"Kristine Kathryn Rusch - Coolhunting" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rusch Kristine Kathryn)

three numbers on the wall display instead of talking to a waitress as she
usually would have done. She liked having the opportunity to practice her
Mandarin. It wasn't one of the recommended languages. She was fluent in eight
non-recommended, and all seven recommended. It made the hunt easier, being
able to speak the language of the people she came across.
There wasn't much hunting here. She checked it out the moment she sat
down. An elderly woman wore a red silk dress that looked like it belonged at a
pre-turn luau. Two business women came in sporting cats-eye glasses that had
been in fashion on Wednesday three weeks before. A middle-aged man had staked
out a table, and was eating slowly from six different plates. He wore the big
jeans and oversized shirt that had been in style when he was a boy. She called
people like that the fashion careless.
She didn't need to work. She'd had a profitable day despite the
interruptions. She could continue to hunt, or she could see what this chip was
all about.
She set the laptop on the table, and plugged the chip into the slot Leo
had showed her. Instantly the 'top booted up, logged on, and started a
download. She took a sip of tea and watched as her family history scrolled
across the screen. A waitress set down a plate of egg rolls, and Steffie
grabbed one, even though her stomach was churning.
Fifteen generations of history, then her own face flashed across the
screen, aged ten, the last known formal full family portrait. Steffie didn't
need to look. She already knew the image: Parents in the back, her father's
crewcut looking dated even now, her mother's nose ring catching the light.
Grandparents behind them, looking staid, her paternal grandfather's long hair
a mass of gray curls. Five children, various ages, Steffie the apparent
oldest, with the baby Lana cuddled in her mother's arms. Her twin brothers
flanking Steffie, and of course, KD.
KD.
She sat on Steffie's lap, wearing a ruffled white dress and patent
leather shoes that had belonged to their great-grandmother Svetlana. Her
unnaturally blonde hair was combed in ringlets, and her rosy cheeks blended
into skin that past generations had once described as porcelain.
But her eyes. Her eyes belied it all.
Hooded and rebellious, they caught and reflected all the anger that no
one else in the shot expressed. Steffie remembered holding the tiny body,
remembered its tension, remembered how the anger molded each underdeveloped
muscle.
_KD is dying_.
_That's not possible_.
 But it was. Only not yet. Not for another three, maybe four decades.
Impossible.
A ploy to get her to contact the family?
Maybe.
But there were better ones.
Only her parents had never thought of them.
****
It took her a while to find the message embedded in the coding. They used the
standard questions, the ones everyone answered easily -- birthdate, along with
city, state, and county code. Taxpayer identification number, resident