"FWLS25" - читать интересную книгу автора (A Future We'd Like to See)

It's been about five minutes since the explosion... one
minute to make the explosion occur... *Six minutes ago, local
time.*

*Done. Battery life drained.* The voice died away, and the
little screen blinked out. I pocketed the thing.

Now, if I'm right, I survived the blast due to immortality,
and that weirdo in the green suit wouldn't be coming back. I've
made it through, lived, and came out quite well in the end.

*

I was sitting a balcony of the third skyspire overlooking
what used to be my home city. Not that we lived on the ground
anymore, we hadn't for the last thousand years. Immortality!
WHAT WAS I THINKING? Ugh, when it's not annoying, it's boring.
When it's not boring, it's annoying.

I fingered the long-dead, rusted and stained palmtop
computer in my hand while chugging down some drink of unknown
origin. I fought off a few dozen mental PSI conversations I had
started looking for a battery for the damn thing, and just sat
there, bored.

I did a lot of sitting around, bored. I sat there for about
ten years once before someone came into the apartment, thinking
the previous owner was dead. I'd chase them away with a stick,
then mope a bit. On the whole, it hasn't been the best of
existences.

"You, you damn little overgrown pocket calculator," I
growled drunkenly at the palmtop, "Have ruined my life."

I took the thousand year old thing and threw it as far as I
possibly could off of the balcony. It fell, a small sparkly dot,
thousands of feet, bouncing off the spires on its way down.

*error* pensed the far-off voice of the palmtop. I almost
didn't recognize it, that's how long it's been. *unit
destroyed - notifying company*

"What?" I yelled to the wind, vocal cords painfully
stretching, as all my conversations for the last four years were
done by PSI. "WHAT?"

"Hello again," said a voice behind me. Long-atrophied
muscles screamed to life as I bent out of my chair to look behind
me.