all.

"Don't you ever talk to me again," Nektar told Ond. "I hate you, hate you, hate you."

She lay down on her bed with her pillow over her head. Soon the nants would come for her and she'd be
in their nasty fake heaven with moronic Joe Doakes installed as God. The generator roared on and on.