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

buckyball hub-shocks." The mook paused, politely awaiting a possible conversational response.
"He wore breathe-thru kevlar microlock cleatshoes," it added.
Lyle hated the way a mook cataloged your personal interests and then generated relevant
conversation. The machine-made intercourse was completely unhuman and yet perversely
interesting, like being grabbed and buttonholed by a glossy magazine ad. It had probably taken
his mother's mook all of three seconds to snag and download every conceivable statistic about the
summer race in Liege.
 His mother came on. She'd caught him during lunch in her office. "Lyle?"
"Hi, Mom." Lyle sternly reminded himself that this was the one person in the world who
might conceivably put up bail for him. "What's on your mind?"
"Oh, nothing much, just the usual." Lyle's mother shoved aside her platter of sprouts and
tilapia. "I was idly wondering if you were still alive."
"Mom, it's a lot less dangerous in a squat than landlords and cops would have you believe. I'm
perfectly fine. You can see that for yourself."
His mother lifted a pair of secretarial half-spex on a neck-chain, and gave Lyle the computer-
assisted onceover.
Lyle pointed the mediator's lens at the shop's aluminum door. "See over there, Mom? I got
myself a shock-baton in here. If I get any trouble from anybody, I'll just yank that club off the
doormount and give the guy fifteen thousand volts!"
"Is that legal, Lyle?"
"Sure. The voltage won't kill you or anything, it just knocks you out a good long time. I traded
a good bike for that shock-baton, it's got a lot of useful defensive features."
"That sounds really dreadful."
"The baton's harmless, Mom. You should see what the cops carry nowadays."
"Are you still taking those injections, Lyle?"
"Which injections?"
She frowned. "You know which ones."
Lyle shrugged. "The treatments are perfectly safe. They're a lot safer than a lifestyle of
cruising for dates, that's for sure."
"Especially dates with the kind of girls who live down there in the riot zone, I suppose." His
mother winced. "I had some hopes when you took up with that nice bike-racer girl. Brigitte,
wasn't it? Whatever happened to her?"
Lyle shook his head. "Someone with your gender and background oughta understand how
important the treatments are, Mom. It's a basic reproductive-freedom issue. Antilibidinals give
you real freedom, freedom from the urge to reproduce. You should be glad I'm not sexually
involved."
"I don't mind that you're not involved, Lyle, it's just that it seems like a real cheat that you're
not even interested."
"But, Mom, nobody's interested in me, either. Nobody. No woman is banging at my door to
have sex with a self-employed fanatical dropout bike mechanic who lives in a slum. If that ever
happens, you'll be the first to know."
Lyle grinned cheerfully into the lens. "I had girlfriends back when I was in racing. I've been
there, Mom. I've done that. Unless you're coked to the gills with hormones, sex is a major waste
of your time and attention. Sexual Deliberation is the greatest civil-liberties movement of modern
times."
 "That's really weird, Lyle. It's just not natural."
"Mom, forgive me, but you're not the one to talk about natural, okay? You grew me from a
zygote when you were fifty-five." He shrugged. "I'm too busy for romance now. I just want to
learn about bikes."
"You were working with bikes when you lived here with me. You had a real job and a safe