"Robert Rankin - The Witches Of Chiswick" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rankin Robert)

iris scan of his eyeballs, which confirmed his identity and present credit
status, and allowed him access to the covered platform.
The never-ending shuttle train of trams, thirty-two miles of linked
carriages, followed a circular route through London Central, The Great High
Rise and surrounding conurbation areas. It moved with painful slowness
and was dreary to behold. Will awaited the arrival of a carriage that did not
look altogether full, pressed a large entry button and, as the door slid
aside, stepped aboard the moving carriage.
Large folk sat upon large seats, heavily and sombrely. None raised their
eyes towards young Will, nor offered him a “good morning”. Their heads
were down, their masssive shoulders slumped; all were going off to work
and few were going gladly. The morning tram had never been a transport of
delight.
The in-car entertainment was, upon this particular day, of the corporate
morale-boosting persuasion: plump, jolly holograms, fresh-faced guys and
gals, cavorted up and down the carriage, extolling the virtues of a job well
done for an employer who more than just cared. At intervals they flickered
and slurred, ran into reverse, or stopped altogether. The system was long
overdue for an overhaul – as was most everything else.
Will settled himself into a seat and ignored the colourful chaos. He took
off his rubberised mittens, fished into the pocket of his grossly oversized
chem-proof and brought out his personal palm-top.
This item was something of a treasure to Will, and would be another
collectible should that bygone age of collecting ever return. In this
particular time there should have been marvels of technology to be had,
like plasma gel eye-screens, hardwired to cranial implants, which, when
worn behind the eyelids, would offer three-dimensional virtual reality with
all-around-sensasound and things of that futuristic nature generally. And
there were, to a degree, but they just didn’t work very well. Technology had
got itself just so far before it ground to a halt and started falling to pieces.
Will’s palm-top was almost fifty years old, built in a time when folk really
knew how to build palm-tops. It was indeed his treasure.
But what Will really wanted, of course, was a book, a real book, a book
of his very own. But as books no longer existed, what with there no longer
being any rainforests to denude for their manufacture, he had settled for
second best. Will had been downloading the contents of the British Library
into his ancient palm-top. He did not consider this to be a crime, although
crime indeed it was. He considered it to be an educational supplement.
Certainly he had been taught things at learning classes, when a child, all
those things that the state considered it necessary for him – or any other
child of the citizenry – to know. But Will craved knowledge, more
knowledge, more knowledge of the past.
Somewhere in him, somewhere deep, was A Need to Know, about what
the past really was, about the folk who had inhabited it, about things that
they had done, the adventures they’d had. What they’d known, what they’d
seen, what they’d achieved. There was excitement in the past, and
romance, and adventure.
Exactly why these yearnings were inside him, Will didn’t know. Nor did
he understand why he was so driven by them. But he did understand that it
mattered (for some reason that he did not fully understand, so to speak).