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

Stross/Accelerando



He's trying to grunt or whimper around the ball gag. She hikes her skirt up around her waist and climbs onto
the bed, straddling him. The goggles are replaying scenes she picked up around Cambridge the previous winter –
soup kitchen scenes, hospice scenes. She kneels atop him, whispering in his ear.
"Twelve million in tax, baby, that's what they think you owe them. What do you think you owe me? That's
six million in net income, Manny, six million that isn't going into your virtual children's mouths."
He's rolling his head from side to side, as if trying to argue. That won't do; she slaps him hard, thrills to his
frightened expression. "Today I watched you give uncounted millions away, Manny. Millions, to a bunch of crusties
and a MassPike pirate! You bastard. Do you know what I should do with you?" He's cringing, unsure whether she's
serious or doing this just to get him turned on. Good.
There's no point trying to hold a conversation. She leans forward until she can feel his breath in her ear.
"Meat and mind, Manny. Meat, and mind. You're not interested in meat, are you? Just mind. You could be boiled
alive before you noticed what was happening in the meatspace around you. Just another lobster in a pot. The only
thing keeping you out of it is how much I love you." She reaches down and tears away the gel pouch, exposing his
penis: it's stiff as a post from the vasodilators, dripping with gel, numb. Straightening up, she eases herself slowly
down on it. It doesn't hurt as much as she expected, and the sensation is utterly different from what she's used to.
She begins to lean forward, grabs hold of his straining arms, feels his thrilling helplessness. She can't control
herself: She almost bites through her lip with the intensity of the sensation. Afterward, she reaches down and
massages him until he begins to spasm, shuddering uncontrollably, emptying the Darwinian river of his source code
into her, communicating via his only output device.
She rolls off his hips and carefully uses the last of the superglue to gum her labia together. Humans don't
produce seminiferous plugs, and although she's fertile, she wants to be absolutely sure. The glue will last for a day
or two. She feels hot and flushed, almost out of control. Boiling to death with febrile expectancy, she's nailed him
down at last.
When she removes his glasses, his eyes are naked and vulnerable, stripped down to the human kernel of his
nearly transcendent mind. "You can come and sign the marriage license tomorrow morning after breakfast," she
whispers in his ear: "Otherwise, my lawyers will be in touch. Your parents will want a ceremony, but we can
arrange that later."
He looks as if he has something to say, so she finally relents and loosens the gag, then kisses him tenderly
on one cheek. He swallows, coughs, and looks away. "Why? Why do it this way?"
She taps him on the chest. "It's all about property rights." She pauses for a moment's thought: There's a huge
ideological chasm to bridge, after all. "You finally convinced me about this agalmic thing of yours, this giving
everything away for brownie points. I wasn't going to lose you to a bunch of lobsters or uploaded kittens, or
whatever else is going to inherit this smart-matter singularity you're busy creating. So I decided to take what's mine
first. Who knows? In a few months, I'll give you back a new intelligence, and you can look after it to your heart's
content."
"But you didn't need to do it this way —"
"Didn't I?" She slides off the bed and pulls down her dress. "You give too much away too easily, Manny!
Slow down, or there won't be anything left." Leaning over the bed she dribbles acetone onto the fingers of his left
hand, then unlocks the cuff. She leaves the bottle of solvent conveniently close to hand so he can untangle himself.
"See you tomorrow. Remember, after breakfast."




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Stross/Accelerando