"Paul McAuley - Whole Wide World" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mcauley Paul J)

plasticuffs, extensible batons and canisters of riot glue and pepper spray — scanned the
sparse traffic for IC3s who just might be heading into the City Economic Zone to liberate
building materials.
The mobile was still ringing. I pressed the yes button.
Pete Reid said, 'Where are you?' PoliceNet's quantum encryption made him sound as if he
was shouting through a metal pipe crammed with angry bees.
'Shoreditch Park. Doing laps.'
I ran past a couple of men drinking beer and watching a portable TV shaded by a

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California Gold by John Jakes


cardboard box, like a shrine. The TV said, 'Bandwidth totally secure and safe for all the
family.'
Pete Reid said in my ear, 'I see you.'
'Fuck off.'
'I'm in the system, Minimum. White T-shirt, red shorts.'
'Lucky guess.' I shouldn't have resented Pete Reid's use of my nickname, but sue me, I did.
'Watch the birdie,' Pete Reid said.
Tall steel poles were planted at intervals along the park's perimeter, coated in gluey grey
anti-vandal paint and topped with the metal shoeboxes of CCTV cameras and their
underslung spotlights, the cameras linked via RedLine chips to ADESS, the Autonomous
Distributed Expert Surveillance System, which watched all London with omniscient
patience.
One night in March, I'd seen these same cameras track a fox. The hapless animal had
become increasingly frantic as it dashed to and fro, trying to outrun spotlights that fingered
the darkness with unforgiving precision, until at last it could run no more and stood still,
scrawny flanks heaving, eyes blankly reflecting the glare of the overlapping circles of light
that briefly twirled around it before snapping off. That's when I'd become aware of
something new and non-human at play in the world; an intelligence vast and cold and
unsympathetic testing the limits of its ability.
Now, one camera and then another and another turned to follow me as I ran past.
Watching the detective. I gave them the finger.
'A ninety-two per cent recognition factor,' Pete Reid said. 'Even without the caring gesture.'
'For someone who wears elasticated boots because he can't tie a proper knot, you're a very
technical boy all of a sudden.'
'We have search filters and microwave links. We have polygonal forcing routines. We
have eight crucial physiognomy points, too, whatever the fuck they are. There's some kind
of slogan on your T-shirt but I can't quite read it. No doubt something sarcastic. You're a
sarcastic little fucker, Minimum, but I'll let it slide because I need you to do something.'
'Who's running the rig? Someone has to be helping an old-fashioned one-finger typist like
you.'


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California Gold by John Jakes


'I'm with Ross Whitaker,' Pete Reid confessed, 'hacked into the system through his phone.