"FWLS37" - читать интересную книгу автора (A Future We'd Like to See)

He tapped a few buttons and I was in cyberspace.

*

It wasn't any part of VOSNet I was familiar with. Seemed
cylindrical, with... naah. One can only use up so many
geometrical terms before boring people to death. If you wanted
to relate the room to anything, it'd be a bit like a tin can,
with a thousand little holes, streams of light connecting each of
them together. Looked like your average VOSNet switch-center.

There was a girl in the center of the beams, her back to me.
White dress, fairy wings, cutesy stuff... but nothing out of the
ordinary compared to what some people on the net had progged
themselves up to look like. She was busy waving a wand with a
little plastic star around in the air, cutting through the beams,
sending the odd light stream sprawling and scrambling, eventually
fixing itself.

"Excuse me--" I said, and she turned around.

I always pictured fairies to be cute. She wasn't. She
looked like hell, really, quite tired and overworked, with
circles under her lines. Bad hair day, a bit of static cling to
the gown, the works.

"Who're you?" she asked, one arm continuing to wave the wand
around. "Look, if you're one of those guys poking in here to see
what all the racket is about, just go away before I have to spam
you with noise, alright? I'm a busy woman."

"Doc sent me," I said. Her expression changed from tired
annoyance to tired disgust.

"Mortals. They always send calling cards to us at the wrong
time. Alright, I suppose the lines can stay clean for a little
while."

She stopped waving, pulled a golden chair out of midair, and
sat on it. A table with a slightly-stained tablecloth rose from
the floor, as well as another chair; right under my rear. I sat,
not having much other choice. How was she jerking ObjIcons into
existence so fast?

"One lump or two?" she asked, offering me the kettle.

"Err... no thank you, I'm not a tea guy, really."

"Coffee?"