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

The permanent floating meatspace party has taken over the back of De
WildemannтАЩs, a three hundred year old brown caf├й with a beer menu that runs to
sixteen pages and wooden walls stained the color of stale beer. The air is thick with
the smells of tobacco, brewerтАЩs yeast, and melatonin spray: half the dotters are
nursing monster jetlag hangovers, and the other half are babbling a eurotrash creole
at each other while they work on the hangover. "Man did you see that? He looks like
a Stallmanite!" exclaims one whitebread hanger-on whoтАЩs currently propping up the
bar. Manfred slides in next to him, catches the bartenderтАЩs eye.

"Glass of the berlinnerweise, please," he says.

"You drink that stuff?" asks the hanger-on, curling a hand protectively around his
Coke: "man, you donтАЩt want to do that! ItтАЩs full of alcohol!"

Manfred grins at him toothily. "Ya gotta keep your yeast intake up: lots of
neurotransmitter precursors, phenylalanine and glutamate."

"But I thought that was a beer you were ordering. . . ."

ManfredтАЩs away, one hand resting on the smooth brass pipe that funnels the more
popular draught items in from the cask storage in back; one of the hipper floaters has
planted a capacitative transfer bug on it, and all the handshake vCardтАЩs that have

file:///H|/eMule/Incoming/The%20Dog%20Said%20Bow-Wow%20by%20Michael%20Swanwick.htm (5 of 23)15-8-2005 22:37:22
"The Dog Said Bow-Wow" by Michael Swanwick


visited the bar in the past three hours are queueing for attention. The air is full of
bluetooth as he scrolls through a dizzying mess of public keys.

"Your drink." The barman holds out an improbable-looking goblet full of blue liquid
with a cap of melting foam and a felching straw stuck out at some crazy angle.
Manfred takes it and heads for the back of the split-level bar, up the steps to a table
where some guy with greasy dreadlocks is talking to a suit from Paris. The hanger-
on at the bar notices him for the first time, staring with suddenly wide eyes: nearly
spills his Coke in a mad rush for the door.

Oh shit, thinks Macx, better buy some more server PIPS. He can recognize the
signs: heтАЩs about to be slashdotted. He gestures at the table: "this one taken?"

"Be my guest," says the guy with the dreads. Manfred slides the chair open then
realizes that the other guyтАУimmaculate double-breasted suit, sober tie, crew-cutтАУis a
girl. Mr. Dreadlock nods. "YouтАЩre Macx? I figured it was about time we met."

"Sure." Manfred holds out a hand and they shake. Manfred realizes the hand belongs
to Bob Franklin, a Research Triangle startup monkey with a VC track record, lately
moving into micromachining and space technology: he made his first million two
decades ago and now heтАЩs a specialist in extropian investment fields. Manfred has
known Bob for nearly a decade via a closed mailing list. The Suit silently slides a
business card across the table; a little red devil brandishes a trident at him, flames