"Charles Stross - Remade" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stross Charles)

the edge to the point and the right to the left but she's not leaving me any openings. "Hurry up and die!"
she snaps.

"After you." I feint and try to draw her off-balance, circling round her. Next to the gate we came in
through there's a ruined stump of a tall building, rubble heaped up above head height. (The gate's beacon
flashes red, signifying no egress until one of us is dead.) The rubble gives me an idea and I feint again,
then back off and leave an opening for her.

Blondie takes the opening and I just block her, because she's fast: but she's not sly, and she certainly
wasn't expecting the knife in my left hand - taped to my left thigh before - and as she tries to guard
against it I see my chance and run my sword through her belly.

She drops her weapon and falls to her knees. I sit down heavily opposite her, almost collapsing. Oh
dear. How did she manage to get my leg? Maybe I shouldn't trust my instincts quite so totally.

"Done?" I ask, suddenly feeling faint.

"I - " There's a curious expression on her face as she holds onto the basket of my sword. "Uh." She tries
to swallow. "Who?"

"I'm Robin," I say lightly, watching her with interest. I'm not sure I've ever watched somebody dying with
a sword through the guts before. There's lots of blood, and a really vile smell of ruptured intestines: I'd
have thought she'd be writhing and screaming, but maybe she's got an autonomic override. Anyway, I'm
holding my leg together. Blood keeps welling up between my fingers. Comradeship in pain. "You are
...?"

"Gwyn." She swallows. The light of hatred is extinguished, leaving something - puzzlement? - behind.

"When did you last back up, Gwyn?"

She squints. "Unh. Hour. Ago."

"Well then. Would you like me to end this?"

It takes a moment for her to meet my eyes. She nods. "When. You?"

I lean over, grimacing, and pick up her blade. "When did I last back myself up? Since recovering from
memory surgery, you mean?"

She nods, or maybe shudders. I raise the blade and frown, lining it up on her neck: it takes all my energy.
"Good question - "

I slice through her throat. Blood sprays everywhere.

"Never."

I stumble to the exit - an A-gate - and tell it to rebuild my leg before returning me to the bar. It switches
me off and a subjective instant later I wake up in the kiosk in the washroom at the back of the bar, my
body remade as new. I feel empty but, curiously, at peace with myself. Maybe I'll be ready for a
backup, soon? I flex my right leg. The assembler's done a good job of canonicalising it and the edited