"Alexander Jablokov - Brain Raid" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jablokov Alexander)

skin. Despite my color. It’s my burden, you know. Dermal distress
syndrome. But all I have at home is a couple of floor lamps. Nice ones, you
know. Ming vase things. At either end of the couch. So these big tree things
will die.”

“We take the lighting into account, of course. The best solution is for
focused microlights to crawl the stems at night, after you’re in bed, forcing
solar energy directly into the leaf surfaces. By morning, they’ll have pulled
back into their storage modules. You can’t even see them.”

“Oh, that sounds dangerous.” Petra was good. I had to give that to
her. With all the floor clerk’s mental energy going to keeping her patience,
she wouldn’t notice Max and me as we moved into position. “I don’t want
any fires.”

“Not at all. It’s a mature technology....”

I had a spider plant once. I guess you’re supposed to water them.

Ah, and there was Maureen, my target, with a customer. A
businessman in an inappropriate Central Asian duster, goggles dangling
around his neck, examined an orchid held out to him by a cute red-haired
woman in a coverall marked with green stains. Her big black gum boots
emphasized her slender legs. A pair of yellow rubber gloves hung over the
edge of a muck-filled bucket. The man reeked of frankincense, a dry scent
that stuck out in that jungle, where everything else smelled like you’d
squished it out between your toes.

“Hey,” I said. “Which way to the club mosses?”
 “Recreated genera are over there.” Maureen was cute, but somehow
pegged me instantly as an unprofitable customer. I didn’t have Petra’s skill
at pretending to be a normal human being.

The church-smell guy had Maureen’s full attention. But she had what
looked like sucker marks on her pale skin. The climate had to breed all
sorts of blood-sucking arthropods, and I tried to reassure myself that this
meant she wasn’t really so attractive after all. That’s easier, when you’re
about to take someone into custody.

“Okay,” Max’s voice whispered in my ear. “I got the truck. Gave the
driver a gift certificate to pick up some donuts, he’s happy, and the
detention mesh is up, so no one else is getting in. They do an incredible
business here. This thing is packed with growing shit, man. And did you get
a load of these prices? After this is down, I’m getting home to dig up some
of those big spiky things I got growing down by the garage.”

“Great,” I said, then switched channels. “Could I have your attention
please?” My amplified voice boomed through the jungle. “A cognitive
enforcement operation is in progress. We have information about a rogue
intelligence in the area. There is no danger. Repeat, you are in no danger.