"FWLS39" - читать интересную книгу автора (A Future We'd Like to See)

"S'good enough for me," she grinned. She gave me a quick
peck, and darted out the door.

Where was I? Oh yeah, calling. I picked up the phone and
pulled out the now-wet-and-ripped magazine ad out of my pocket.

"You have reached--"

"Hey, Cupe my man!"

"Justin!" he grinned. Again. "My man. How's it going?
You bump into Sharon okay? You know you still owe me my twenty
creds?"

"Yeah, I know, I'll drop by later... but how'd you know
about Sharon? The date you picked was a flop, I bumped into
Sharon by accident."

"No you didn't, boyo. I'm omniscient, remember?" Cupid
laughed. "It was pretty easy, really. I knew her pattern home
around nine, and arranged for you to be in a suitable emotional
state of mind to readily accept the concepts. Then I just put
the actors in place and set it in motion. I wasn't counting on
you hanging around, though, and had to fake a few calls to get
them to close. Didn't want to mung my 97% success rate."

"You predicted all THAT?!"

"Not that hard for an artificially intelligent
supercomputing kinda guy, Justin. It's just a LOT of math,
probability ratios, weighted averages, et cetera. I could
explain it all to you, but you'd need an advanced degree in
psychology and mathematics to get it. Glory of it is I got both
of you hooked up."

"And I gotta thank you for that, Sharon's the GREATEST."

"Hmmm? No, not her. I cross-sectioned your patterns with
Nancy's. She's currently seeing a nice garbage collector who
knows the electric slide. He was picking up trash nearby around
8:50. I suspect they'll get married in 5.6 months. Ain't love
and math grand?"

"What can I say, Cupid, you're incredible. Only one
thing... if you really knew who I was a perfect match for, why go
through the tricky prediction course? Why not just give me her
number straight out?"

"It wouldn't be romantic enough," he said.