"Michael Swanwick - The Dog Said Bow - Wow" - читать интересную книгу автора (Swanwick Michael)

maybe local, but more likely drifters lured to Amsterdam by the magnetic field of
tolerance the Dutch beam across Europe like a pulsarтАУare laughing and chatting by a "The Dog Said Bow-
couple of battered mopeds in the far corner. A tourist boat putters by in the canal; Wow" Copyright ┬й
the sails of the huge windmill overhead cast long cool shadows across the road. The 2002 by Michael
windmill is a machine for lifting water, turning wind power into dry land: trading Swanwick, used by
energy for space, sixteenth-century style. Manfred is waiting for an invite to a party permission of the
where heтАЩs going to meet a man who he can talk to about trading energy for space, author.

file:///H|/eMule/Incoming/The%20Dog%20Said%20Bow-Wow%20by%20Michael%20Swanwick.htm (1 of 23)15-8-2005 22:37:22
"The Dog Said Bow-Wow" by Michael Swanwick


twenty-first century style, and forget about his personal problems.

HeтАЩs ignoring the instant messenger boxes, enjoying some low bandwidth high
sensation time with his beer and the pigeons, when a woman walks up to him and
says his name: "Manfred Macx?"

He glances up. The courier is an Effective Cyclist, all wind-burned smooth-running
muscles clad in a paen to polymer technology: electric blue lycra and wasp-yellow
carbonate with a light speckling of anti-collision LEDs and tight-packed air bags.
She holds out a box for him. He pauses a moment, struck by the degree to which she
resembles Pam, his ex-fianc├йe.

"IтАЩm Macx," he says, waving the back of his left wrist under her barcode reader.
"WhoтАЩs it from?"

"FedEx." The voice isnтАЩt Pam. She dumps the box in his lap, then sheтАЩs back over
the low wall and onto her bicycle with her phone already chirping, disappearing in a
cloud of spread-spectrum emissions.

Manfred turns the box over in his hands: itтАЩs a disposable supermarket phone, paid
for in cash: cheap, untraceable and efficient. It can even do conference calls, which
makes it the tool of choice for spooks and grifters everywhere.

The box rings. Manfred rips the cover open and pulls out the phone, mildly annoyed.
"Yes, who is this?"

The voice at the other end has a heavy Russian accent, almost a parody in this
decade of cheap online translation services. "Manfred. Am please to meet you; wish
to personalize interface, make friends, no? Have much to offer."

"Who are you?" Manfred repeats suspiciously.

"Am organization formerly known as KGB dot RU."

"I think your translatorтАЩs broken." He holds the phone to his ear carefully, as if itтАЩs
made of smoke-thin aerogel, tenuous as the sanity of the being on the other end of
the line.