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

family and have a new one!”

“You didn’t know before that you are artificial?”

“No. I didn’t know that we were killed in this car wreck. We were all in
the hospital with various problems for quite some time afterwards. I had a
broken neck. My mother had a ruptured spleen, and my sister suffered
brain damage. My father could afford the most progressive therapies
available. I thought that we had been healed, not re-created.”

“Was he in this automobile accident?”
 “He was the driver.”

“Was he injured?”

“I believe he had some minor injuries.”

“Which hospital?”

I thought she hesitated before answering. “Arlington General.”

“It seems odd that he would go to such lengths to preserve all of you,
and then suddenly get rid of you.”

She frowned. “I’m not sure what’s wrong with him. Some disease of
the mind that he refuses to have diagnosed, I’m sure. His younger self
would never have done such a thing. He loved us. He loved us so much that
he went to great expense! But I suppose that ... maybe something was
missing in us, since we were not real.... “She looked at the floor and tears
welled in her eyes and slowly moved down her thin, fine-boned face.

I pushed a box of tissue over toward her.

“But no one has challenged your right to exist. Correct?”

“I believe that he will, if he can’t disassemble me quietly. He doesn’t
know where I am. I have no money right now; I’m sorry. I’m afraid that he
might find me if I try and access any of my accounts. I need help.”

Just my luck. “What do you want me to do?”

She leaned forward. Her eyes gleamed in the light of the neon sign. “I
want my mother back. And my sister. Their copies are in his safe. The
updated information that can re-create them, right to the moment of their
disassembly. I’ve drawn a map of the house on that paper that shows
where the safe is. The house is alarmed; I included the code for you.”

“You are asking me to burgle a house, not solve a crime. Why can’t
you do this yourself ?”