"Connie Willis - The Last of the Winnebagos" - читать интересную книгу автора (Willis Connie)

eighty-nine when he retired. Nineteen years. David, are you using the
eisenstadt?"
We had been through this the last three times I'd been on a shoot. "I'm
not there yet," I said.
"Well, I want you to use it at the governor's conference. Set it on his
desk if you can."
I intended to set it on a desk, all right. One of the desks at the back, and
let it get some nice shots of the rear ends of reporters as they reached
wildly for a little clear air-space to shoot their pictures in, some of them
holding their vidcams in their upstretched arms and aiming them in what
they hope is the right direction because they can't see the governor at all,
let it get a nice shot of one of the reporter's arms as he knocked it
face-down on the desk.
"This one's a new model. It's got a trigger. It's set for faces, full-lengths,
and vehicles."
So great. I come home with a hundred-frame cartridge full of passersby
and tricycles. How the hell did it know when to click the shutter or which
one the governor was in a press conference of eight hundred people,
full-length or face? It was supposed to have all kinds of fancy light-metrics
and computer-composition features, but all it could really do was
mindlessly snap whatever passed in front of its idiot lens, just like the
highway speed cameras.
It had probably been designed by the same government types who'd put
the highway cameras along the road instead of overhead so that all it takes
is a little speed to reduce the new side-license plates to a blur, and people
go faster than ever. A great camera, the eisenstadt. I could hardly wait to
use it.
"Sun-co's very interested in the eisenstadt," Ramirez said. She didn't
say goodbye. She never does. She just stops talking and then starts up
again later. I looked back in the direction of the jackal.
The multiway was completely deserted. New cars and singles don't use
the undivided multiways much, even during rush hours. Too many of the
little cars have been squashed by tankers. Usually there are at least a few
obsoletes and renegade semis taking advantage of the Patrol's being on
the divideds, but there wasn't anybody at all.
I got back in the car and backed up even with the jackal. I turned off the
ignition but didn't get out. I could see the trickle of blood from its mouth
from here. A tanker went roaring past out of nowhere, trying to beat the
cameras, straddling the three middle lanes and crushing the jackal's rear
half to a bloody mush. It was a good thing I hadn't been trying to cross the
road. He never would have even seen me.
I started the car and drove to the nearest off-ramp to find a phone.
There was one at an old 7-Eleven on McDowell.
"I'm calling to report a dead animal on the road," I told the woman who
answered the Society's phone.
"Name and number?"
"It's a jackal," I said. "It's between Thirtieth and Thirty-Second on Van
Buren. It's in the far right lane."
"Did you render emergency assistance?"
"There was no assistance to be rendered. It was dead."