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

She continued in her dreamy, semi-hypnotized tone, “Doctor White.”
Then her eyes widened for a fraction of a second and she swallowed. “I
think.” She looked out the window. “No. It was ... Green. Or ... was it Elliott?
I don’t remember....”

“How long did it take?”

She answered eagerly. She seemed very happy to change the
subject. “I don’t know. You dream a lot. But it’s not the same as regular
sleep dreaming. Images race through your head, but they are very intense,
very real.”

I’d read that they used a combination of powerful psychotropic drugs
and hypnotism. But I’m no scientist. I can’t begin to understand how they
can replicate identity. It would seem impossible. And people have
complained that it doesn’t really work very well, the people who have had
this done.

“What are you majoring in?” I asked.

She stared at me for a split second, then said, “Medicine, Mr. Jones. I
am a second-year medical student. Although I don’t see what my personal
life has to do with anything.”

“I realize that you have access to very little money, but at this point I
will have to begin charging an hourly rate plus expenses. Today I spent four
hours—”

“Four hours! What did you do?”

“I spoke to Dr. Frisco at the morgue.”

She became agitated. “The morgue! What were you doing there? All
you need to do, Mr. Jones, is get the copies! I have given you the map; you
know where it is in his bedroom; you can watch to see when he leaves the
house! However you do such things!”

“I am the detective here, Ms. Quick.” I watched her face carefully. “I
understand that you want and need documentation of the truth of the matter
here, and that—”

She leaned forward in her chair abruptly. Her face was twisted. “I just
want my sister and mother,” she hissed. “Get me the copies and I will pay
you all the money that you could possibly want.”

“So you don’t really want to free them from the legal thrall of being
merely a copy. Or even, it seems, re-create them.”

“That’s not true! Of course it isn’t! But this is the first step.”