Gwyneth Jones Castles Made of Sand

[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

the rest of your senses are handled. When I send the fake information on my carrier wave, the MT starts
thinking it s having an experience. It goes through its
cache, looking for a real experience it might be having. This alerts the
hippocampus (little thing allegedly shaped like a seahorse, down in here), and
triggers the whole brain to get involved, whoosh, with emotions, sensations, the
whole thing.That s when the punters at my gigs get convinced that what s
happening is totally real, because insofar as a brain knows reality, it is real.
Sharks biting them, clouds of butterflies, flocks of seagulls, ravening werevoles,
whatever. It isn t incredibly hard, if you use the right hooks
The children gazed at him like sponges. ?Oh, said a girl in the front row,
about ten years old, a toddler dozing on her knees, ?MT. That says Em Tee! Is
that why the other track on Morpho, besides 'Morpho', is called 'The Empty
Zone'?'
Morpho was the Heads first album, the first immersion record in the world.
They d lost the rights when they broke up with their record company, which had
for years been a very sore point. But eventually you see reason. Morpho had been
written and released before this child was born.
'Yeah, he said, ?you got it suddenly feeling that this was indeed a privilege,
and also feeling like a, a talking trilobite. I am ancient. They know nothing before:
I am the first page of their history books. Or would be, except most of them can t
read. . . Over the kids heads he saw Ax coming towards him. No way to escape
so he waited in silence: while Mr Dictator came ambling around the children.
? Scuse me, said Ax, ?I need your teacher. Sage, do you mind? Not ambling, stumbling. As was grey
in the face, hands visibly shaking.
?Okay, class dismissed.
The children scattered, Ax sat down. 'Sage. Do you think you ll live to be old?'
?Oh yeah, said Sage, judging that live fast die young was not what Ax was
looking for. ?Very old. He spoke slowly, gently taking Ax s wrist in his left hand.
?I reckon I ll quit gigging when I m a hundred, before it gets undignified, an I ll
take up gardening. Or I ll keep koi. I like fish. Ax, what the fuck have you been
doing to yourself?
The pulse was not good.
'I met Verlaine. He gave me a, stuff called snapshot. Oh God, Sage '
?Sssh. Let s see.' Sage touched his righthand fingertips to the sweat on Ax's
upper lip and put the taste in his mouth. He had enough of the drug in his
system that he might get some idea of what had happened
'Oh,' he said, sombrely, a moment later. 'Unlucky, Ax. You have to be careful
with Snap. It goes for the jugular, if you give it a chance. Well, it seems I can tell
you two things. What you saw is further off than you think. And I will be there.'
Ax s heart gave another terrible leap. He was in a garden, and this old man
was crying in this other old man s arms. Oh God, those arms, still hard and taut,
carrying with them such a freight of memory, of decades, of conviction, of reality,
oh God, unbearable
Wrong thing to say. . . Sage saw Ax s eyes burst wide in horror and had to
catch the falling body. 'Ah, no. Ax, babe, I didn't mean to sound like that, I'm a bastard, you caught me
off guard. Hey, it doesn't last, it's a bad dream, it'll be
gone, few seconds, hang on '
But Ax was out. Sage laid him down, slapping his phone implant
'George! George, get over here. Now. Bring the First Aid . . . Shit. Where is that
little fucker? I will kill him.'
Ax came to lying in an outdoor passageway backstage of the Blue Lagoon.
George Merrick was beside him, the white picnic hamper that was the Heads'
First Aid kit open on the grass. Bill Trevor was sitting in a plastic chair, between
the two of them and the world, casually on guard. There was no one else around.
He took a deep breath and sat up. Had he walked here or been carried here?
Some fleeting memory of a dream, gone the instant he tried to focus on it, and
what happened? I took some brain candy from Verlaine, that nearly gave me a
heart attack.
'Hi, George,' he said. 'What's the screen say?'
George took a pull on a fat joint, and handed it. 'Sez you'll do.' He peeled a
telltale from the back of Ax's hand, stowed it and shut the box. 'Looks like
snapshot's not your drug.'
'I would agree,' said Ax, with feeling. 'Ah, shit, my head. Got any painkillers?'
'You re not supposed to take that stuff except in lab conditions. You c'n have a [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

pobieranie @ do ÂściÂągnięcia @ ebook @ download @ pdf