"Charles Stross - Accelerando" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stross Charles)

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Stross/Accelerando



uploading out of meatspace when your body packs in, because your life won't be worth living. The precedent you
set here determines how things are done tomorrow. Oh, and feel free to use this argument on Jim Bezier. He'll get
the point eventually, after you beat him over the head with it. Some kinds of intellectual land grab just shouldn't be
allowed."
"Lobsters — " Franklin shakes his head. "Lobsters, cats. You're serious, aren't you? You think they should
be treated as human-equivalent?"
"It's not so much that they should be treated as human-equivalent, as that, if they aren't treated as people, it's
quite possible that other uploaded beings won't be treated as people either. You're setting a legal precedent, Bob. I
know of six other companies doing uploading work right now, and not one of 'em's thinking about the legal status of
the uploaded. If you don't start thinking about it now, where are you going to be in three to five years' time?"
Pam is looking back and forth between Franklin and Manfred like a bot stuck in a loop, unable to quite grasp
what she's seeing. "How much is this worth?" she asks plaintively.
"Oh, quite a few million, I guess." Bob stares at his empty glass. "Okay. I'll talk to them. If they bite, you're
dining out on me for the next century. You really think they'll be able to run the mining complex?"
"They're pretty resourceful for invertebrates." Manfred grins innocently, enthusiastically. "They may be
prisoners of their evolutionary background, but they can still adapt to a new environment. And just think, you'll be
winning civil rights for a whole new minority group — one that won't be a minority for much longer!"
***
That evening, Pamela turns up at Manfred's hotel room wearing a strapless black dress, concealing spike-
heeled boots and most of the items he bought for her that afternoon. Manfred has opened up his private diary to her
agents. She abuses the privilege, zaps him with a stunner on his way out of the shower, and has him gagged, spread-
eagled, and trussed to the bed frame before he has a chance to speak. She wraps a large rubber pouch full of mildly
anesthetic lube around his tumescent genitals — no point in letting him climax — clips electrodes to his nipples,
lubes a rubber plug up his rectum and straps it in place. Before the shower, he removed his goggles. She resets
them, plugs them into her handheld, and gently eases them on over his eyes. There's other apparatus, stuff she ran
up on the hotel room's 3D printer.
Setup completed, she walks round the bed, inspecting him critically from all angles, figuring out where to
begin. This isn't just sex, after all: It's a work of art.
After a moment's thought, she rolls socks onto his exposed feet, then, expertly wielding a tiny tube of
cyanoacrylate, glues his fingertips together. Then she switches off the air conditioning. He's twisting and straining,
testing the cuffs. Tough, it's about the nearest thing to sensory deprivation she can arrange without a flotation tank
and suxamethonium injection. She controls all his senses, only his ears unstoppered. The glasses give her a high-
bandwidth channel right into his brain, a fake metacortex to whisper lies at her command. The idea of what she's
about to do excites her, puts a tremor in her thighs: It's the first time she's been able to get inside his mind as well as
his body. She leans forward and whispers in his ear, "Manfred, can you hear me?"
He twitches. Mouth gagged, fingers glued. Good. No back channels. He's powerless.
"This is what it's like to be tetraplegic, Manfred. Bedridden with motor neuron disease. Locked inside your
own body by nv-CJD from eating too many contaminated burgers. I could spike you with MPTP, and you'd stay in
this position for the rest of your life, shitting in a bag, pissing through a tube. Unable to talk and with nobody to
look after you. Do you think you'd like that?"



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