"Neal Stephenson - Spew" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stephenson Neal)

plugged into anything. I can hear some melodious plinks, but the squelch of his
fingers on the strings, the thud of calluses on the fingerboard almost drown out
the notes.
He sweats hard, even though the windows are open and cold air is blowing into
the room, the blinds running with condensation and whacking crazily against the
leaky aluminum window frame. As he works through his solo, sighing and grunting
with effort, his fingers drumming their way higher and higher up the
fingerboard, he swings his head back and forth and his hair whips around,
broadcasting sweat. He's wearing dark shades.
Evan is perched like an arboreal primate on top of the room's Spew terminal,
which is fixed to the wall at about head level. His legs are spread wide apart
to expose the screen, against which crash waves of black-and-white static. The
motherly warmth of the cathode-ray tube is, I guess, permeating his buttocks.
On his lap is just about the bitchingest media processor I have ever seen, and
judging from the heavy cables exploding out of the back it looks like he's got
it crammed with deadly expansion cards. He's wearing dark shades too, just like
the guitarist's; but now I see they aren't shades, they are VR rigs, pretty good
ones actually. Evan is also wearing a pair of Datagloves. His hands and fingers
are constantly moving. Sometimes he makes typing motions, sometimes he reaches
out and grabs imaginary things and moves them around, sometimes he points his
index finger and navigates through virtual space, sometimes he riffs in some
kind of sign language.
You - you are mostly in the airspace above the bed, touching down frequently,
using it as trampoline and safety net. Every 3-year-old bouncing illicitly on
her bed probably aspires to your level of intensity. You've got the VR rig too,
you've got the Datagloves, you've got Velcro bands around your wrists, elbows,
waist, knees, and ankles, tracking the position of every part of your body in
three-dimensional space. Other than that, you have stripped down to voluminous
plaid boxer shorts and a generously sized tank-top undershirt.
You are rocking out. I have never seen anyone dance like this. You have churned
the bedspread and pillows into sufferin' succotash. They get in your way so you
kick them vindictively off the bed and get down again, boogieing so hard I can't
believe you haven't flown off the bed yet. Your undershirt is drenched. You are
breathing hard and steady and in sync with the rhythm, which I cannot hear but
can infer.
I can't help looking. There's the SPAWN TILL YOU DIE tattoo. And there on the
other breast is something else. I walk into the room for a better look, taking
in a huge whiff of perfume and sweat and beer. The second tattoo consists of
small but neat navy-blue script, like that of names embroidered on bowling
shirts, reading, HACK THE SPEW.
It's not too hard to trace the connections. A wire coils out of the guitar, runs
across the floor, and jumps up to jack into Evan's badass media processor. You
have a wireless rig hanging on your waist and the receiver is likewise patched
into Evan's machine. And Evan's output port, then, is jacked straight into the
room's Spew socket.
I am ashamed to notice that the Profile Auditor 1 part of my brain is thinking
that this weird little mime fest has UNEXPLOITED MARKET NICHE - ORDER NOW!
superimposed all over it in flashing yellow block letters.
Evan gets so into his solo that he sinks unsteadily to his knees and nearly
falls over. He's leaning way back, stomach muscles knotting up, his wet hair