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

The Second Coming of Jasmine Fitzgerald Peter Watts
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"Most people, if they said that, would be talking about the Her face goes completely expressionless. "Does God tell me to do
afterlife." things, you mean. Did God tell me to carve Stu up likeтАФ likeтАФ"
She favours him with a sad little smile. "This is the afterlife, Her breath hisses out between her teeth. "No, Myles. I don't hear
Myles. This is Heaven, and Hell, and Nirvana. Whatever we voices. Charlie Manson doesn't come to me in my dreams and
choose to make it. Right here." whisper sweet nothings. I answered all those questions on your test
"Yes," Thomas says after a moment. "Of course." already, so give me a fucking break, okay?"
Her disappointment in him hangs there like an accusation. He holds up his hands, placating. "That's not what I meant,
"You don't believe in God, do you?" she asks at last. Jasmine." Liar. "I'm sorry if that's how it sounded, it's justтАФ you
"Do you?" he ricochets. know, God, quantum mechanicsтАФ it's a lot to swallow at once, you
"Didn't used to. Turns out there's clues, though. Proof, even." know? It'sтАФ mind-blowing."
"Such as?" She watches him through guarded eyes. "Yeah. I guess it can be.
"The mass of the top quark. The width of the Higgs boson. You I forget, sometimes." She relaxes a fraction. "But it's all true. The
can't read them any other way when you know what you're looking math is inevitable. You can change the nature of reality, just by
for. Know anything about quantum physics, Myles?" looking at it. You're right. It's mind-blowing."
He shakes his head. "Not really." "But only at the subatomic level, right? You're not really saying
"Nothing really exists, not down at the subatomic level. It's all we could make this table disappear just by ignoring it, are you?"
just probability waves. Until someone looks at it, that is. Then the Her eye flickers to a spot just to the right and behind him, about
wave collapses and you get what we call reality. But it can't happen where the door should be.
without an observer to get things started." "Well, no," she says at last. "Not without a lot of practise."
Thomas squints, trying to squeeze some sort of insight into his
brain. "So if we weren't here looking at this table, it wouldn't * * *
exist?"
Fitzgerald nods. "More or less." That smile peeks around the What's wrong with this picture?
corner of her mouth for a second. Besides the obvious, of course. Besides the vertical incision
He tries to lure it back. "So God's the observer, is that what you're running from sternum to approximately two centimetres below the
saying? God watches all the atoms so the universe can exist?" navel, penetrating the abdominal musculature and extending through
"Huh. I never thought about it that way before." The smile into the visceral coelom. Beyond the serrations along its edge which
morphs into a frown of concentration. "More metaphoric than suggest the use of some sort of blade. Not, evidently, a very sharp
mathematical, but it's a cool idea." one.
"Was God watching you yesterday?" No. We're getting ahead of ourselves here. The coroner's art is
She looks up, distracted. "Huh?" nothing if not systematic. Very well, then: Caucasian male, mid-
"Does HeтАФ does It communicate with you?" twenties. External morphometrics previously noted. Hair loss and
The Second Coming of Jasmine Fitzgerald Peter Watts
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bruising consistent with chemotherapeutic toxicity. Right index and
ring fingernails missing, same notation. The deceased was one sick His desk is absolutely spartan. Not a shred of paper out of place.
puppy at time of demise. Sickened by the disease, poisoned by the Not a shred of paper even in evidence, actually. The surface is as
cure. And just when you thought things couldn't get any worse... featureless as a Kubrick monolith, except for the Sun workstation
Down and in. The wound swallows the coroner's rubberised positioned dead centre and a rack of CDs angled off to the left.
hands like some huge torn vagina, its labia clotted and crystallised. "I thought she looked familiar," he says. "When I saw the papers.