"Mary Rosenblum - Home Movies" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rosenblum Mary)

She took the shot at her usual clinic, the morning her plane was scheduled to leave. An Yi, her favorite
technician, administered it. "Where do you get to go this time?" she asked as she settled Kayla into the
recliner and checked her vitals on the readout. "Somewhere fun?"

"Fancy, anyway." Although something didn't quite add up and that bothered her a little. She went over
the interview again as she told An Yi about the wedding and reunion. Nope. Couldn't put her finger on it.
She watched the technician deftly clean the tiny port in her carotid and prepare the dose.

"Ah, it sounds so lovely," An Yi sighed as she began to inject the nano. "Maybe next year I'll do one of
the island resorts. This year, I have to spend my vacation in Fouzhou. My father wants us all to be there
for his one hundredth birthday." She made a face and laughed. "Maybe I should hire you to go."

"Why not?" Kayla said, and then the nano hit her and the walls warped.

It always unsettled her as the nano-ware invaded her brain. The tiny machines disseminated quickly,
forming a network, preempting the neural pathways of memory. It didn't take long, but as they
established themselves, all her senses seemed to twist and change briefly, and her stomach heaved with
familiar nausea. An Yi had been doing this for a long time and had the pan ready for her, wiping her
mouth afterward and placing a cool, wet cloth on her forehead. The headache hit Kayla like a thrown
spear and she closed her eyes, concentrating on her breathing, waiting for it to be over.

When it finally faded, An Yi helped her sit up and handed her a glass of apple juice laced with ginseng to
drink. The tart sweetness of the juice and the familiar bitterness of the ginseng settled her stomach and the
last echo of the headache vanished.

"Do your clients mind getting sick when they get it?" An Yi asked, curious.

"Probably." Kayla nodded. "But they can buy the option to translate the memories into their own long
term memory if they choose. So they only have to put up with the side effects once." She stood, okay
now. "I'd better get going. I still have to finish packing."

"Have a really fun time," An Yi said, her expression envious.

"I'll do my best."

Kayla left the clinic and caught the monorail across town to pick up her luggage and head for the airport.
She probably would enjoy it, she thought, even if the Martian Administrator's very poor opinion of most
of her extended family was accurate. And then there was Ethan. Kayla smiled as she thumbed the charge
plate and exited the monorail. Her client's hidden agenda. He was cute and clearly the old gal had a crush
on him. So the week wouldn't be entirely wasted. She could flirt with him and Jeruna wouldn't mind at all.

Before she left her condo, she made her trip notes in her secret diary. You weren't supposed to record
anything, but, hand-written in the little blank-paged paper book she'd found in a dusty junk stall at the
market, it was safe enough. Those notes served as steppingstones across the gaping holes in her past. It
was fun, sometimes, to compare the client's instructions with her own observations afterward. Client
perspectives were rarely objective. If they were, they wouldn't need her.
****
The trip to the rent-an-island was tedious. The family had paid for a high level of security. It was
necessary in this age of kidnap-as-career. The security checks and delays took time, since she traveled