"Michael Swanwick - The Dead" - читать интересную книгу автора (Swanwick Michael)

be."

"Yes, sir," I said. "Succinctly put."

He nodded to Courtney. "Let's sell this young man." And to me, "My stretch is downstairs."

He winked out.

Koestler was waiting for us in the limo, a ghostly pink presence. His holo, rather, a genial if somewhat
coarse-grained ghost afloat in golden light. He waved an expansive and insubstantial arm to take in the
interior of the car and said, "Make yourselves at home."
The chauffeur wore combat-grade photomultipliers. They gave him a buggish, inhuman look. I wasn't
sure if he was dead or not. "Take us to Heaven," Koestler said.

The doorman stepped out into the street, looked both ways, nodded to the chauffeur. Robot guns
tracked our progress down the block.

"Courtney tells me you're getting the raw materials from Africa."

"Distasteful, but necessary. To begin with. We have to sell the idea first—no reason to make things
rough on ourselves. Down the line, though, I don't see why we can't go domestic. Something along the
lines of a reverse mortgage, perhaps, life insurance that pays off while you're still alive. It'd be a step
toward getting the poor off our backs at last. Fuck 'em. They've been getting a goddamn free ride for too
long; the least they can do is to die and provide us with servants."

I was pretty sure Koestler was joking. But I smiled and ducked my head, so I'd be covered in either
case. "What's Heaven?" I asked, to move the conversation onto safer territory.

"A proving ground," Koestler said with great satisfaction, "for the future. Have you ever witnessed
bare-knuckles fisticuffs?"

"No."

"Ah, now there's a sport for gentlemen! The sweet science at its sweetest. No rounds, no rules, no holds
barred. It gives you the real measure of a man—not just of his strength but his character. How he
handles himself, whether he keeps cool under pressure—how he stands up to pain. Security won't
let me go to the clubs in person, but I've made arrangements."

Heaven was a converted movie theater in a run-down neighborhood in Queens. The chauffeur got out,
disappeared briefly around the back, and returned with two zombie bodyguards. It was like a conjurer's
trick. "You had these guys stashed in the trunk!" I asked as he opened the door for us.

"It's a new world," Courtney said. "Get used to it."

The place was mobbed. Two, maybe three hundred seats, standing room only.

A mixed crowd, blacks and Irish and Koreans mostly, but with a smattering of uptown customers as
well. You didn't have to be poor to need the occasional taste of vicarious potency. Nobody paid us any
particular notice. We'd come in just as the fighters were being presented.