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Ribofunk :: Филиппо Пол Ди
Страница: 129 из 156Horus's loincloth quickly became a tent, and I got awfully jealous and sad at the same time.
"Jinx," I pleaded irrationally, "let's use Honeysuekle's card to get the moddies we've always talked about, then run away together!"
Jinx held my hand. "Arnie, think twice. Putting legs on me is no simplex patch job. I'd be laid up for days. We couldn't travel very far even in a hired scar car without leaving a trail even a senile augie-doggie could follow.
Honeysuckle would be pissing prostaglandins at the theft of her card. And then our poohs-or yours anyway-would snatch us back, and the next thing you know, we'd be wearing obedience collars like some splice! No, the only thing to do is to hold out for a year. It's not such a long time… "
Jinx spoke with the voice of reason, and I knew what he advocated was the only sensible course. Still, my whole soul rebelled at the notion of going on with our boring lives without doing something, especially when we'd have to face all our cohort tomorrow.
I stood up. "I guess the only thing left to do then is to get spiked. At least it'll show our poohs we've got wills of our own. And it should shut Honeysuckle right up. Are you in a dedicated mode?"
Jinx boosted himself off the bench, thumping onto the grass. "Does a carebear sit in the pedwards?"
I laughed. "G-Gnome, here we come!"
Slidewalk Seven was only a one-block stroll north of us, so we chose that transport over the Arteries.
If you pulled out a length of your intestines and slit it longwise, you'd expose the velvety microvilli lining, the zillions of little fingers that propel food through your gut. You'd also have a pretty good model of a slidewalk.
The sturdy silicrobe microvilli of the slidewalk propelled anything placed atop them along at a steady 5kph. (You could ride the network cross-continent in just a month, if you wanted to spend your vacation that boring way, like many slouch oldsters did.) Each invisible finger was rooted in place, yet flexible enough to pass on its burden to its neigh-
bor. (In constant motion, the slidewalks conveyed a visual impression similar to the waveriness of heated syalon pavement. And if you rode them barefoot, they tickled almost subliminally.) Different lanes had different built-in directional orientations, for two-way travel.
The Amgen motto-"Taxis, not taxis"-was spelled out right in the substance of the slidewalks. I remembered having to have my dads explain it to me when I was little, since I never knew that "tax-us" could also be pronounced ''tax-ease," or even what they were.
"Jinx," I pleaded irrationally, "let's use Honeysuekle's card to get the moddies we've always talked about, then run away together!"
Jinx held my hand. "Arnie, think twice. Putting legs on me is no simplex patch job. I'd be laid up for days. We couldn't travel very far even in a hired scar car without leaving a trail even a senile augie-doggie could follow.
Honeysuckle would be pissing prostaglandins at the theft of her card. And then our poohs-or yours anyway-would snatch us back, and the next thing you know, we'd be wearing obedience collars like some splice! No, the only thing to do is to hold out for a year. It's not such a long time… "
Jinx spoke with the voice of reason, and I knew what he advocated was the only sensible course. Still, my whole soul rebelled at the notion of going on with our boring lives without doing something, especially when we'd have to face all our cohort tomorrow.
I stood up. "I guess the only thing left to do then is to get spiked. At least it'll show our poohs we've got wills of our own. And it should shut Honeysuckle right up. Are you in a dedicated mode?"
Jinx boosted himself off the bench, thumping onto the grass. "Does a carebear sit in the pedwards?"
I laughed. "G-Gnome, here we come!"
Slidewalk Seven was only a one-block stroll north of us, so we chose that transport over the Arteries.
If you pulled out a length of your intestines and slit it longwise, you'd expose the velvety microvilli lining, the zillions of little fingers that propel food through your gut. You'd also have a pretty good model of a slidewalk.
The sturdy silicrobe microvilli of the slidewalk propelled anything placed atop them along at a steady 5kph. (You could ride the network cross-continent in just a month, if you wanted to spend your vacation that boring way, like many slouch oldsters did.) Each invisible finger was rooted in place, yet flexible enough to pass on its burden to its neigh-
bor. (In constant motion, the slidewalks conveyed a visual impression similar to the waveriness of heated syalon pavement. And if you rode them barefoot, they tickled almost subliminally.) Different lanes had different built-in directional orientations, for two-way travel.
The Amgen motto-"Taxis, not taxis"-was spelled out right in the substance of the slidewalks. I remembered having to have my dads explain it to me when I was little, since I never knew that "tax-us" could also be pronounced ''tax-ease," or even what they were.