"Нейл Стефенсон. Snow Crash (Снежная лавина, англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

likes him in spite of herself. He is exactly the kind of tempting but
utterly wrong romantic choice that a smart girl like Juanita must learn to
avoid.
That's definitely it. There's something to be said for getting older.
By way of answering his question, she says, "I have an associate I'd
like you to meet. A gentleman and a scholar named Lagos. He's a fascinating
guy to talk to."
"Is he your boyfriend?"
She thinks this one over rather than lashing out instantaneously. "My
behavior at The Black Sun to the contrary, I don't fuck every male I work
with. And even if I did, Lagos is out of the question."
"Not your type?"
"Not by a long shot."
"What is your type, anyway?"
"Old, rich, unimaginative blonds with steady careers."
This one almost slips by him. Then he catches it. "Well, I could dye my
hair. And I'll get old eventually."
She actually laughs. It's a tension-releasing kind of outburst.
"Believe me, Him, I'm the last person you want to be involved with at this
point."
"Is this part of your church thing?" he asks. Juanita has been using
her excess money to start her own branch of the Catholic church-she
considers herself a missionary to the intelligent atheists of the world.
"Don't be condescending," she says. "That's exactly the attitude I'm
fighting. Religion is not for simpletons."
"Sorry. This is unfair, you know-you can read every expression on my
face, and I'm looking at you through a fucking blizzard."
"It's definitely related to religion," she says. "But this is so
BABEL

(I fo Х 1 ~ p . e)
SNOW CRASH
complex, and your background in that area isso deficient, I don't know
where to begin."
"Hey, I went to church every week in high school. I sang in the choir."
"I know. That's exactly the problem. Ninety-nine percent of everything
that goes on in most Christian churches has nothing whatsoever to do with
the actual religion. Intelligent people all notice this sooner or later, and
they conclude that the entire one hundred percent is bullshit, which is why
atheism is connected with being intelligent in people's minds."
"So none of that stuff I learned in church has anything to do with what
you're talking about?"
Juanita thinks for a while, eyeing him. Then she pulls a hypercard out
of her pocket. "Here. Take this."
As Hiro pulls it from her hand, the hypercard changes from a jittery
two-dimensional figment into a realistic, cream-colored, finely textured
piece of stationery. Printed across its face in glossy black ink is a pair
of words
9
The world freezes and grows dim for a second. The Black Sun loses its