"Peter Watts - Flesh Made Word" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watts Peter)

"I'm not one of your patients, Lynne." His words were
measured, inflectionless. "If you can't leave your work downtown,
at least find someone else to practise on."
"Russ..." Her voice trailed off.
He looked back at her, utterly neutral.
"Okay, Russ. See you later." She turned and walked back to
the door. Wescott noted the controlled tetanus in her movements,
9 Watts

imagined the ratchet contraction of actomyosin as she reached for
her shoes.
She's running, he thought, fascinated. My words did that to her.
I make waves in the air and a million nerves light up her brain like
sheet lightning. How many ops/sec happening in there? How
many switches opening, closing, rerouting, until some of that
electricity runs down her arm and makes her hand turn the
doorknob?
He watched her intricate machinery close the door behind itself.
She's gone, he thought. I've won again.


Wescott watched Hamilton strap the chimp onto the table and
attach the leads to its scalp. The chimp was used to the procedure;
it had been subject to such indignities on previous occasions, and
had always survived in good health and good spirits. There was no
reason for it to expect anything different this time.
As Hamilton snugged the straps, the smaller primate stiffened
and hissed.
Wescott studied a nearby monitor. "Damn, it's nervous."
Cortical tracings, normally languorous, scrambled across the screen
in epileptic spasms. "We can't start until it calms down. Unless it
calms down. Shit. This could scotch the whole recording."
Hamilton pulled one of the restraints a notch tighter. The
chimp, its back pulled flat against the table, flexed once and went
suddenli limp.
Wescott looked back at the screen. "Okay, it's relaxing.
Showtime, Pete; you're on in about thirty seconds."
Hamilton held up the hypo. "Ready."
"Okay, getting baseline--now. Fire when ready."
Needle slid into flesh. Wescott reflected on the obvious
unhumanity of the thing on the table; too small and hairy, all bow
legs and elongate simian arms. A machine. That's all it is.
Potassium ions jumping around in a very compact telephone
switchboard.
But the eyes, when he slipped and looked at them, looked back.
Flesh Made Word 10

"Midbrain signature in fifty seconds," Wescott read off. "Give
or take ten."
"Okay," Hamilton said. "It's going through the tunnel."