[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

doors, the businessman closing his breast-bondage comic and tucking it beneath
his arm.
Chia was leaning back to look at the strangest building she'd ever seen. It
was shaped like the old-fashioned idea of a robot, a simplified human figure,
its legs and upraised arms made of transparent plastic over a framework of
metal. Its torso appeared to be of brick, in red, yellow and blue, arranged in
simple patterns. Escalators, stairways, and looping slides twisted through the
hollow limbs, and puffs of white smoke emerged at regular intervals from the
rectangular mouth of the thing's enormous face. Beyond it the sky all gray and
pressing down.
"Tetsujin Building," Masahiko said. "Monkey Boxing was not there."
"What is it?"
"Osaka Tin Toy Institute," he said. "Monkey Boxing this way." He was
Page 66
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
consulting the swarming squiggles on his control-face. He pointed along the
street, past a fast-food franchise called
California Reich, its trademark a stylized stainless-steel palm tree against
one of those twisted-
cross things like the meshbacks had drawn on their hands in her class on
European history. Which had pissed the teacher off totally, but Chia couldn't
remember them drawing any palm trees. Then two of them had gotten into a fight
over which way you were supposed to draw the twisted parts on the cross,
pointing left or pointing right, and one of them had zapped the other with a
stungun, the kind they were always making out of those disposable
flashcameras, and the teacher had to call the police.
"Ninth floor, Wet Leaves Fortune Building," he said. He set off o
2
139
down the crowded pavement. Chia followed, wondering how long jet lag lasted,
and how you were supposed to separate it from just being tired.
Maybe what she was feeling now was what her civics program at her last school
had called culture shock. She felt like everything, every little detail of
Tokyo, was just different enough to create a kind of pressure, something that
built up against her eyes, as though they'd grown tired of having to notice
all the differences: a little sidewalk tree that was dressed up in a sort of
woven basketwork jacket, the neon-avocado color of a payphone, a
serious-looking girl with round glasses and a gray sweatshirt that said "Free
Vagina." She'd been keeping her eyes extra-wide to take all these things in,
like they'd be processed eventually, but now her eyes were tired and the
differences were starting to back up. At the same time, she felt that if she
squinted, maybe, just the right way, she could make all this turn back into
Seattle, some downtown part she'd walked through with her mother. Homesick.
The strap of her bag digging into her shoulder each time her left foot came
down.
Masahiko turned a corner. There didn't seem to be alleys in Tokyo, not in the
sense that there were smaller streets behind the big streets, the places where
they put out the garbage, and there weren't any stores. There were smaller
streets, and smaller ones behind those, but you couldn't guess what you'd find
there: a shoe-repair place, an expensive-looking hair salon, a chocolate-
maker, a magazine stand where she noticed a copy of that same creepy comic
with the woman all wrapped up like that.
file:///F|/rah/William%20Gibson/Gibson,%20William%20-%20Idoru%20.txt (68 of
143) [7/17/03 11:18:25 PM]
file:///F|/rah/William%20Gibson/Gibson,%20William%20-%20Idoru%20.txt
Another corner and they were back on what she took to be a main street. Cars
here, anyway. She watched one turn into a street-level opening and vanish. Her
scalp prickled. What if that were the way up to Eddie's club, that Whiskey
Clone? That was right around here, wasn't it? How big was this Shinjuku place,
anyway? What if the Graceland pulled up beside her? What if Eddie and
Maryalice were out looking (hr her?
They were passing the opening the car had disappeared into. She
140 William Gibson looked in and saw chat it was a kind of gas station. "Where
is it?" she asked.
"Wet Leaves Fortune," he said, pointing up.
Tall and narrow, square signs jutting out at the corners of each floor. It
looked like almost all the others, but she thought Eddie's had been bigger.
"How do we get up there?"
He led her into a kind of lobby, a ground-floor arcade lined with tiny
stall-like shops. Too many lights, mirrors, things for sale, all blurring
together. Into a cramped elevator that smelled of stale smoke. He said
something in Japanese and the door closed. The elevator sang them a little
song to tinkling music. Masahiko looked irritated.
Page 67
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
At the ninth floor the door opened on a dust-covered man with a black headband
sagging over his eyes. He looked at Chia. "If you're the one from the
magazine," he said, "you're three days early." He pulled the headband off and
wiped his face with it. Chia wasn't sure if he was Japanese or not, or what
age he might be. His eyes were brown, spectacularly bloodshot under deep
brows, and his black hair, pulled straight back and secured by the band, was
streaked with gray.
Behind him there was a constant banging and confusion, men yelling in
Japanese. Someone pushing a high-sided orange plastic cart crammed with
folded, plaster-flecked cables, shards of plastic painted with gold gilt and
Chinese red. Part of a suspended ceiling let go with a twanging of wires,
crashed to the floor. More cries.
"I'm looking for Monkey Boxing," Chia said.
"Darling," the man said, "you're a bit late." He wore a black paper coverall,
its sleeves torn off at the elbows, revealing arms tracked with blobby blue
lines and circles, some kind of faux-
primitive decoration. He wiped his eyes and squinted at her. "You aren't from
the magazine in
London?"
"No," Chia said.
"No," he agreed. "You seem a bit young even for them."
"This is Monkey Boxing?" o
2
141
L
Another section of ceiling came down. The dusty man squinted at her. "Where
did you say you were from?"
"Seattle."
"You heard about Monkey Boxing in Seattle?"
"Yes
He smiled wanly. "That's fin: heard about it in Seattle You're on the club
scene yourself, dear?'
"I'm Chia McKenzie-"
"Jun. I'm called Jun, dear. Owner, designer, DJ. But you're too late. Sorry.
All that's left of
Monkey Boxing's going out in these gomi-carts. Landfill now. Like every other
broken dream. Had a lovely run while it lasted, better part of three months.
You heard about our Shaolin Temple theme?
That whole warrior-monk thing?" He sighed extravagantly. "It was heaven. Every
instant of it. The
file:///F|/rah/William%20Gibson/Gibson,%20William%20-%20Idoru%20.txt (69 of
143) [7/17/03 11:18:25 PM]
file:///F|/rah/William%20Gibson/Gibson,%20William%20-%20Idoru%20.txt
Okinawan bartenders shaved their heads, after the first three nights, and
started to wear the orange robes. I surpassed myself, in the booth. It was a [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

  • zanotowane.pl
  • doc.pisz.pl
  • pdf.pisz.pl
  • szkla.opx.pl

    •