"Big U, The" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stephenson Neal)

giant electric air filters before proceeding.
Here on the access lot we could look down a long line of
loading docks, the orifices of the Plex where food and supplies were
ingested and trash discharged, serviced by an endless queue of
trucks. The first of these docks, by the northern corner, was specially
designed for the discharge of hazardous wastes produced in Plex labs
and was impressively surrounded by fences, red lights and
threatening signs. The next six loading docks were for garbage
trucks, and the rest, all the way down to the Parkway, for deliveries.
We swung way out from the Plex to avoid all this, and followed the
fence at the border of the lot, gazing into the no-man's-land of lost
mufflers and shredded fanbelts beyond, and sometimes staring up
into the Plex itself.
The three-by-three block base had six stories above ground and
three below. Atop it sat eight 25-story towers where lived the 40,000
students of the university. Each tower had four wings 160 feet long,
thrown out at right angles to make a Swiss cross. These towers sat at
the four corners and four sides of the base. The open space between
them was a huge expanse of roof called Tar City, inhabited by great
machines, crushed furniture thrown from above, rats, roaches,
students out on dares, and the decaying corpses of various things that
had ventured out on hot summer days and become mired in the tar.
All we could see were the neutral light brown towers and their
thousands and thousands of identical windows reaching into the
heavens. Even for a city person, it was awesome. Compared to the
dignified architecture of the old brownstones, though, it caused me a
nagging sense of embarrassment.
The Vortex whose coils were twined around those brown-stones
threw out two ramps which served as entrance and exit for the Plex
parking ramp. These ran into the side of the building at about third-
story level. To us they were useless, so we continued around toward
the south side.
Here was actually some green: a strip of grass between the walk
and the Parkway. On this side the Plex was faced with darker brown
brick and had many picture windows and signs for the businesses of
the built-in mall on the first floor. The Main Entrance itself was
merely eight revolving doors in a row, and having swished through
them we were drowned in conditioned air, Muzak, the smell of
Karmel Korn and the idiotic babble of penny-choked indoor
fountains. We passed through this as quickly as possible and rode the
long escalators ("This must be what a ski lift is like," said Casimir)
to the third floor, where a rampart of security booths stretched across
our path like a thruway toll station. Several of the glass cages were
occupied by ancient guards in blue uniforms, who waved us wearily
through the turnstiles as we waved our ID cards at them. Casimir
stopped on the other side, frowning.
"They shouldn't have let me in," he said.
"Why?" I asked. "Isn't that your ID?"
"Of course it is," said Casimir Radon, "but the photo is so bad
they had no way of telling." He was serious. We surveyed the