"FWLS65" - читать интересную книгу автора (A Future We'd Like to See)

"See?" I said. "Nothing to it. Got any coffee?"

"It's... it's alive!" McDooley said, gazing at it.

"Cool, huh?"

"Martin, please take care of Mr. Lopwagen for the day. If
he makes any progress, let me know. He'll be working with us
now," Mr. Rinhurst said.

"You're kidding," me 'n Marty said at the same time.

"I am not kidding. Even if Mr. Lopwagen is of little use,
he'll be of SOME use. Time is of the essence, gentlemen."

"Fine with me," Marty said, scooping up some documents.
"Alright. Lopwagen, you work on this stuff. You'll be lucky if
you even find the on switch. Me, I'll be studying my daily tests
in the other room."

"Hey, whoa, wait. What am I supposed to be doing?" I asked.

"Crack the code," Rinhurst said, on his way out the door.
"It is what you do best, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but--"

"Best of luck," Martin said, before shutting the door behind
him. Me 'n the brain alone. Terrif.

*

The deck wasn't wired for VR, which kind of bit because my
text skills were incredibly rusty. I picked up textwork as a
hobby after a bud of mine got me into Net Will Eat Itself, but it
was never my element, yaknow? Gimmie an objicon and a trace
router any day over an ASCII stream and a carriage return.

The files were coded, obviously, but I didn't see any
repeaters. No form. It didn't follow any of the piddlyshit I
was used to dealing with. For all I knew, it could be a bunch of
random letters.

Something about that brain was weird, though. We've got a
computer, linked to the brain that wouldn't die, linked to a
holovision set. Someone had been watching too many bad science
fiction movies.

Movies. I could kick with a movie right now, so I flipped