"Paul J. McAuley - Gene Wars" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mcauley Paul J)

Gene Wars by Paul J. McAuley

1

On Evan's eighth birthday, his aunt sent him the latest smash-hit biokit,Splicing Your Own
Semisentients. The box-lid depicted an alien swamp throbbing with weird, amorphous life; a double
helix spiralling out of a test-tube was embossed in one corner. Don't let your father see that, his mother
said, so Evan took it out to the old barn, set up the plastic culture trays and vials of chemicals and
retroviruses on a dusty workbench in the shadow of the shrouded combine.

His father found Evan there two days later. The slime mould he'd created, a million amoebae aggregated
around a drop of cyclic AMP, had been transformed with a retrovirus and was budding little blue-furred
blobs. Evan's father dumped culture trays and vials in the yard and made Evan pour a litre of
industrial-grade bleach over them. More than fear or anger, it was the acrid stench that made Evan cry.

That summer, the leasing company foreclosed on the livestock. The rep who supervised repossession of
the supercows drove off in a big car with the test-tube and double-helix logo on its gull-wing door. The
next year the wheat failed, blighted by a particularly virulent rust. Evan's father couldn't afford the new
resistant strain, and the farm went under.

***

2

Evan lived with his aunt, in the capital. He was fifteen. He had a street bike, a plug-in computer, and a
pet microsaur, a cat-sized tyrannosaur in purple funfur. Buying the special porridge which was all the
microsaur could eat took half of Evan's weekly allowance; that was why he let his best friend inject the
pet with a bootleg virus to edit out its dietary dependence. It was only a partial success: the triceratops
no longer needed its porridge, but it developed epilepsy triggered by sunlight. Evan had to keep it in his
wardrobe. When it started shedding fur in great swatches, he abandoned it in a nearby park. Microsaurs
were out of fashion, anyway. Dozens could be found wandering the park, nibbling at leaves, grass,
discarded scraps of fastfood. Quite soon they disappeared, starved to extinction.

***

3

The day before Evan graduated, his sponsor firm called to tell him that he wouldn't be doing research
after all. There had been a change of policy: the covert gene wars were going public. When Evan started
to protest, the woman said sharply, “You're better off than many long-term employees. With a degree in
molecular genetics you'll make sergeant at least.”

***

4

The jungle was a vivid green blanket in which rivers made silvery forked lightnings. Warm wind rushed
around Evan as he leaned out the helicopter's hatch; harness dug into his shoulders. He was twenty-three,
a tech sergeant. It was his second tour of duty.