Futureland: Nine Stories of an Imminent World
- Автор: Мосли Уолтер
- Год: 2001
- Язык: английский
- Год: Aspect / Warner Books
- ISBN: 978-0-446-52954-9
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «Futureland: Nine Stories of an Imminent World». Краткое содержание книги:
“I can’t wait,” Leon said, veering around the first guard.
“Hold it right there,” the other guard said, putting up both hands.
Leon turned to the friendly guard but all he got was an I’m-so-sorry smile.
Bel-Nan appeared a few minutes later.
“Bring him back upstairs,” he said.
“Okay. Let’s go,” the lanky guard said, laying a hand on Leon’s shoulder.
“Hold up, Lin.” The larger guard held up one finger.
“What do you mean?” Bel-Nan said. “This man has to be hospitalized immediately.”
“For what?”
“Are you a doctor?” Bel-Nan sneered.
“Moses Fine,” the brawny guard said, introducing himself. He looked down at his handheld com-screen. “This request didn’t give your name.”
“Bel-Nan. Dr. Bel-Nan.” The rage in the blond-haired surgeon made the curve in his face seem even more pronounced.
Security Officer Fine tapped the screen with his finger a few times and read. Then he said, “Okay. What’s the problem?”
“You are the problem,” Bel-Nan said. “Now bring this man to the thirty-third floor.”
“That’s the security floor, Doctor.”
“Am I the idiot here or are you?”
Moses Fine smiled.
The officer named Lin removed his hand from Leon’s shoulder.
“Tell me the nature of the condition that makes it necessary to incarcerate the patient.” Fine was quoting some ordinance, Leon was sure.
“He’s psychotic,” Bel-Nan hissed.
“He seems okay to me.”
“Are you a psychiatrist?”
“I’m not an idiot or a psychiatrist, Doctor.”
“Then do as I tell you.”
“I’m not a psychiatrist. But then again, neither are you,” Moses said. “This man is not in possession of stolen property, he doesn’t work here, there are no warrants out on him or liens against his property. If he is psychotic it’s not for you or me to say.”
Bel-Nan seemed to be considering an attack on Moses Fine. But he decided against it.
“Hold him until I return with someone with the proper credentials,” the brain specialist said. He turned back toward the bank of elevators on the other side of the room.
“Wanna take him to the blue room?” Lin asked.
“You’re Leon Jones, Fera Jones’s father, aren’t you?” Moses asked.
“Yes, I am.”
“She broke my heart the night she broke Zeletski’s jaw. She’s the best that ever was.” Security Officer Fine chewed on his lip for a moment and then said, “Go on. Get outta here.”
5
On the subway ride back to Manhattan Leon was lost. He couldn’t go home because Bel-Nan probably could find a psychiatrist who would agree to institutionalize him. Even on the street he was in danger because his ID-chip had a tracer function in it. Any citizen could be found at any time by their ID-chip. Law enforcement argued that it was to protect the innocent. The ACLU said that it was an infringement on Americans’ constitutional rights. But after consideration by a Supreme Court that had become steadily more conservative for decades it was decided that tracking chips was not an infringement on privacy after all.
Leon got out at the Wall Street stop of the local number 12 subway and went to the Interplanetary Trade Center. There he found a post office and addressed an envelope to Pell Lightner. He included a microrecording which he made in a recording booth available to all postal customers.
“I hope I impressed you that I’m not crazy the other night, Pell,” Leon’s message went. “Because Bel-Nan thinks that I am. He wanted to hospitalize me but I demurred. Here’s my chip. I’ll be down to D.C. by the time you get the post. Try and set it up to get a second opinion before the doctor can put me in SINI.”
Leon sent the envelope next day mail and then returned on the subway to the Lower Forty-second Street main branch of the library.
There was no written material on record for Axel Bel-Nan, professor of neurological sciences at the University of Staten Island. The Stylus Machine, which was used to print out voice-recorded data upon recyclable plastic paper, was out of paper, and the librarian on subfloor eight was not sure when the trays would be refilled.
“We don’t really get much call for printing nowadays,” the young Nigerian said. “The new neural phono links do everything you could ever want right in your head.”
“Except think,” Leon said. But the young woman had already moved away.
Professor Jones’s only choice was to listen to the computer’s rendition through earphones.
“Dr. Axel Bel-Nan,” proclaimed a baritone actor from the previous century. The great Shakespearian had sold the rights of his voice pattern to the NYPL. “Born Lemuel Rogers... educated at the University of Las Vegas in the neurological sciences... alleged secretary of the illegal organization the Church of Life Everlasting (CLE)... [subsearch-1: Church of Life Everlasting (CLE); seeking to clone bodies and reintegrate the cells of deceased members into brain cavity of new life... process declared illegal by congressional proclamation in 2019]... broke with the central committee of the CLE in 2031 over moral questions... convicted in 2032 of illegal acquisition of brain materials from the Ugandan Labor Corps... served a seven-year sentence in MacroCode polar prison system... rehabilitated... released... reintegrated into the scientific community... rehabilitation insured by MacroCode penitentiary division, 2039.”
It took hours for Leon to locate every relevant file, but even then he knew nothing more than he had read in the newspapers.
It was late at night when Leon descended the great marble stairs of the library. The stone facade was one of the few landmarks left of old New York. He wondered if there was some dive west of the theater district that wouldn’t demand his ID-chip. In the old days he could have shacked up with a prostitute, but since prostitution had been legalized on the island of Manhattan the first thing she or her pimp asked for was the chip.
Maybe he could go to one of the illegal boutiques. There were still things that the law said could not be sold. But he was more likely to be arrested in an Eros-Haus than if he just slept in some doorway on a lower avenue.
He was walking down Lower Forty-second Street at about midnight. There were hundreds of bicyclists on the street, which had been closed to cars, trucks, and busses for over twenty years. A woman approached him. She had dark skin and yellow eyes. Her eyebrows were striated and there was the symbol of a supernova tattooed upon her left cheek. She wore a long and close-fitting gray dress that flared out at the knee. She stopped and looked him in the eye. At the same time someone passed close behind him. A hand touched him as if someone passing closely wanted to steer them away from a collision. The prickle of electricity danced at his elbow. He felt drawn to the woman and then he felt as if he were falling toward her.
“Damn! He’s heavy,” she said as she caught him.
6
He awoke on the sandy floor of a single-story stone building. The sun blazed through a window that had no glass. The air was very hot. He had on a pair of loose cotton pants with no shirt or shoes. He felt exceptionally refreshed. Even sleeping on the hard floor had not been uncomfortable.
Leon stood up and looked out upon a long footpath constructed from buff stone. The path was lined with houses of the same material. Seeing the dark-skinned people in whites and bright colors, speaking in an Arabic dialect that he couldn’t place, told the history professor that he was somewhere in northern Africa.