"Rudy Rucker - Realware" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rucker Rudy)

YOKE, BABS, RANDY, YOKE
Yoke / February 26 / 255 Babs / April 1 / 268 Randy / May 1 / 282 Yoke / June 1 / 296
REALWARE
CHAPTER ONE

PHIL
February 12

"Wake up, Phil. It's your sister on the uvvy. Something's happened." Kevvie's breath was alkaloidal and bitter in the
dawn.

Phil woke slowly. He liked to take the time to think about his dreams before they evanesced. Just now he'd been
dreaming about hiking again. For some reason, he always dreamed about the same three or four places, and one of the
places was an imaginary range of mountains, an arc of icy little peaks that were somehow very—domesticated. Easy to
climb.

"Wake up!" repeated Kevvie. Her voice was, as usual, flat and practical, though now a bit louder than before. As Phil's
eyes fluttered open an interesting thought occurred to him: maybe the mountains were his teeth. Sleepily he started to
tell Kevvie his idea.

"My teeth are the mountains that — "

But she wasn't listening. Her blue eyes were intent, her fox-face was pinched with urgency. "You talk to Jane right
now," she said, plopping the little uvvy onto the pillow next to Phil. The uvvy was displaying a tiny holographic image
of Phil's sister.

Calm, practical Jane. But today Jane wasn't calm. Her eyes were red and wet with tears.

"Da's dead," quavered Jane. "It's horrible. A wowo got him? Willow says they were in bed and all of a sudden their
wowo got really big, all bright and swirly, and it jumped inside of Da and the light was shining out of his eyes like
searchlights and he was yelling and then his body collapsed and the wowo sucked him inside and crushed him. Da's
gone! Willow's covered with his blood. It's so gnarly?" Jane's voice twisted up an octave on the last word and she
began sobbing. "I can't believe it. Wowos are just a toy. Da and Tre made them up."

Phil felt a savage torrent of emotions, too fast to nail down. Relief, terror, joy, wonder, sorrow, confusion. His father
was dead and he was free. No old man to judge him for not doing anything with his life. His father was dead and he
was alone. No stand-up old guy between him and the Reaper.

"Dead? What…When did Willow call you?" Phil's eyes began throbbing.

"Just now. From the car. She's scared the wowo might get her next. She left the house to go to the gimmie. She told me
to tell you and for you to call her. I'm flying out. You pick me up."

"Wait, wait, this is all too — " Phil broke off in confusion. Kevvie, who'd been avidly eavesdropping, smiled and
offered him a piece of her chewing gum. Phil shook his head no. Kevvie tended never to have the correct emotional
response. In company, she had to look at other people so she'd know when to laugh.

"What are you going to do?" demanded Jane's little face. Her pointy chin was trembling.
"I'll call Willow, then I'll drive Kevvie's car down to Palo Alto, and then I'll call you back. And yeah, I can pick you up.
But—are you sure Da's really dead? From a wowo? It's just a fancy hollow graphic that Da made up a story about!