"Bruce Sterling - The Interoperation" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sterling Bruce)

Nowadays, in the stolid and practical 2040s, Yuri called himself the "sysadmin-CEO" of the "Lozano
Building Network." Yuri's enterprise was thriving; he had more work than he and his people could
handle. He had placed himself in the thick of the big time. Whenever he carved out one day off to spend
with his two sons, a sprawling network sensed his absence and shivered all over.

The Lozano Building Network was ripping up dead midwestern suburbs and heaving up sustainable
digital buildings by the hundreds. That was the work of the modern world.

Yuri knew that system: its colossal strength, and its hosts of cracks, shortfalls, and weaknesses.

Yuri also knew that his company's contract buildings were crap.

Ninety percent of all buildings were always crap. That was because 90 percent of all people had no
taste. Yuri understood that; he was almost at peace with that. But it still burned him, it ached and it stung,
that he had never built a thing that deserved to last.

The Lozano Building Network didn't create fine buildings. It instantiated shelter goods. The mass of
workaday, crowd-pleasing real-estate fakery that arose from his network wasn't "architecture." It was
best described as "hard copy."

To watch this building disassembled in this sweet spring morning reminded him that his life hadn't always
been this way. In his own sweet spring, Yuri had dreamed of creating classics. He'd dreamed of
structures that would tower on the planet's surface like brazen, gleaming symbols of excellence.

Yuri had never built any such place. He was coming to realize, with a sinister middle-aged pang, that he
never would.

Watching the Costa Vista Motel disappear without a trace--no, he couldn't call himself unhappy about
that. He felt eased and liberated. Denied the glory, he could at least erase the shame.

Tommy, always a bundle of energy, had pedaled all around the doomed motel. Somewhere, the kid had
ditched his safety helmet. "Look, Dad, why don't you just blow it up? The way that big dumb robot picks
at it, this'll take us all day!"

"We've got all day," Yuri told him serenely. "Tonight we bring jackhammers."

Tommy brushed hair from his eager eyes. "Jackhammers, Dad? Can I touch the big jackhammers?"

"Maybe, son. If you don't tell your mom."

Nick yelped, jealous for attention. "Come on, Dad! Push the bike, push it, Dad!" Nick was the frailer
and smarter of the two boys. His mother doted on him.

Yuri hitched his pants and shoved Nick's bike. The kid almost had the hang of it. Yuri secretly let him go.

Nick rolled off beautifully, his padded feet eager on his pedals. Then instability set in. Nick teetered into a
wobbly, desperate struggle. Finally he crashed.

Tommy circled his fallen brother, derisively ringing his bike bell. "Get up, wimp, loser!"