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

elevated solar panels, and began to clean the panels. A work-mate from
across town entered the plaza, and shouted hello to Gus; the man was of
medium height and build, and wore the same type of work-clothes as Gus
did. On the back of his shirt, the electronic print showed an unending
stream of animated commercials.
"Hi, Chris! What's new?"
"Oh, nothing... I had my new liver fitted today. Doctor told me not to
drink so hard."
"Well, are you?" Gus said, not sure whether he was joking with Chris -
the man did spend too much money on drink, plus the regular cheap patch-
up jobs on his internal organs. Chris led a lifestyle that would have
killed any man in a previous century.
"What's a poor panel-cleaner to do?" Chris exclaimed laconically. "I
ain't never racking up more PP's than any of us losers. Booze is cheap
and reliable."
"Have you tried making your own alcohol?" Gus joked.
Chris began working another set of solar panel twenty meters away, and
carried on the conversation in a half-shouting fashion.
"Are you kidding, Gus?!"
"When I grew up in Australia, my grandfather used to make his own booze
out in the desert. He used a rusty old thing called a 'distiller'. It's
still out there, I guess - desert's dry, it'll last long."
"You talk about Australia more and more," Chris remarked. "Why don't
you go back there someday? Place is absolutely splattered with solar
panels. You could get a lot of work down under. I mean, if it's so great
as you always describe it, what're you doing here?"
"I don't wanna talk about it," Gus responded, and cast a nervous glance
about himself. In the 22nd century cameras were everywhere, and privacy
a fiction.
"No, you never do, do you?" Chris shouted, his attention drifting
toward a camera-bot that flew by in search of more interesting events.
"Your hit count ain't never going up, unless you start to be more open
about yourself. Secrets ain't worth shit until others can hear them.
That is, if your secrets really are all that exciting..."
Gus did not get angry at his co-worker's last sour comment. He had
heard it before, and had grown weary of trying to explain why he refused
to reveal his entire life - except to his dog. There was an old word for
it, that Gus kept forgetting... "-grity" something...
Chris kept ranting out loud in his persistent hope of being noticed by
a roving camera and scoring some extra PP. Gus glanced up into the night
sky. The holographic commercials blocked out the stars; only a few
planets were visible to the naked eye. And the Moon. The dark half of
the Moon was scattered with the lights of cities, centers of pleasure,


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sports and leisure, both legal and illegal. Gus had never been to the
Moon, not with his low hit count. One day, if he somehow could gather a