"Michael Swanwick - Ancient Engines" - читать интересную книгу автора (Swanwick Michael)

Ancient Engines
by Michael Swanwick


"Planning to live forever, Tiktok?"
The words cut through the bar's chatter and gab and silenced them. The silence reached out to
touch infinity and then, "I believe you're talking to me?" a mech said.
The drunk laughed. "Ain't nobody else here sticking needles in his face, is there?"
The old man saw it all. He lightly touched the hand of the young woman sitting with him and
said, "Watch."
Carefully the mech set down his syringe alongside a bottle of liquid collagen on a square of
velvet cloth. He disconnected himself from the recharger, laying the jack beside the syringe.
When he looked up again, his face was still and hard. He looked like a young lion.
The drunk grinned sneeringly.
The bar was located just around the corner from the local stepping stage. It was a quiet
retreat from the aggravations of the street, all brass and mirrors and wood paneling, as cozy and
snug as the inside of a walnut. Light shifted lazily about the room, creating a varying emphasis
like clouds drifting overhead on a summer day, but far dimmer. The bar, the bottles behind the
bar, and the shelves beneath the bottles behind the bar were all aggressively real. If there was
anything virtual, it was set up high or far back, where it couldn't be touched. There was not a
smart surface in the place.
"If that was a challenge," the mech said, "I'd be more than happy to meet you outside."
"Oh, noooooo," the drunk said, his expression putting the lie to his words. "I just saw you
shooting up that goop into your face, oh so dainty, like an old lady pumping herself full of
antioxidants. So I figured . . ." He weaved and put a hand down on a table to steady himself. ". .
. figured you was hoping to live forever."
The girl looked questioningly at the old man. He held a finger to his lips.
"Well, you're right. You're--what? Fifty years old? Just beginning to grow old and decay.
Pretty soon your teeth will rot and fall out and your hair will melt away and your face will fold
up in a million wrinkles. Your hearing and your eyesight will go and you won't be able to remember
the last time you got it up. You'll be lucky if you don't need diapers before the end. But me--"
he drew a dram of fluid into his syringe and tapped the barrel to draw the bubbles to the top--"
anything that fails, I'll simply have it replaced. So, yes, I'm planning to live forever. While
you, well, I suppose you're planning to die. Soon, I hope."
The drunk's face twisted, and with an incoherent roar of rage he attacked the mech.
In a motion too fast to be seen, the mech stood, seized the drunk, whirled him around, and
lifted him above his head. One hand was closed around the man's throat so he couldn't speak. The
other held both wrists tight behind the knees so that, struggle as he might, the drunk was
helpless.
"I could snap your spine like that," he said coldly. "If I exerted myself, I could rupture
every internal organ you've got. I'm two-point-eight times stronger than a flesh man, and three-
point-five times faster. My reflexes are only slightly slower than the speed of light, and I've
just had a tune-up. You could hardly have chosen a worse person to pick a fight with."
Then the drunk was flipped around and set back on his feet. He gasped for air.
"But since I'm also a merciful man, I'll simply ask nicely if you wouldn't rather leave." The
mech spun the drunk around and gave him a gentle shove toward the door.
The man left at a stumbling run.
Everyone in the place--there were not many--had been watching. Now they remembered their
drinks, and talk rose up to fill the room again. The bartender put something back under the bar
and turned away.