"Peter Watts & Derryl Murphy - Mayfly" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watts Peter)

“Now!” Back to rage, the pure, white-hot anger of a small child.

The pads on the wall panel were greasy from Jeannie’s repeated, sticky-fingered attempts to use them
herself. Andrew flashed a begging look at his wife: Please, let’s just give her what she wants.

His wife was stronger. “Jeannie, we know it’s difficult —”

Jeannie turned to face the enemy. The north pickup got it all: the right hand rising to the mouth, the index
finger going in. The defiant glare in those glistening, focused eyes.

Kim took a step forward. “Jean, honey, no!”

They were baby teeth, still, but sharp. They’d bitten to the bone before Mommy even got within touching
distance. A red stain blossomed from Jeannie’s mouth, flowed down her chin like some perverted
re-enactment of mealtime messes as a baby, and covered the lower half of her face in an instant. Above
the gore, bright angry eyes said gotcha.

Without a sound Jeannie Goravec collapsed, eyes rolling back in her head as she pitched forward. Kim
caught her just before her head hit the floor. “Oh God, Andy, she’s fainted, she’s in shock, she—”

Andrew didn’t move. One hand was buried in the pocket of his blazer, fiddling with something.

Stavros felt his mouth twitch. Is that a remote control in your pocket or are you just glad to—

Kim had the tube of liquid skin out, sprayed it onto Jeannie’s hand while cradling the child’s head in her
lap. The bleeding slowed. After a moment Kim looked back at her husband, who was standing
motionless and unhelpful against the wall. He had that look on his face, that giveaway look that Stavros
was seeing so often these days.

“You turned her off,” Kim said, her voice rising. “After everything we’d agreed on, you still turned her
off?!”

Andrew shrugged helplessly. “Kim…”

Kim refused to look at him. She rocked back and forth, tuneless breath whistling between her teeth,
Jeannie’s head still in her lap. Kim and Andrew Goravec with their bundle of joy. Between them, the
cable connecting Jeannie’s head to the server shivered on the floor like a disputed boundary.

*

Stavros had this metaphoric image of her: Jean Goravec, buried alive in the airless dark, smothered by
tonnes of earth — finally set free. Jean Goravec coming up for air.

Another image, of himself this time: Stavros Mikalaides, liberator. The man who made it possible for her
to experience, however briefly, a world where the virtual air was sweet and the bonds nonexistent.
Certainly there’d been others in on the miracle — a dozen tech-heads, twice as many lawyers — but
they’d all vanished over time, their interest fading with proof-of-principal or the signing of the last waiver.
The damage was under control, the project was in a holding pattern; there was no need to waste more
than a single Terracon employee on mere cruise control. So only Stavros remained — and to Stavros,