"Kelly,_James_Patrick_-_Ninety_Percent_of_Everything" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kelly James Patrick)

The door opened. "Hello, Liz -- "
"I thought 'Let's-not-and-say-we-did' was supposed to be a mutual decision," I said.
"Eh?"
There was a pix open on the bed. Murk Janglish glowered on it. "Who is it, Ramsdel? Not that Cobble woman again?"
"You're not watching our press conference?" I said.
Wetherall shrugged, "I've been too busy. Murk tells me that my money missed me while I was gone. Besides, we're not really saying anything important, are we? That's the whole point of a press conference."
"Ramsdel," said Janglish, "aim me at her. There's something she needs to hear."
"We may not be saying anything, but our avatars are practically in each other's pants," I said.
"Really?"
"Come down and take a look."
"Ramsdel!" shouted Janglish. "Wait, Ramsdel. Don't..."
"Hold that thought," said Wetherall, and turned him off.
Down in the media room, Nguyen had broken out the champagne. "This is really quite interesting," he said.
Wetherall watched for a moment. His response was blithe. "I'm sorry Liz, but I'm not at all sure this is bad strategy. If our supposed 'romance' becomes a story, then it will distract the reporters from Thorp. But if you want, I'll call the team leader and get your avatar tweaked right away."
"Mine? What about yours?" From where I sat, it looked like 'Wetherall' was trying to peek down 'Cobble's' blouse.
"If you insist, I can have my avatars adjusted as well."
"What good is that going to do? The damage is done. The reporters are going to think I'm your mystery woman. We'll be the talk of the net tomorrow."
"They've got me in bed with any woman who gets within ten kilometers. I'm sorry -- I'm used to it. Maybe I shouldn't be. But I'll do what I can to spare you the indignity of being thought of as romantically linked to me. Now if you don't mind, Murk is having apoplexy."
Nguyen watched him leave with a detached air of amusement. I turned on him. "What's that smirk about. You look like you're hatching an egg."
"He likes you, Liz."
"Right."
"Liz, when avatars are well done -- and remember, it took some time to get yours exact -- they're more than just mirrors or puppets. They're out there doing what people are normally too busy to do anymore -- playing. Experimenting with possibilities. So these two fell in lust with one another. You can ignore it completely, or you can take note of it -- maybe your avatar is telling you something you ought to know. Personally, the chance that that might happen is what's kept me from having one. I'm sure there are some things about myself I would rather not discover."
He took another sip of champagne. "Now, assuming this press conference gets the reporters off our necks for a while, what we need to talk about is how we are going to get Queen Jolly Freeze up and flying before the convergence happens."
On the pix, "Cobble" put her hand up to touch "Wetherall" on the arm.
* * * *
By the end of the day everybody in the world knew that the Chinese, Ethiopian, Chilean and Aussie shitdogs were tunneling to Eastline. Seismologists rushed equipment to Nevada to try to anticipate their arrival. It was generally believed that Thorp's estimate for a simultaneous arrival in fifteen days was ludicrous; reasonable numbers ranged from eighteen to twenty-eight days.
There were calls in Congress to ban everyone from Eastline except for military, but the governor of Nevada -- whose hand was, no doubt, deep in Wetherall's pocket -- made fiery a speech about states' rights. The reporters vowed to stay right where they were to cover what many claimed was the biggest story in history. Perversely, Wetherall found himself allied with the media against the government in the effort to maintain civilian access to the shitdog site.
Ten days after the convergence had begun, Nguyen had the house ready for flight. There would be no test: this was the official launch even though the mobile base wouldn't be ready for another week. Wetherall had insisted, over Nguyen's objections, that we use the makeshift base we had driven on our shitdog-wrangling test. Queen Jolly Freeze had to be up and running before the rest of the shitdogs arrived.
* * * *
"When you're ready, Wetherall." The pix softened Nguyen's voice to a whisper.
Overnight the crew had tested all systems and inflated the balloons with helium. In the dawn light, through the skylight, I had watched them swelling over us like huge tumors. Now Wetherall and I were in the control room of Queen Jolly Freeze. Below us, Nguyen in the base directed the ground crew as they worked the mooring lines that had kept the house stable through the inflation. Wetherall's liftmansion was a brobdignagian version of Laputa, an elongated octagon rather than a disk, with four levels, an encircling balcony (despite Wetherall's acrophobia), a small gym, sauna, even a hot tub. Every room had its own escape hatch and ladder.
Wetherall decided that none of the crew was necessary. He knew as much about his house as anyone. This was to be a test run for his elusive solitude as well as for Queen Jolly Freeze. I was surprised when he invited me along.
Wetherall was as bright and excited as a kid with seventy million dollars worth of balloons. "I'm going to retract the boom now," he said.
"Go," Nguyen replied from the pix.
The stair boom detached from the base and retracted into the house. The mooring lines fell away. There was an initial jerk as the lifthouse broke free and found its equilibrium. It hovered, neither rising nor falling, ten meters above the base.
"Neutral ballast achieved," Nguyen said. "Electromagnetic tether engaged."
"I'm going to take it up to half altitude," Wetherall said. His hands moved over the controls. Through the observation floor I watched the base gradually shrink below us.
Wetherall stopped the house at sixty meters. In the light northerly breeze, it moved off thirty meters south of the base. The shadows of the big balloons, in the early morning light, were cast against the foot of Pile B a kilometer away.
"Let's have a look at the jewels," Wetherall said.
"Up there you see jewels," Nguyen grumbled. "Down here all I see is shit." He started the base crawling over the salt flats. As the wind was at its back, the house drifted into the lead. Wetherall peered intently at the piles ahead. I retreated to the observation deck on the opposite side of the house to watch for shitdogs.
It was almost over now, and looking down from the balcony, I thought about what the last months had meant. Since that night on the salt flats, Wetherall had treated me with punctilious correctness, retreating into formality like a hurt child. I didn't know why that should have bothered me. But it did.
It was a little chilly outside, and the wind blew back my hopeless hair.
* * * *
Of course, the media had noticed the lifthouse taking off. They scrambled a dozen copters in pursuit. Wetherall's private little launch party was going to be live on the net, very shortly. But I didn't have the chance to tell him. Below, a pair of shitdogs appeared, loping after the base. Nguyen began to turn away from it and the piles but then two more shitdogs approached from the west. Nguyen spotted them, sped up and veered back left. As he did, the left side treads of the base skipped a little ahead, spinning faster than the right ones, though the crawler didn't seem to speed up when it did. The mass of the house, in occasional gusts of wind, was threatening to pull the base off the salt flats. Nguyen had been right; the base wasn't massive enough for Queen Jolly Freeze.
I wondered about the way the four shitdogs had come at us from opposite directions. It was almost as if they were acting in concert. But that didn't make sense, because the effect of their actions was not to chase us away but to steer us toward the piles. Just then I noticed a cloud of dust being kicked up off toward the press encampment. Several vehicles had crossed the property line and were closing on us.
"Wetherall, we've got company," I said.
"I know. There's nothing I can do about the copters, but I'm having security turn those buses around."
"They better. You realize that if we make any sudden turns, your house is going to yank the base off the ground like Piglet in a windstorm."
"What about that, Nguyen?"
He sounded calm. "I told you the mass of this base was inadequate. Of course, a collision with either a shitdog or a bus voids your warranty. However, the shitdogs seem to be dropping back. As long as the wind doesn't pick up, we should be all right. But no heavy breathing, you two."