"James Patrick Kelly - The Edge of Nowhere" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kelly James Patrick)

His breath rasped in the receiver so loud she could almost smell it.

"Because I've got them here if you're interested. Right outside my door."

"I'm on my way."

"Oh, and Beej? You might want to bring some help."

She sat at the kitchen table to wait. In front of her were the shopping list and the No. 2 pencil. They
reminded her of Will. He was such a strong boy, everybody in town always said so. He had run that
4:21 mile, after all. And she was almost certain that Baskerville had looked surprised when she'd told him
that Will was climbing down the cliff. What did surprise look like on a dog? She'd see for sure when Beej
Renfield arrived.

For the very first time Rain allowed herself to consider the possibility that Will wasn't dead or absorbed.
Maybe the cognisphere ended at the edge of Nowhere. In which case, he might actually come back for
her.

But why would he bother? What had she ever done to deserve him? Her shopping list lay in front of her
like an accusation. Was this all her life was about? Toilet paper and Seventy-Up and duck sausage? Will
had climbed over the edge of Nowhere. What chance had she ever taken? She needed to do something
, something no one had ever done before. She'd had enough of books and all the old stories about the
world that the cognisphere was sorting on the MemEx. That world was gone, forever and ever, amen.

She picked up the pencil again.




I scowled at the dogs through the plate glass window of the Very Memorial Library. They squatted
in a row next to my book drop. There were three of them, haughty in their bowler hats and silk
vests. They acted like they owned the air. Bad dogs, I knew that for sure, created out of spit and
tears and heartbreak by the spirits of all the uncountable dead and sent to spy on the survivors
and cause at least three different kinds of trouble.

I wasn't worried. We'd seen their kind before.



© James Patrick Kelly 2005, 2007.
First published in Asimov's Science Fiction (June, 2005) and subsequently reprinted in Year's Best
Science Fiction #11 (edited by David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer) and Fantasy: The Best Of The
Year (edited by Rich Horton).