"Greg Egan - Dust" - читать интересную книгу автора (Egan Greg)

For a moment, this conclusion seems unassailable, but then a countervail-ing
voice rises up in me: I’m not going to quit. Not again. I swore to myself that I
wouldn’t . . . and there are a hundred good reasons not to—

Such as?

For a start, I can’t afford it—

No? Who can’t afford it?

I whisper, “I know exactly how much this cost, you bastard. And I honestly
don’t give a shit. I’m not going through with it.”

There’s no reply. I clench my teeth, uncover my eyes, look around the room.
Away from the few dazzling patches of direct sunshine, everything glows softly in
the diffuse light: the matte-white brick walls, the imitation (imitation) mahogany desk;
even the Dali and Giger posters look harmless, domesticated. The simulation is
perfect—or rather, finer-grained than my “visual” acuity, and hence indistinguishable
from reality—as no doubt it was the other four times. Certainly, none of the other
Copies complained about a lack of verisimilitude in their environments. In fact, they
never said any-thing very coherent; they just ranted abuse, whined about their plight,
and then terminated themselves—all within fifteen (subjective) minutes of gain-ing
consciousness.

And me? What ever made me—him—think that I won’t do the same? How
am I different from Copy number four? Three years older. More stubborn? More
determined? More desperate for success? I was, for sure . . . back when I was still
thinking of myself as the one who’d stay real, the one who’d sit outside and watch
the whole experiment from a safe distance.

Suddenly I wonder: What makes me so sure that I’m not outside? I laugh
weakly. I don’t remember anything after the scan, which is a bad sign, but I was
overwrought, and I’d spent so long psyching myself up for “this” . . .

Get it over with.

I mutter the password, “Bremsstrahlung”—and my last faint hope van-ishes,
as a black-on-white square about a meter wide, covered in icons, appears in midair
in front of me.

I give the interface window an angry thump; it resists me as if it were solid,
and firmly anchored. As if I were solid, too. I don’t really need any more convincing,
but I grip the top edge and lift myself right off the floor. I regret this; the realistic
cluster of effects of exertion—down to the plausible twinge in my right elbow—pin
me to this “body,” anchor me to this “place,” in exactly the way I should be doing
everything I can to avoid.

Okay. Swallow it: I’m a Copy. My memories may be those of a human being,
but I will never inhabit a real body “again.” Never inhabit the real world again . . .