"Bruce Sterling - Bicycle Repairman" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sterling Bruce)

Eddy had lived in the bicycle repair shop, off and on, for almost a year. It had been a good
deal for Lyle, because Deep Eddy had enjoyed a certain clout and prestige with the local
squatters. Eddy had been a major organizer of the legendary Chattanooga Wende of December
'35, a monster street-party that had climaxed in a spectacular looting-and-arson rampage that had
torched the three floors of the Archiplat.
Lyle had gone to school with Eddy and had known him for years; they'd grown up together in
the Archiplat. Eddy Dertouzas was a deep zude for a kid his age, with political contacts and
heavy-duty network connections. The squat had been a good deal for both of them, until Eddy
had finally coaxed the German woman into coming through for him in real life. Then Eddy had
jumped the next plane to Europe.
Since they'd parted friends, Eddy was welcome to mail his European data-junk to the bike
shop. After all, the disks were heavily encrypted, so it wasn't as if anybody in authority was ever
gonna be able to read them. Storing a few thousand disks was a minor challenge, compared to
Eddy's complex, machine-assisted love life.
After Eddy's sudden departure, Lyle had sold Eddy's possessions, and wired the money to
Eddy in Spain. Lyle had kept the screen TV, Eddy's mediator, and the cheaper virching helmet.
The way Lyle figured it -- the way he remembered the deal -- any stray hardware of Eddy's in the
shop was rightfully his, for disposal at his own discretion. By now it was pretty clear that Deep
Eddy Dertouzas was never coming back to Tennessee. And Lyle had certain debts.
Lyle snicked the blade from a roadkit multitool and cut open Eddy's package. It contained, of
all things, a television cable set-top box. A laughable infobahn antique. You'd never see a
cablebox like that in NAFTA; this was the sort of primeval junk one might find in the home of a
semiliterate Basque grandmother, or maybe in the armed bunker of some backward Albanian.
Lyle tossed the archaic cablebox onto the beanbag in front of the wallscreen. No time now for
irrelevant media toys; he had to get on with real life. Lyle ducked into the tiny curtained privy
and urinated at length into a crockery jar. He scraped his teeth with a flossing spudger and misted
some fresh water onto his face and hands. He wiped clean with a towelette, then smeared his
armpits, crotch, and feet with deodorant.
Back when he'd lived with his mom up on Floor 41, Lyle had used old-fashioned antiseptic
deodorants. Lyle had wised up about a lot of things once he'd escaped his mom's condo.
Nowadays, Lyle used a gel roll-on of skin-friendly bacteria that greedily devoured human sweat
and exuded as their metabolic by-product a pleasantly harmless reek rather like ripe bananas. Life
was a lot easier when you came to proper terms with your microscopic flora.
Back at his workbench, Lyle plugged in the hot plate and boiled some Thai noodles with
flaked sardines. He packed down breakfast with 400 cc's of Dr. Breasaire's Bioactive Bowel
Putty. Then he checked last night's enamel job on the clamped frame in the workstand. The frame
looked good. At three in the morning, Lyle was able to get into painted detail work with just the
right kind of hallucinatory clarity.
Enameling paid well, and he needed the money bad. But this wasn't real bike work. It lacked
authenticity. Enameling was all about the owner's ego -- that was what really stank about
enameling. There were a few rich kids up in the penthouse levels who were way into "street
aesthetic," and would pay good money to have some treadhead decorate their machine. But flash
art didn't help the bike. What helped the bike was frame alignment and sound cable-housings and
proper tension in the derailleurs.
Lyle fitted the chain of his stationary bike to the shop's flywheel, straddled up, strapped on his
gloves and virching helmet, and did half an hour on the 2033 Tour de France. He stayed back in
the pack for the uphill grind, and then, for three glorious minutes, he broke free from the
domestiques in the peloton and came right up at the shoulder of Aldo Cipollini. The champion
was a monster, posthuman. Calves like cinderblocks. Even in a cheap simulation with no full-
impact bodysuit, Lyle knew better than to try to take Cipollini.