"Paul Di Filippo - The Emperor of Gondwanaland" - читать интересную книгу автора (Di Filippo Paul)

The Emperor of Gondwanaland by Paul Di Filippo

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“Hey, Mutt! It’s playtime, let’s go!”

Mutt Spindler raised his gaze above the flatscreen monitor that dominated his
desk. The screen displayed Pagemaker layouts for next month’s issue of
PharmaNotes, a trade publication for the drug industry. Mutt had the cankerous
misfortune to be assistant editor of PharmaNotes, a job he had held for the last three
quietly miserable years.

In the entrance to his cubicle stood Gifford, Cody and Melba, three of Matt’s
co-workers. Gifford sported a giant foam finger avowing his allegiance to whatever
sports team was currently high in the standings of whatever season it chanced to be.
Cody had a silver hip flask raised to her lips, imbibing a liquid that Mutt could be
fairly certain did not issue from the Poland Springs cooler. Melba had already
undone her formerly decorous shirt several buttons upward from the hem and
knotted it, exposing a belly that reminded Mutt of a slab of Godiva chocolate.

Mutt pictured with facile vividness the events of the evening that would ensue,
should he choose to accept Gifford’s invitation. His projections were based on
numerous past such experiences. Heavy alcohol consumption and possible ingestion
of illicit stimulants, followed by slurred, senseless conversation conducted at
eardrum-piercing volume to overcome whatever jagged ambient noise was passing
itself off as music these days. Some hypnagogic, sensory-impaired dancing with one
strange woman or another, leading in all likelihood to a meaningless hookup, the
details of which would be impossible to recall in the morning, resulting in
hypochondriacal worries and vacillating committments to get one kind of STD test
or another. And of course the leftover brain damage and fraying of neurological
wiring would insure that the demands of the office would be transformed from their
usual simple hellishness to torture of an excruciating variety undreamed of by even,
say, a team of Catholic school nuns and the unlamented Uday Hussein.

Gifford could sense his cautious friend wavering toward abstinence. “C’mon,
Mutt! We’re gonna hit Slamdunk’s first, then Black Rainbow. And we’ll finish up at
Captains Curvaceous.”

Mention of the last-named club, a strip joint where Mutt had once managed to
drop over five hundred dollars of his tiny Christmas bonus while simultaneously
acquiring a black eye and a chipped tooth, caused a shiver to surf his spine.

“Uh, thanks, guys, for thinking of me. But I just can’t swing it. If I don’t get
this special ad section squared away by tonight, we’ll miss the printer’s deadlines.”

Cody pocketed her flask and grabbed Gifford’s arm. “Oh, leave the little
drudge alone, Giff. It’s obvious he’s so in love with his job. Haven’t you seen his
lip-prints on the screen?”

Mutt was hurt and insulted. Was it his fault that he had been promoted to