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

hands, and began to weep. Her thin shoulders shook. “He had them—
disassembled.”

“What does that mean—disassembled?”

Did a brief look of satisfaction cross her face? She looked up again.
“It means that their minds—their personalities—were erased, using a
disassembly enzyme. At least—I mean, I’m not sure, exactly, how it
works...” She shook her head in apparent disbelief.

“What happened?”

“I surprised him. The process wasn’t finished, and there were still
loose ends he had to clean up. I had a key, of course, and just came in, a
few days earlier than expected. I called out, got no answer, went looking for
someone. A strange woman came out of the living room and said, ‘Who are
you?’ My father came from the kitchen and she yelled ‘Frank, I thought you
had taken care of this.’
 “Then I looked over and saw my mother and my sister sitting on the
couch. Their hands were folded in their laps and they were staring straight
ahead. They didn’t recognize me. They didn’t even notice me. I ran over to
them, shook them, screamed at them, cried. ‘What’s wrong?’ I kept saying
over and over again. And after a minute, it dawned on me. Both of them,
with that vacant look! I turned to my father and yelled at him to help, to stop
it, to call a doctor. Instead, he grabbed my shoulders, tightly. His face
looked different. Mean; angry. I tried to pull away but he wouldn’t let me go.
I struggled and got loose. Ran out the door, down the street. He followed
but couldn’t catch me.”

I sipped warm Scotch and surmised that she had not been wearing
her high heels at that time. “I don’t mean to upset you, but you must explain
to me how disassembly happens.”

“I’m not sure. I always thought it happened to ... other people. Artificial
people. Not me. Not my mother, my sister. Why would I think of it in relation
to us? We are—we were—real! I never paid any attention to the news
reports or controversy or anything. Certainly not any technical details.”

I lighted a cigarette. “Certainly creating artificial people is beyond the
means of most people.”

“My father is very wealthy. He’s a well-known lawyer. Frank Quick. We
live ... I mean, I used to live, out in Great Falls. Here’s his address.” She
slid a folded piece of paper across my desk.

I let it sit there. “I assume that you went to the police.”

“Oh, yes! There was nothing they could do. That was when I found
out, you see, that I was a duplicate. It was quite a shock. I realized that he
was planning to have me disassembled as well. Just get rid of the old