"Rajnar Vajra - Standing Firm on the Pipette Line" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vajra Rajnar)

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Standing Firm on the Pipette Line
by Rajnar Vajra
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Copyright (c)2001 by Rajnar Vajra
First published in Analog, October 2001

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Science Fiction


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I'll tell you what lurks in the shallows of _my_ memory. Fearful
Friday. I'm talking about October 29, 2021, the eeriest day of my life. And my
God, the way it ended! Let's put it this way: a hungry shark in my Jacuzzi
would be easier for me to forget about than Fearful Friday. Two years and two
months have slipped by since that horribly premature Halloween, but I can
still remember every grotesque detail. Hell, if I close my eyes and let my
mind drift, I can practically _taste_ the terror....
****
My breakfast nook, gilded by sunrise, was glowing cheerfully. Friday had
always been my favorite day of the week and this one promised to be clear and
crisp. But instead of savoring my beloved Jamaican Blue Mountain as usual, I
was feeling it etch away at my stomach lining like concentrated sulfuric acid.
I sipped and winced, dreading the upcoming afternoon press conference. The
only bright spot, I decided in my vast innocence, was that I'd surely reached
the penthouse level in my personal tower of stress.
But even the press conference exceeded my worst expectations. By 2:05
PM, despite fifteen minutes of my smoothest dodging and sidestepping, the
truculent sea of reporters had sucked me into a maelstrom of awkward
questions. Under my Armani jacket I was sweating like a cold pipe in a steam
bath.
Don't get me wrong. Like most politicians I adore media attention, but
not when I'm in a jam. Especially such thick jam and such extravagant
attention. Enough microphones were stuck in front of my chubby little face to
record the Boston Symphony twenty times over. And, worse, no less than fifty
live-feed video cameras were aimed my way, poised to capture every little
slip-up, stray drop of spit, and facial twitch. If I appeared even
fractionally confident, I deserved a damned Academy Award.
So many extra reporters had showed up, we'd had to set up outdoors. And