Rapture of the Nerds Read Online Free PDF

vendors seem to have closed up shop.
    It takes Huw half an hour to find the People’s Neo-Revolutionary Airport Command and Cleaning Council, a wizened-looking old woman who has her booted feet propped up on a battered wooden desk in the lobby beneath the International Youth Hostelling sign, snoring softly through her open mouth.
    “Excuse me, but are you the government?” Huw asks, talking through his teapot translator. “I have come from Wales to serve on a technology jury. Can you direct me to the public transport terminus?”
    “I wouldn’t bother if I were you,” someone says from behind him, making Huw jump so high, he almost punches a hole in the yellowing ceiling tiles. “She’s moonlighting, driving a PacRim investment bank’s security bots on the night shift. See all the bandwidth she’s hogging?”
    “Um, no, as a matter of fact, I don’t,” Huw says. “I stick to the visible spectrum.”
    The interloper is probably female and from somewhere in Northern Europe, judging by the way she’s smeared zinc ointment across her entire observable epidermis. Chilly fog spills from her cuffs at wrist and ankle and there’s the whine of a Peltier cooler pushed to the limit coming from her bum-bag. About all Huw can see of her is her eyes and an electric blue ponytail erupting from the back of her anti-melanoma hood.
    “Isn’t it a bit rude to snoop on someone else’s dreams?” he adds.
    “Yes.” The interloper shrugs, then grins alarmingly at him. “It’s what I do for a living.” She offers him a hand, and before he can stop himself he’s shaking it politely. “I’m Dagbjört. Dr. Dagbjört.”
    “Dagbjört, uh—”
    “I specialize in musical dream therapy. And I’m here on a tech jury gig too. Perhaps we’ll get a chance to work on the same case?”
    At that moment the People’s Second Revolutionary Airport Command and Cleaning Council coughs, spasms painfully, sits up, and looks around querulously.
I’m not working! Honest!
She exclaims through the medium of Huw’s teapot translator. Then, getting a grip: “Oh, you’re tourists. Can I help you?”
    Her manner is so abrupt and rude that Huw feels right at home. “Yes, yes,” he declares impatiently. “We’re jurors and we need to get to a hotel. Where’s the light rail terminal or bus stand?”
    “Are no buses. Today is Friday, can’t you read?”
    “Friday—”
    “Yes, but how are we to our hotel to ride?” asks Dr. Dagbjört, sounding puzzled.
    “Why don’t you walk?” The Council asks with gloomy satisfaction, “Haven’t you got legs? Didn’t Allah, the merciful, bless you with a full complement of limbs?”
    “But it’s—” Huw consults his wrist-map and again does a double take. “—twelve kilometers! And it’s forty-three degrees in the shade!”
    “It’s Friday,” the old woman repeats placidly. “Nothing works on Fridays. It’s in the Koran. Also, union regs.”
    “So why are you working for a Burmese banking cartel as a security bot supervisor?” Dagbjört asks.
    “That’s—!” The Council glares at her. “That’s none of your business!”
    “Burma isn’t an Islamic country,” Huw says, seeing which direction Dagbjört is heading in.
Maybe Dagbjört’s not a fucknozzle after all,
he thinks to himself, although he has his doubts about anyone who has anything to do with dream therapy, much less
musical
dream therapy—unless she’s in it only for purely pragmatic reasons, such as the money. “Do you suppose they might be dealing with their demographic deficit by importing out-of-time-zone
Gastarbeiters
from Islamic countries who want to work on the day of rest?”
    “What an astonishing thought!” snarks Dagbjört. “That must be illegal, mustn’t it?”
    Huw decides to play good cop/bad cop with her: “And I’m sure the union will have something to say about moonlighting—”
    “Stop! Stop!” The People’s Second Revolutionary Airport Command and Cleaning Council puts her hands