"Rudy Rucker and Bruce Sterling - Junk DNA" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rucker Rudy)

 Janna let Veruschka stay in the spare room at her dad's house. Inertia and lack of capital had kept
Janna at home after college.
Ruben Gutierrez was a big, soft man with a failing spine, carpal-tunnel and short, bio-bleached hair he
wore moussed into a hedgehog's spikes. He had a permanent mirthless grin, the side effect of his daily
diet of antidepressants.
Dad's tranquil haze broke with the arrival of Veruschka, who definitely livened up the place with her
go-go arsenal of fishnet tights and scoop-necked Lycra tops. With Veruschka around, the TV blared
constantly and there was always an open bottle of liquor. Every night the little trio stayed up late,
boozing, having schmaltzy confessions, and engaging in long, earnest sophomore discussions about the
meaning of life.
Veruschka's contagious warm-heartedness and her easy acceptance of human failing was a tonic for
the Gutierrez household. It took Veruschka mere days to worm out the surprising fact that Ruben
Gutierrez had a stash of half a million bucks accrued from clever games with his stock options. He'd
never breathed a word of this to Shirley or to Janna.
Emotionally alive for the first time in years, Dad offered his hoard of retirement cash for Veruschka's
long-shot crusade. Janna followed suit by getting on the Web and selling off her entire Goob collection.
When Janna's web money arrived freshly laundered, Dad bought in, and two days later, Janna finally left
home, hopefully for good. Company ownership was a three-way split between Veruschka, Janna, and
Janna's dad. Veruschka supplied no cash funding, because she had the intellectual property.
Janna located their Pumpti start-up in San Francisco. They engaged the services of an online lawyer, a
virtual realtor, and a genomics supply house, and began to build the buzz that, somehow, was bound to
bring them major-league venture capital.
Their new HQ was a gray stone structure of columns, arches, and spandrels, the stone decorated with
explosive graffiti scrawls. The many defunct banks of San Francisco made spectacular dives for the city's
genomics start-ups. Veruschka incorporated their business as "Magic Pumpkin, Inc.," and lined up a
three-month lease.
San Francisco had weathered so many gold rushes that its real estate values had become permanently
bipolar. Provisionary millionaires and drug-addled derelicts shared the very same neighborhoods, the
same painted-lady Victorians, the same flophouses and anarchist bookstores. Sometimes millionaires and
lunatics even roomed together. Sometimes they were the very same person.
Enthusiastic cops spewing pepper gas chased the last downmarket squatters from Janna's derelict
bank. To her intense embarrassment, Janna recognized one of the squatter refugees as a former Berkeley
classmate named Kelso. Kelso was sitting on the sidewalk amidst his tattered Navajo blankets and a
damp-spotted cardboard box of kitchen gear. Hard to believe he'd planned to be a lawyer.
"I'm so sorry, Kelso," Janna told him, wringing her hands. "My Russian friend and I are doing this
genomics start-up? I feel like such a gross, rough-shod newbie."
"Oh, you'll be part of the porridge soon enough," said Kelso. He wore a big sexy necklace of shiny
junked cell-phones. "Just hang with me and get colorful. Want to jam over to the Museum of Digital Art
tonight? They're serving calamari, and nobody cares if we sleep there."
Janna shyly confided a bit about her business plans.
"I bet you're gonna be bigger than Pokémon," said Kelso. "I'd always wanted to hook up with you,
but I was busy with my pre-law program and then you got into that pod thing with that Korean musician.
What happened to him?"
"His mother found him a wife with a dowry from Pyongyang," said Janna. "It was so lovelorn."
"I've had dreams and visions about you, Janna," said Kelso softly. "And now here you are."
"How sweet. I wish we hadn't had you evicted."
"The wheel of fortune, Janna. It never stops."
As if on cue, a delivery truck blocked the street, causing grave annoyance to the local bike
messengers. Janna signed for the tight-packed contents of her new office.
 "Busy, busy," Janna told Kelso, now more than ready for him to go away. "Be sure and watch our