Read Online Tears in Rain by Rosa Montero, Lilit Zekulin Thwaites - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Rosa Montero, Lilit Zekulin Thwaites
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android; but once those antisystem crazies learned to organize themselves and make good homemade bombs, the Ins would turn into a nightmare. Every week, someone in Madrid set themselves on fire, for who knew what reason.
Bruna entered the park through the corner gate and crossed it on the diagonal. It was a lung park rather than a park with vegetation. The rep liked running between the rows of artificial trees because it was easier for her to breathe: they absorbed much more carbon dioxide than genuine trees and you could really notice the higher concentration of oxygen. Yiannis had told her that decades earlier artificial trees were built so that they more or less simulated real ones, but those absurdly mimetic creations had long been abandoned in the search for a more efficient design. The android was aware of at least half a dozen tree models, but the ones in this lung park, which belonged to Texaco-Repsol, were like enormous banners made from an almost transparent, and extremely fine, red metallic thread, floating strips three feet wide and about thirty-three feet long that swayed with the wind and produced small, chirruping, cricketlike noises. Crossing the park was like passing through the baleen filter of an enormous whale.
When she came out on the other side of the park, Bruna caught herself turning right rather than taking a left and heading for home along Reina Victoria Avenue, as she had intended. She jogged for a minute without really knowing where she was going, until she realized that she was heading for Nuevos Ministerios, one of the city’s deprived neighborhoods, a prostitution and drug-dealing district. Maybe she could find a memory traffickerthere. It was not the ideal spot to be walking around unarmed at night, but on the other hand, a combat rep out exercising was unlikely to be the most desirable target for criminals.
Despite its name, Nuevos Ministerios was very old. It had been built two centuries earlier as a government hub, and it consisted of a collection of interconnected buildings that formed a gigantic, zigzagging mass. It must have been an ugly and inhospitable cement monstrosity from its inception. During the Robot Wars, Nuevos Ministerios was used to house displaced people, and afterward there was no way of getting them out of there. The original refugees sublet rooms to other tenants illegally, and the area rapidly deteriorated. The windows were broken, the doors burned, and the former gardens had become filthy, empty esplanades. But there were also noisy bars, squalid Dalamina-smoking dens, wretched cabarets. An entire world of illegal pleasures overseen by the local gangs, who paid the clean air fees. Bruna reached the outer perimeter of Nuevos Ministerios and walked past Comet, the area’s bestknown hangout, a dive on the outer boundary frequented by some well-to-do customers keen to dip their toes into the dark side of life. The music was deafening, and there were quite a few people hanging around the door. The majority of them were bodies for hire, figured the detective after giving them a quick glance. Just then, an adolescent-looking boy caught up with her and started to jog along beside her.
“Hi, tough girl. I see you enjoy sport. How about doing some exercise inside with me? I work wonders...”
Bruna looked him over; he had the typical, telltale eyes with the vertical pupils, but he was too young to be an android. True, he could have had plastic surgery, but most likely he was wearing contact lenses that made him look like a rep. Many humans had a morbid sexual curiosity about androids, and the male prostitutes took advantage of it.
“Are you a human or a techno?”
The boy looked at her, uncertain, weighing up which answer would better suit his purpose.
“Which do you prefer?”
“Frankly, I don’t give a damn. It was a matter of curiosity, not business.”
“Come on, cheer up. I’ve got candy. Top quality.”
Candy
. Meaning oxytocin, the love drug. As a legal
Bruna entered the park through the corner gate and crossed it on the diagonal. It was a lung park rather than a park with vegetation. The rep liked running between the rows of artificial trees because it was easier for her to breathe: they absorbed much more carbon dioxide than genuine trees and you could really notice the higher concentration of oxygen. Yiannis had told her that decades earlier artificial trees were built so that they more or less simulated real ones, but those absurdly mimetic creations had long been abandoned in the search for a more efficient design. The android was aware of at least half a dozen tree models, but the ones in this lung park, which belonged to Texaco-Repsol, were like enormous banners made from an almost transparent, and extremely fine, red metallic thread, floating strips three feet wide and about thirty-three feet long that swayed with the wind and produced small, chirruping, cricketlike noises. Crossing the park was like passing through the baleen filter of an enormous whale.
When she came out on the other side of the park, Bruna caught herself turning right rather than taking a left and heading for home along Reina Victoria Avenue, as she had intended. She jogged for a minute without really knowing where she was going, until she realized that she was heading for Nuevos Ministerios, one of the city’s deprived neighborhoods, a prostitution and drug-dealing district. Maybe she could find a memory traffickerthere. It was not the ideal spot to be walking around unarmed at night, but on the other hand, a combat rep out exercising was unlikely to be the most desirable target for criminals.
Despite its name, Nuevos Ministerios was very old. It had been built two centuries earlier as a government hub, and it consisted of a collection of interconnected buildings that formed a gigantic, zigzagging mass. It must have been an ugly and inhospitable cement monstrosity from its inception. During the Robot Wars, Nuevos Ministerios was used to house displaced people, and afterward there was no way of getting them out of there. The original refugees sublet rooms to other tenants illegally, and the area rapidly deteriorated. The windows were broken, the doors burned, and the former gardens had become filthy, empty esplanades. But there were also noisy bars, squalid Dalamina-smoking dens, wretched cabarets. An entire world of illegal pleasures overseen by the local gangs, who paid the clean air fees. Bruna reached the outer perimeter of Nuevos Ministerios and walked past Comet, the area’s bestknown hangout, a dive on the outer boundary frequented by some well-to-do customers keen to dip their toes into the dark side of life. The music was deafening, and there were quite a few people hanging around the door. The majority of them were bodies for hire, figured the detective after giving them a quick glance. Just then, an adolescent-looking boy caught up with her and started to jog along beside her.
“Hi, tough girl. I see you enjoy sport. How about doing some exercise inside with me? I work wonders...”
Bruna looked him over; he had the typical, telltale eyes with the vertical pupils, but he was too young to be an android. True, he could have had plastic surgery, but most likely he was wearing contact lenses that made him look like a rep. Many humans had a morbid sexual curiosity about androids, and the male prostitutes took advantage of it.
“Are you a human or a techno?”
The boy looked at her, uncertain, weighing up which answer would better suit his purpose.
“Which do you prefer?”
“Frankly, I don’t give a damn. It was a matter of curiosity, not business.”
“Come on, cheer up. I’ve got candy. Top quality.”
Candy
. Meaning oxytocin, the love drug. As a legal
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