"David Marusek - Getting to Know You" - читать интересную книгу автора (Marusek David)

GETTING TO KNOW YOU
David Marusek

“Getting to Know You” appeared in the March 1998 issue of Asimov’s.
New writer David Marusek is a graduate of Clarion West. He made his
first sale, to Asimov’s Science Fiction, in 1993, and his second sale soon
thereafter to Playboy, followed subse-quently by more sales to Asimov’s
and to the British anthology Future Histories. His pyrotechnic novella,
“We Were Out of Our Minds with Joy, “ was one of the most popular and
talked-about stories of 1995; although it was only his third sale, it was
accom-plished enough to make one of the reviewers for Lo-cus
magazine speculate that Marusek must be a big name author writing
under a pseudonym. Not a pseu-donym, Marusek lives the life of a
struggling young writer in a “low-maintenance cabin in the woods” in
Fairbanks, Alaska (although he’s currently on a writ-ing sabbatical in
London, England), and we‘re will-ing to bet that his is a voice we’ll be
hearing a lot more from as we move toward the new century ahead.

In the story that follows, he takes us back to the intricate and
strange future Utopian milieu of “We Were Out of Our Minds with Joy,” for
a fast-paced tale that warns us that there are dangers in letting an
experimental machine servant get to know you too well—although, by
God, there are some advantages to it, too.

****

Here she was in a private Slipstream car, flying beneath the plains of
Kansas at 1000 kph, watching a holovid, and eating pretzels. Only four
hours earlier in San Francisco, Zoranna had set the house to vacation
mode and given it last-minute instructions. She’d thrown beachwear and
evening clothes into a bag. Reluctantly, she’d removed Hounder, her belt,
and hung him on a peg in the closet. While doing so, she made a solemn
vow not to engage in any work-related activities for a period of three weeks.
The next three weeks were to be scrupulously dedicated to visiting her
sister in Indiana, shopping for a hat in Budapest, and lying on a beach towel
in the South of France. But no sooner had Zoranna made this vow than she
broke it by deciding to bring along Bug, the beta unit.

“Where were you born?” Bug asked in its squeaky voice.
 Zoranna started on a new pretzel and wondered why Bug repeatedly
asked certain questions. No doubt it had to do with its imprinting algorithm.
“Take a note,” she said, “annoying repetition.”

“Note taken,” said Bug. “Where were you born?”

“Where do you think I was born?”

“Buffalo, New York,” said Bug.

“Very good.”