Recursion Read Online Free PDF

pocket.
    She hit the answer button. “Hello.”
    “Hello there, Eva. What would you think about one hundred and fifty credits for ten minutes’ work?”
    The voice was colorless and sexless. Their voices always were. She thought quickly: she couldn’t afford to lose time from her schedule on this day of all days; at the same time she didn’t want to attract suspicion. She made her voice sound tired and listless.
    “I’ve got a splitting headache. Ask someone else.”
    “Three hundred credits, Eva. All we’re asking is that you take a detour down Keppel Road on your way to the shops. Three hundred credits could pay for a new washing machine.”
    “I don’t need a new washing machine.”
    “You will in about three weeks. Built-in obsolescence is a pretty exact science these days.”
    Eva was about to agree, she didn’t have time to argue. But she stopped herself. She had to act normally. What would the normal Eva have done? Bargain, of course.
    “Five hundred credits,” she said.
    “Done,” said the voice. “Near the station end of Keppel Road there is a hawthorn tree. Hawthorn trees have twisty brown trunks and small ragged green—”
    “I know what a hawthorn tree looks like.”
    “Of course you do. There may be some small pieces of metal stuck in and around the base of that tree. We would like you to tidy up the mess. It should take you no more than twenty minutes.”
    “You said ten.”
    “That’s right, we did. When you’ve collected the metal, place it in a mail tube. We’ll let you know the address you need to send it to later. Bye.”
    The line went dead just as Eva reached the end of Keppel Road. She turned down it, heading toward the Lite Station. She guessed that some stealth plane had suffered minor damage over the city the previous night and she had been detailed to collect the wreckage. The thought put DeForest in her mind again. Like all company people, he had denied the existence of stealth ordnance, and like all young people with ideals, Eva had teased him mercilessly about his denial.
    She remembered a January afternoon. The last one they would ever spend together, though Eva hadn’t known that at the time. They had sat snug in her flat, the heating turned up full, the lights turned on against the grey day, while they drank red wine and watched old movies. DeForest was flying back that evening, back to his wife and his other life in Connecticut. Eva hated the early evening flights; the day would drag by without either of them being able to settle to anything. On the screen before them the hero was being dragged into the shelter of a doorway by his mystery female protector.
    “All that sweat and not a hair out of place,” said Eva scornfully. “I wish I knew where she got her clothes from, too. She’s been completely drenched in oil and they still look good on her.”
    “I’m impressed by the way she’s avoiding the search planes. All that infrared detection equipment on board, and she fools them by setting fire to a few newspapers.” DeForest took another drink of wine and gave Eva a little squeeze. She wriggled herself into a more comfortable position.
    “There are one or two things about those planes I’d take issue with,” said Eva, sliding her eyes sideways to look at DeForest’s expression. “For a start, how come they’re visible?”
    DeForest gave a tolerant laugh. “Oh, here we go again. Ms. Conspiracy Theory 2047. The Earth is monitored by a fleet of invisible airplanes all reporting back to the evil Artificial Intelligence that evolved in the Internet.”
    Eva elbowed him in the stomach.
    “Oh sorry, Mr. Free Enterprise 1987. I forgot that the world is actually run by a series of multinational companies that put the needs of the poor and the environment before their own profits.”
    “My company gave several million credits to charity last year. And we sponsored the Llangollen dam project.”
    “And I bet you spied out the territory using invisible planes,