"Rudy Rucker - Postsingular Outtakes" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rucker Rudy)

тАЬShut the fuck up,тАЭ said Sonic, kneeling beside Grandmaster Green Flash. тАЬThis guy was the best.тАЭ

Jayjay teeped into the orphidnet, looking to understand what was going on. The computational space of
the GrandmasterтАЩs corpse was a massive nest of virtual beetlesтАФalready evolved into a state resistant to
the beetle-fleas. The beetles looked more and more like prototypes of the deadly nants, somehow being
modeled by viral software in the mutant orphids devouring the corpse. Within the orphidnet, the healthy
orphids were like tiny fighter planes attacking the amok nanomachines.

Jayjay felt a warm breeze on his face; in the orphidnet a thirty-foot-high figure was standing over them all.
A Mirrorbraner! The glowing humanoid form reached down and cupped her flickering hands about the
corpse.

The body shrankтАФfirst to the size of a child, then to the size of a dog and then to the size of a rat. The
smaller the corpse got, the faster the colors swirled and thenтАФpopтАФGrandmaster Green Flash was
gone, and so was the Mirrorbraner.

тАЬAn angel!тАЭ screamed a fat woman on the sidewalk. тАЬAn angel carried him away!тАЭ

тАЬHypertunnel,тАЭ said Sonic, staring at the spot on the sidewalk where the body had disappeared. тАЬThe
Mirrorbraner carried the Grandmaster away into the fourth dimension. In Doodly Bug thatтАЩs what it
means when someone shrinks.тАЭ

9: Carla StandardтАЩs Fun Bums. Intense, lipsticked, nail-biting Carla Standard used what she called a
godseye viewpoint, showing multiple points of view as seen in the mind of a single omniscient observer.
Her tightly plotted Fun Bums was about a runaway girlтАЩs coming of age after the mysterious
disappearance of her kiqqie boyfriend. Rather than cutting between characters, Fun Bums included
continuous tapes of all the main charactersтАЩ lives. With a bit of practice a user could master CarlaтАЩs fused
godseye view, experiencing all the characters at once, seeing simultaneously through the simulated minds
of mother and daughter, lover and beloved, cop and fugitive, alien and abductee. As an extra twist, Carla
had made all her characters look like famous cartoon characters. In order having to animate the cartoons
from scratch, Carla had sampled the data streams of homeless street kiqqies, beezie-processing them
wrap her designs around the armatures of the unwitting playersтАЩ orphidnet meshes. When Thuy had gone
through Fun Bums, sheтАЩd found that Carla had used data streams from Thuy and JayjayтАЩs romance,
making them look like Donald Duck and ugh, ugh, ugh the infantilized anime girl Sailor Moon. Carla had
repurposed, for instance, the moment last spring when Jayjay and Thuy had stood under a flowering plum
tree off Mission Street, Jayjay shaking the tree to make the petals rain down on Thuy. Where Jayjay had
been funny and cute, now he was a comic orange-beaked waddler, and where Thuy had been full-lipped
and tender, her Fun Bums mouth was an immobile triangle of witless joy. Nosy Carla had included their
breakup as well, Thuy hung-over from the Big Pig, her leg-warmers in disarray, hysterically screaming at
Jayjay in an alley, poor JayjayтАЩs tailfeathers nervously twitching and his fingers adjusting his little jacket.
Thuy was miffed that Carla had made Jayjay more sympathetic than her; she suspected that Carla had
done this as an oblique way of flirting with him. Not that Thuy any claim over Jayjay anymore. Oh, why
did she miss him so much?
10: Dusty Ballsack. тАЬIтАЩm glad you didnтАЩt watch Jayjay and me on Founders,тАЭ said Jil. тАЬThe kids saw
some of it, which was horrible even though, in a way, it shouldnтАЩt have been that much worse than them
peeping at Craigor and me, which I know theyтАЩve done a few times. ItтАЩs hard to imagine how the new
generation will end up. Jayjay and I stopped having sex after Bixie had a screaming fit and slugged him in
the crotch. She was yelling, тАШGross dusty ballsack.тАЩтАЭ Jil shook her head and laughed. тАЬBixieтАЩs eleven,тАЭ
she added. тАЬGirls are wonderful when theyтАЩre eleven. Remember that age? ItтАЩs before life beats you
down.тАЭ