"Cory_Doctorow_-_Down_and_Out_in_the_Magic_Kingdom" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doctorow Cory)

present via speakerphone from the computer where it was resting. They all
liked it. I collected my sheepskin and went out hunting for Dan in the sweet,
flower-stinking streets.
He’d gone. The Anthro major he’d been torturing with his war-stories
said that they’d wrapped up that morning, and he’d headed to the walled
city of Tijuana, to take his shot with the descendants of a platoon of US
Marines who’d settled there and cut themselves off from the Bitchun
Society.
So I went to Disney World.
In deference to Dan, I took the flight in realtime, in the minuscule cabin
reserved for those of us who stubbornly refused to be frozen and stacked
like cordwood for the two hour flight. I was the only one taking the trip in
realtime, but a flight attendant dutifully served me a urine-sample-sized
orange juice and a rubbery, pungent, cheese omelet. I stared out the
windows at the infinite clouds while the autopilot banked around the
turbulence, and wondered when I’d see Dan next.

Cory Doctorow Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom 7
Chapter 1
My girlfriend was 15 percent of my age, and I was old-fashioned enough
that it bugged me. Her name was Lil, and she was second-generation
Disney World, her parents being among the original ad-hocracy that took
over the management of Liberty Square and Tom Sawyer Island. She was,
quite literally, raised in Walt Disney World and it showed.
It showed. She was neat and efficient in her every little thing, from her
shining red hair to her careful accounting of each gear and cog in the
animatronics that were in her charge. Her folks were in canopic jars in
Kissimmee, deadheading for a few centuries.
On a muggy Wednesday, we dangled our feet over the edge of the
Liberty Belle’s riverboat pier, watching the listless Confederate flag over
Fort Langhorn on Tom Sawyer Island by moonlight. The Magic Kingdom
was all closed up and every last guest had been chased out the gate
underneath the Main Street train station, and we were able to breathe a
heavy sigh of relief, shuck parts of our costumes, and relax together while
the cicadas sang.
I was more than a century old, but there was still a kind of magic in
having my arm around the warm, fine shoulders of a girl by moonlight,
hidden from the hustle of the cleaning teams by the turnstiles, breathing the
warm, moist air. Lil plumped her head against my shoulder and gave me a
butterfly kiss under my jaw.
“Her name was McGill,” I sang, gently.
“But she called herself Lil,” she sang, warm breath on my collarbones.
“And everyone knew her as Nancy,” I sang.
I’d been startled to know that she knew the Beatles. They’d been old
news in my youth, after all. But her parents had given her a thorough—if
eclectic—education.
“Want to do a walk-through?” she asked. It was one of her favorite
duties, exploring every inch of the rides in her care with the lights on, after
the horde of tourists had gone. We both liked to see the underpinnings of
the magic. Maybe that was why I kept picking at the relationship.