Odnośniki
- Indeks
- Frederick Marshall Brown [Ravaging Myths 01] Ravaging Myths (pdf)(1)
- Anita Philmar [Black Dragon 03] Black Dragon's Heart (pdf)
- Donita K Paul [DragonKeeper Chronicles 04] DragonFire (pdf)
- Beverly Connor [Diane Fallon Forensic Investigation 07] Dust To Dust (pdf)
- Charles R Cross Room Full of Mirrors A Biography of Jimi Hendrix (pdf)
- Bailey Bradford [Love in Xxchange 04] What Matters Most [TEB MM] (pdf)
- Alan Burt Akers [Dray Prescot 14] Krozar of Kregen (pdf)
- Bailey Bradford [Southwestern Shifters 03] Reckless [TEB MM] (pdf)
- Janrae Frank Lycan Blood 03 If Truth Dies [pdf]
- Diana Castilleja [Aiza Clan 02] A Trust Earned (pdf)
- zanotowane.pl
- doc.pisz.pl
- pdf.pisz.pl
- shakyor.htw.pl
amusing irony and no one s business but Charles s own. And the com-
puter records, too.
Yes, they should, Charles. It s good that you understand. If I may
continue, upon awakening, you will believe anything I say, answer
honestly and completely any question that I ask of you, follow without
reservation any suggestions I offer to you, and believe these behaviors
entirely normal. Whenever you read or hear the phrase one, two,
three, aardvark, you will resume a trance state, leaving the trance only
when instructed.
You will accept without comment whatever happens to you, how-
ever out of the ordinary. You will obey these instructions but not con-
sciously remember that they have been given to you. Do you understand
everything you are to do, Charles?
But I didn t destroy the cultures. Did I?
Ask me to do that for you, Charles.
Will you destroy the cultures for me, Brent?
I will. So, by delegation, you have destroyed the cultures. Brent
paused until Charles nodded. What s your password, Charles, so I can
erase those records?
I m not supposed to tell anyone my password. Am I?
You can trust me, Brent said soothingly. You asked me to destroy
that information, remember?
Right. Okay, my password is tobonan2001. That s nanobot
spelled backward.
Is that for your personal files only, or for group access to all files in
the Bio labs?
The latter.
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SMALL MI RACLES
Very good, Charles. Now forget about delegating the task and
sharing your password. Remember only that you destroyed the cul-
tures and the records. Do you understand these instructions?
I understand.
Now, tuck in your shirt. Lie down on the floor, just as you were a
few minutes ago.
Charles complied.
I will count backward from three, Charles. At zero, you will wake
up. Three, two, one . . . zero.
Easy, big guy! Brent said. He was shaking, and for good reason. If
this didn t work, he/they were screwed. Are you okay?
Why am I on the floor? My head hurts. Charles looked around,
confused. He sat up. I think I fainted and hit my head.
You said something about poking the fire, Brent lied. You stood
up from your chair and just keeled over. I think you clipped your head
on that end table on the way down.
A tumbler, on its side, lay on the rug. The rug was dry. Brent
watched Charles work it through.
Too much Scotch, perhaps.
Clearly, Charles had forgotten things as instructed like being as-
saulted and shot up with nanobots. Telling him everything had been
a calculated risk. Planting the info in Charles s memories was the best
way to give an emergent personality access to its own origins.
But had Charles retained everything that he was supposed to re-
member? I think you ve been working too hard.
I need a vacation. I should call Dan about taking some time off.
Three weeks at the beach sounds about right.
So far, so good. Your forehead is bleeding a bit. Should we go to the
ER?
Charles felt his forehead. He flinched as his hand brushed the
wound, then dispassionately noted the smear of blood on his fingertips.
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EDWARD M. LERNER
He carefully got to his feet and went to study his reflection in the dark
computer display on the desk. I ll clean up the cut and put on a Band-
Aid. I ll be fine.
Are you sure?
Who s the doctor here? Charles snapped.
Excellent. Then I ll leave you to it. Brent took the VR glasses from
his shirt pocket, eager to reconnect with the world. Charles. You
should get yourself specs like these. Spend some time in VirtuaLife
while you re on the beach. I ll e-mail you an invitation to my private
island there.
Charles frowned. I don t do VR games.
Even hypnotized, a person couldn t be made to do something
against his will. A blanket command to obey such as Brent had given
had suggestive value; it would not make someone act completely
against his nature. But the things that one might wish for? Those
could be changed.
Charles, you misunderstand me. Of course you don t want to play
VR games. You can catch up with your reading fun, relaxing reading
much faster with the specs. You won t even have to hold a book. Doesn t
that sound nice? You want to relax, don t you?
Well, yes, Charles agreed, dubiously.
Besides, VirtuaLife isn t a game. Of course you re too mature for
games. My VirtuaLife programs will help you master the specs. Specs
and my program will help you relax.
Oh. Okay.
Brent had a few more suggestions to make. He delivered them
as succinctly as he could, increasingly anxious. He wanted to be gone
before Amy Walczak returned home. Confusion from the guy who
fainted, the guy with a bump on his forehead, would raise few ques-
tions. Brent, if he was still in the house, had no excuse for answering
vaguely.
Finally Brent was out of the house, into his car, and back on the
road. He could scarcely believe what he had just done. His hands
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SMALL MI RACLES
shook on the steering wheel. He resisted the urge to floor it. To flee. It
was as though
As though he was drenched in adrenaline. Fight-or-flight reflex. One s
doing, of course. He was One s puppet, as much as Charles was his.
Brent turned the car into a strip mall and parked. He took slow,
deep breaths, picturing his island in his mind s eye. The adrenaline
surge began burning off. Or was One tweaking the level of another
hormone?
Clarity returned.
Maybe probably Charles would go away for a few weeks. Maybe
Kim would wait for Charles to return rather than bring up the neural-
culture experiment with anyone else, or Dan Garner would heed
Charles s request to defer big decisions in his department. Maybe no
one else in Biology had independently thought to experiment with
bots in a neuron culture, and was about to tell all to her colleagues.
Maybe bots in sufficient numbers would take root while Charles
was on the beach. Of that, at least, Brent had high hopes. Charles had [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]