"A. R. Yngve - Argus project" - читать интересную книгу автора (Yngve A. R)

The conversation that followed was, like most actions made by citizens
with high PP counts, available for public view. As the men talked, they
could observe their personal hit counters go up... first slowly, then by
the thousands per minute. The count reached its peak just after the
Kansler mentioned the code word "Argus" in public view.
Enemy agents also had open access to this information. The Kansler was
fully aware of it. After all, one of the enemy were in fact standing in
the same room. He nodded slightly to Boulder Pi, who had jumped into a
set of artificial leg extensions he utilized to walk faster. Here on the
Moon, a midget like Boulder could easily use leg extensions without
motors. Boulder Pi listened in on the conversation, knowing some of the
Kansler's plans from previous discussions. His chief worry was that the
Kansler might succeed, but also that the plans would be structurally
flawed and doomed to fail - a potential blow against Boulder's
professional prestige and PP count.
In much, Boulder was a man of two minds.
"Boulder?" Kansler asked him. "Would you care to show the Colonel your
prototype cyborg?"
Boulder Pi said, in a confident tone: "Sure. On this 3-D model, you can
see the working protoype for Project Argus, Model V-NICS - also called
'Venix'..."
"I see," Clarke replied after a while, "but I still don't understand
what you're getting at."
"You will," the Kansler said, his glassy eyes glittering with
excitement.

Chapter 1: The Last Broken Nose




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Several weeks later.
"Gus" Thorsen was the last traditional heavyweight boxing champion, and
proud of it.
In the 22nd century, boxing was completely safe. On-the-spot medical
aid and microscopic surgery robots had made brain injuries a thing of
the past. This had also made the sport obsolete. Professional fighters
could literally tear each other's limbs off without suffering pain or
permanent injury; the sight of two men punching each other in the head
seemed comparatively quaint.
And yet, Gus Thorsen kept fighting the remaining handful of boxing
challengers in fair tournaments - no promoters existed in their sport
any longer, because profits were virtually nil - while supporting
himself on minimum-wage jobs. When his friends asked him when he was
going to quit his outmoded hobby, Gus usually smiled and tried to change
subject. Truth was, he couldn't explain why he kept fighting. He had no
other ambitions in life.