"Neal Stephenson - The Diamond Age" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sterling Bruce)

by practice, they get to be wide apart.

тАФConfucius
Moral reforms and deteriorations are moved by large forces, and
they are mostly caused by reactions from the habits of a preceding
period. Backwards and forwards swings the great pendulum, and
its alterna-tions are not determined by a few distinguished folk
clinging to the end of it.


тАФSir Charles Petrie, THE VICTORIANS
 A thete visits a mod parlor; noteworthy features of
modern armaments.


The bells of St. MarkтАЩs were ringing changes up on the mountain
when Bud skated over to the mod parlor to upgrade his skull gun.
Bud had a nice new pair of blades with a top speed of anywhere
from a hundred to a hundred and fifty kilometers, depending on how
fat you were and whether or not you wore aero. Bud liked wearing
skin-tight leather, to show off his muscles. On a previous visit to the
mod parlor, two years ago, he had paid to have a bunch of тАШsites
implanted in his musclesтАФlittle critters; too small to see or feel, that
twitched BudтАЩs muscle fibers electrically according to a program
that was supposed to maximize bulk. Combined with the
testosterone pump embedded in his forearm, it was like working out
in a gym night and day, except you didnтАЩt have to actually do
anything and you never got sweaty. The only drawback was that all
the little twitches made him kind of tense and jerky. HeтАЩd gotten
used to it, but it still made him a little hinky on those skates,
especially when he was doing a hundred clicks an hour through a
crowded street. But few people hassled Bud, even when he knocked
them down in the street, and after today no one would hassle him
ever again.
Bud had walked away, improbably unscratched, from his last
jobтАФdecoyтАФwith something like a thousand yuks in his pocket.
HeтАЩd spent a third of it on new clothes, mostly black leather, another
third of it on the blades, and was about to spend the last third at the
mod parlor. You could get skull guns a lot cheaper, of course, but
that would mean going over the Causeway to Shanghai and getting a
back-alley job from some Coaster, and probably a nice bone
infection in with the bargain, and heтАЩd probably pick your pocket
while he had you theezed. Besides, you could only get into a
Shanghai if you were virgin. To cross the Causeway when you were
already packing a skull gun, like Bud, you had to bribe the shit
2 out of numerous Shanghai cops. There was no reason to economize
here. Bud had a rich and boundless career ahead of him, vaulting up
a hierarchy of extremely dangerous drug-related occupations for
which decoy served as a paid audition of sorts. A start weapons
system was a wise investment.