"Lisa Goldstein - The Narcissus Plague" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goldstein Lisa)

It only took about a week for the virus to render you unfit for anything
but talking about yourself. Things were breaking down all over the city.
The Narcissus Plague had not always been this virulent. Ten or twenty
years ago people talked about the Me Generation, the Greed Decade, as if
those things were normal, just human nature. But about six months ago the
virus mutated, became far stronger. Shortly after that a team of doctors
isolated the virus they think is responsible for the plague.
My boyfriend Mark was one of the first victims of the more virulent
strain. At the time I had no idea what was happening to him; all I knew
was that he had changed from the concerned, caring man he had once been.
"What makes you think I'd be interested in your old girlfriends?" I'd
asked him angrily, over and over again, and, "Why don't you ever ask me
how my day went? Why do we always have to talk about you?" Now he lives
with his mother, sitting in his old room and talking eagerly to anyone who
comes by. I try to visit him about once a week.
I came to the end of the park, found the laboratory offices, and went
inside. The receptionist area was deserted, but I heard laughter and
cheering from somewhere within. I went past the receptionist's desk and
down a hallway, following the sounds. A group of men and women were
gathered in one of the offices, holding glasses and bottles of champagne.
A woman turned toward me. She was young, with blond hair braided down her
back and a white lab coat with "Leila Clark" stitched on the pocket.
"Hello, Dr. Clark, how are you?" I said. "I'm Amy Nunes. The paper sent me
--"
"How are you?" the woman said. "I'm Debra Lowry." Her voice sounded a
little slurred, but even so I thought that I'd heard it before. She looked
down at her lab coat and laughed a little too loudly. "Oh, sorry -- we've
been celebrating. This is Dr. Clark."
Another woman detached herself from the group. She looked more like
someone who'd made a major medical discovery, a woman in her mid-forties,
with long black hair streaked with gray and tied back in a ponytail.
"Hello, how are you?" she said. "I sent word to all the papers, but you're
the only one who seems to have shown up. I suppose everyone else must be
out with the plague." She stretched out a gloved hand, realized she was
still holding her champagne glass, and set the glass down.
"I tried calling --" I said. I shook her hand, glove touching glove.
"Things have been a little hectic here," she said. She took a folder from
a stack on the desk and gave it to me. "Here --this handout will give you
the details."
I opened the folder; it had the kind of scientific detail so beloved by
our science section. I took out my tape recorder and turned it on. "You
say this is a cure for the plague?"
"Yes."
"But how can you be sure it works?"
"Everyone I've treated so far has recovered." Dr. Clark took another sip
of champagne, put the glass on her desk. "You see, I was almost certain
I'd discovered a cure, but I needed subjects to test it on. Of course we
couldn't experiment with animals -- they don't seem to get the plague, or
if they do it takes a form we can't understand, since they don't
communicate using language. So I asked everyone working here if they would