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

Outside, snow fell in great sheets. I turned my collar up and walked
over to the morgue. It was six blocks but I needed the exercise and could
not afford the Metro. I was still not sure what was compelling me to do this
work. Not money, not yet. Ms. Julia Quick had disappeared last night after
pressing my hands gratefully, her hands still in her expensive gray gloves,
then clicking her way down the hall.

It took more than half an hour for them to believe my license, since I
don’t have receptors. The woman behind the counter was astounded. She
kept pulling other clerks over to gaze at my backward face. “Go ahead,
touch him! There’s nothing there!”

“That’s because it’s all here,” I told her, pointing to my license on the
counter.

She narrowed her eyes at me. “That’s just a piece of paper. You
could say anything on a piece of paper.”

“So DNA can’t lie, right? Listen,” I said, getting hot. “The right hacker
could slip in a new identity code in three minutes.”

“There’s no need to be rude. You may put that away.”

In a moment she slid a sheet of what looked like ordinary paper, but
was not, across the counter. I took it and hurried out the front door. Cold
wet snow still fell. I hiked across a courtyard, went down an open stairway
where the wind blew an empty paper cup to and fro between concrete
confines, and opened the familiar back door to the morgue.

Dr. Frisco had been there all night and I caught her just as she was
leaving. She was consequently quite short with me. It was clear that she
wanted to get home and get some sleep.

“Dr. Frisco?” I stepped in front of her as she strode down the hall, her
white coat billowing behind her.

She glared at me. “What?”

“I need to ask some questions.”

“Who are you?” Her finger poised. The pad of her index finger was
pale blue.

I dug out my license. She glanced at it. “No receptors?”

“No.”

“Your religion or something?”