"Shane Tourtellotte - Swap-Out" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tourtellotte Shane)

"From experience?" she said. "From experiencing it one way, you mean."
"From experiencing it the right way, since I was nine."
"Nine?" Kell gasped.
Egan relished the moment of shock, and followed it up. "It isn't so bad. Just shear it
down to skin in the back, get one little operation..." He watched Kell's hand move
protectively toward her hair. "Ah, so that's it."
She dropped her hand. "Didn't you ever find it ... invasive? A violation, physically?"
"I don't have the kind of inhibitions you do. And even if it was, you shouldn't expect
gains without a little sacrifice." He looked straight at her for the first time, smirking. "It's
called future _shock_, Kell. You can face it, or stay tucked away in the twentieth century.
You're welcome to come to my century any time, if that matters."
Kell shook her head. "I should have known," she said to herself, rather sadly, and
walked away without elaborating. Egan shrugged, and reached for the cable to plug
himself back into work.
***
"Have people always been such reactionaries?" Egan exclaimed. "It's a wonder we ever
advanced to computers in the first place."
His home computer's voice interface rendered his words into text, and sent them to
his friends currently occupying his Zone. Their computers had samples of his speech
patterns on file, so they could turn the text back into a good rendering of his voice, thus
conserving the bandwidth that always seemed scarce these days.
"It isn't just the wet-brains," Bay said, her voice rendered likewise. "I know a couple of
cybered people who are planning on having their implants taken out so they can go with
externals."
"What?" he howled. "And I thought Kelly the Hollow Girl was bad. That's -- that's
betrayal, turning their backs on human development. What's next, living in trees?"
"Power down, Egan," Garvey said. "I know someone like that myself. She's had
trouble with inflammation, the implant area getting infected. She might even have had it
removed if there weren't the fallback."
"Now that's just her fault. Some simple maintenance, some hygiene for freak's sake,
and she'd be fine. God, I don't understand some people."
"You're being pretty harsh," said Lou. "Even if they're making mistakes, let them. It
doesn't affect the rest of us."
"But it does. It retards the whole society, more than usual. Brain implants have existed
for a quarter century, and still only 20 percent of people in this country have them. It
should be 20 percent still wet-brains, at most. We should have had a cybered president by
now. We shouldn't still be the stereotyped minority, played as brainiac zombies in half the
stuff you see. Every implant taken out, every person who settles for an external setup,
makes it harder on the rest of us."
"So what do we do?" Garvey asked. "Hit-and-run implant surgery?"
"I wish, but it has always been a matter of public opinion. A little constructive ridicule,
some 'Where did I leave my brain' jokes, and we might get somewhere. I -- whoa, my
kitchen's signaling. Time to refuel. I'll link with you later, gang -- and tell Lynne we missed
her tonight."
 After a chorus of good-byes, Egan thought a few commands to close his netlink and
shut down the computer. He groaned, but his friendly module picked up the slack. He
walked to the kitchen to unload the microwave, bending his neck to work out a kink.
Soon he was ready for bed. He undressed, leaving on just briefs and an undershirt,
with its extra slack in the neck to accommodate his module. He sat on the edge of his
bed, opened the toolkit sitting on his night-table, and picked out a lint and static-free