"Peter Watts - The Second Coming" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watts Peter)

that nothing you say to me is necessarily confidential. Do you "Is that why you did it? To end his suffering?" Thomas doubts it.
understand?" She nods. Thomas sits down across from her. "What Mercy killers don't generally disembowel their beneficiaries. Still,
would you like me to call you?" he asks.
"Napoleon. Mohammed. Jesus Christ." Her lips twitch, the She answers. "Of course I fucked up, I only ended up making
faintest smile, gone in an instant. "Sorry. Just kidding. Jaz's fine." things worse." She clasps her hands in front of her. "I miss him
"Are you doing okay in here? Are they treating you all right?" already. Isn't that crazy? It only happened a few hours ago, and I
She snorts. "They're treating me pretty damn well, considering know it's no big deal, but I still miss him. That head-heart thing
the kind of monster they think I am." A pause, then, "I'm not, you again."
know." "You say you fucked up," Thomas says.
"A monster?" She takes a deep breath, nods. "Big time."
"Crazy. I'veтАФ I've just recently undergone a paradigm shift, you "Tell me about that."
know? The whole world looks different, and my head's there but "I don't know shit about debugging. I thought I did, but when
sometimes my gutтАФ I mean, it's so hard to feel differently about you're dealing with organicsтАФ all I really did was go in and mess
things..." randomly with the code. You make a mess of everything, unless
"Tell me about this paradigm shift," Thomas suggests. He makes you know exactly what you're doing. That's what I'm working on
it a point not to take notes. He doesn't even have a notepad. Not now."
that it matters. The microcassette recorder in his blazer has very "Debugging?"
sensitive ears. "That's what I call it. There's no real word for it yet."
"Things make sense now," she says. "They never did before. I Oh yes there is. Aloud: "Go on."
think, for the first time in my life, I'm actually happy." She smiles Jasmine Fitzgerald sighs, her eyes closed. "I don't expect you to
again, for longer this time. Long enough for Thomas to marvel at believe this under the circumstances, but I really loved him. No: I
how genuine it seems. love him." Her breath comes out in a soft snort, a whispered laugh.
"You weren't very happy when you first came here," he says "There I go again. That bloody past tense."
gently. "They say you were very upset." "Tell me about debugging."
The Second Coming of Jasmine Fitzgerald Peter Watts
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"I don't think you're up for it, Myles. I don't even think you're all There are snares sprinkled throughout these tests, linked questions
that interested." Her eyes open, point directly at him. "But for the designed to catch liars in subtle traps of self-contradiction. Jasmine
record, Stu was dying. I tried to save him. I failed. Next time I'll Fitzgerald has avoided them all. Is she unusually honest? Is she too
do better, and better still the time after that, and eventually I'll get it smart for the tests? There doesn't seem to be anything here thatтАФ
right." Wait a second.
"And what happens then?" Thomas says. Who was Louis Pasteur? asks the WAIS, trying to get a handle on
"Through your eyes or mine?" educational background.
"Yours." A virus, Fitzgerald said.
"I repair the glitches in the string. Or if it's easier, I replicate an Back up the list. Here's another one, on the previous page: Who
undamaged version of the subroutine and insert it back into the main was Winston Churchill? And again: a virus.
loop. Same difference." And fifteen questions before that: Who was Florence
"Uh huh. And what would I see?" Nightingale?
She shrugs. "Stu rising from the dead." A famous nurse, Fitzgerald responded to that one. And her
responses to all previous questions on historical personalities are
* * * unremarkably correct. But everyone after Nightingale is a virus.
Killing a virus is no sin. You can do it with an utterly clear
What's wrong with this picture? conscience. Maybe she's redefining the nature of her act. Maybe
Spread out across the table, the mind of Jasmine Fitzgerald winks that's how she manages to live with herself these days.
back from pages of standardised questions. Somewhere in here, Just as well. That raising-the-dead shtick didn't cut any ice at all.
presumably, is a monster.