"Kathleen Ann Goonan - The Bridge" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goose Mother)

“Did you get the copies?” she asked.

“Not yet.”

“What have you done today?” she asked, her voice sharp.

“Not much. Tell me about the automobile accident.”

“I don’t remember it. We never discussed it. It was only when I found
them ... like that ... that I started to investigate and discovered that we were
all copies.”

“Then tell me about this process. How does one’s personality—one’s
memories, everything—become pure information?”

“I don’t know, really. I only know that it can be done, and that it is
being done all the time now. The information can be imbedded in various
mediums.”

She did recall being “read,” when she was eleven years old. Her face
softened and her eyelids lowered as she spoke in a low, singsong voice.
“We drove into rural Virginia, toward the mountains. It was a cloudy fall day.
My sister and I played games in the back seat.”

Her hooded cape was soaked, so I knew that she had walked and not
taken the Metro; the entrance was only steps from the building. But walked
from where? I let her keep talking.

“When we passed through Charlottesville, my father said that he had
met the doctor who would be working with us at the University, and that he
was very good. The highway kept going uphill and first it was foggy and
then it was just cold and drizzly and we could hardly see beyond the car.
We got off the highway at the top of the mountain and turned left.”

“You turned left?” I raised my eyebrows.

She scowled briefly. I probably wouldn’t have seen it save that the bar
sign changed from red to bright white in that instant. She dropped her
eyelids and continued. “Oh, yes. I remember very well. I’m good at
directions. We went underneath a wrought-iron arch that said Swannanoa
Life Extension Institute. It was an old stone place, kind of like a castle.

“The doctor was a big man. He had a beard. He seemed very nice.
He wore a white coat and after the secretary had seated us and given us
apple cider and, I think, my parents wine—there were oriental rugs on the
floor and some classical music playing very softly—he and my parents went
away. The secretary took us to another room where we played Go. It
started snowing.”

“What was the name of this doctor?”