"Scott Westerfeld - Non-Disclosure Agreement" - читать интересную книгу автора (Westerfeld Scott)

Falling Man before, and who could be trusted not to tell anyone else at the firm about my little side
project.

My body was alive by now тАФ a shot of adrenaline had restarted my heart тАФ and I was comatose in a
hospital bed. Now only semi-dead, Hades had grown a bit fuzzy around me, but I could still function
down here. To get me started quickly, the Devil let me borrow a machine with a fast net connection.

A buddy search revealed that Harriet was online, so I instant-messaged her. It turns out that my immortal
soul types faster without my corporeal fingers in the way, and with better punctuation and accuracy.

>thought you were dead!! Harriet responded.

>Nope, just near-dead. I've got some work for you.

>didn't you catch on fire or something? you're in the hospital, right?

>Just singed. Still comatose, actually. But I'm working remotely, from Hell.

>LA?

>No. *The* Hell. But I'll be back in NY soon. And while I was down here, I got
a job.

>is this some kind of sick joke?

>No, Harriet. Like I said, I got some work for you. $$$!
>who is this really?

>It's ME! Listen. Who one else would know this: Remember that time when I got
drunk at your apartment and we tried, but couldn't?

>OK! OK! but you said you were comatose?

>Body on the slab. Soul in Hades.

>whoa. i get it now. you *are* dead, and you set up some sort of dead-man
switch, like you always talked about.

I winced when I saw these words. I had always claimed to have a dead-man switch installed deep in
Falling Man's system, in case the other partners decided to get rid of me. My story was that if I didn't
type in a special code once a week, my dead-man program would recognize my absence and activate,
rampantly destroying all the company's stored data. It was insurance, in case I ever found myself locked
out of the office, or worse, cut out of the stock options. The truth was, however, I'd never bothered to
implement the dead-man software. It was too much trouble. After all, as with nuclear weapons, a
credible threat of massive retaliation was sufficient to maintain the peace.

Harriet continued:
>so this is just some posthumous conversation program, designed to fuck with
my head if you died. you programmed it to mention that time at my house. that
is so nasty of you. *was* so nasty, I guess.