"Walter Jon Williams - Daddy's World" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Walter John)

I go to school and have friends and stuff, so we really can't get together every night. So they
just close your program file, shut it right down, when they're not available to interface with you
as what Dad calls a ‘family unit, ’ and that means that there are a lot of hours, days sometimes,
when you're just not running, you might as well really be dead--" She blinked. "Sorry," she said.
"Anyway, we're all getting older a lot faster than you are, and it's not fair to you, that's what
I think. Especially because the University computer runs fastest at night, because people don't
use them as much then, and you're pretty much real-time then, so interfacing with you would be
almost normal, but Mom and Dad sleep then, cuz they have day jobs, and they can't have you running
around unsupervised in here, for God's sake, they think it's unsafe or something..."
She paused, then reached into her shirt pocket for another cigaret. "Look," she said, "I'd
better get out of here before they figure out I'm talking to you. And then they'll pull my access
codes or something." She stood, brushed something off her jeans. "Don't tell the parents about
this stuff right away. Otherwise they must might erase you, and load a backup that doesn't know
shit. Okay?"
And she vanished, as she had that afternoon.
Jamie sat in the bed, hugging his knees. He could feel his heart beating in the darkness. How
can a program have a heart? he wondered.
Dawn slowly encroached upon the night, and then there was Mister Jeepers, turning lazy
cartwheels in the air, his red face leering in the window.
"Jamie's awake!" he said. "Jamie's awake and ready for a new day!"
"Fuck off," Jamie said, and buried his face in the blanket.

****

Jamie asked to learn more about computer and programming. Maybe, he thought, he could find
clues there, he could solve the puzzle. His parents agreed, happy to let him follow his interests.


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After a few weeks, he moved into El Castillo. He didn't tell anyone he was going, he just put
some of his things in his car, took them up to a tower room, and threw them down on the bed he
found there. His Mom came to find him when he didn't come home for dinner.
"It's dinnertime, Jamie," she said. "Didn't you hear the dinner bell?"
"I'm going to stay here for a while," Jamie said.
"You're going to get hungry if you don't come home for dinner."
"I don't need food," Jamie said.
His Mom smiled brightly. "You need food if you're going to keep up with the Whirlikins," she
said.
Jamie looked at her. "I don't care about that kid stuff anymore," he said.
When his mother finally turned and left, Jamie noticed that she moved like an old person.

****

After a while, he got used to the hunger that was programmed into him. It was always there,
he was always aware of it, but he got so he could ignore it after awhile.
But he couldn't ignore the need to sleep. That was just built into the program, and
eventually, try though he might, he needed to give in to it.
He found out he could order the people in the castle around, and he amused himself by making