old enough to remember the world before the Crash; it seemed just as remarkable, though, that Frank Warburton must have been born during the Crash, into a world in mid-collapse.
Frank Warburton, Sara realized, must not only have had to make do with two parents, or even one, but must actually have been born from his mother’s own womb. In terms of human evolution, he was practically a dinosaur.
Or, at least, a Dragon Man: something rare and strange.
“He used to be a tattoo artist,” Mother Quilla added, as if the thought had only just resurfaced in her mind. “He’s probably here hunting for obsolete equipment. Electric needles, that sort of thing.”
The way she pronounced the words told Sara that Mother Quilla hadn’t the slightest idea what kind of equipment Frank Warburton had used in the long-gone days when he was a tattooist, even though she must have looked into the window of his shop a dozen or a hundred times.
Most of the people at the junk swap, Sara knew, would be trading ancient communications technology: primitive computers and mobile phones, sound systems and TVs. The currency of junk swap culture wasn’t invisibly inscribed in smartcards and hologram-bubbles, but it consisted very largely of plastic wafers and discs—every obsolete means of data-storage that had ever been invented. Such wares were exchanged even by the minority of traders who had come to trade jewelry and toys, pottery and glassware, paintings and snowing globes, although none of them would ever have admitted that they were compromising the etiquette of barter by introducing any kind of “money”. According to Mother Quilla, though, the Dragon Man was different. Even here, he was an anachronism, an outsider, an exotic specimen. He might not be the only collector of tattooing technology in England, or even in Lancashire, but could there possibly be another who had ever used that technology in his work…or in his art? Could there possibly be another who was so fully entitled to style himself a Preserver of the Legacy of the Lost World?
“Come on,” said Mother Quilla, taking Sara’s hand and drawing her gently away from the spot to which she had become rooted. “He’s not that unusual. You must have seen people as old as him in virtual space.”
It wasn’t until Mother Quilla said it that Sara realized that she had not. She had certainly seen people from the old world—even the world before the Crash—but she had never seen them as she had just seen Frank Warburton, still carrying the damage inflicted on his flesh before the biotechnologists found ways to repair all wounds and set aside all signs of aging.
In virtual space, it was said, you could see everything. All the world was there, and all the world’s accessible history, and imaginary worlds by the thousand as well…but that didn’t mean that if you took the obvious paths through the Global Village you would be certain to see everything it contained. Some things went unheeded, even when they weren’t hidden. That seemed, for a moment or two, to be an important revelation—but then Sara and Mother Quilla lost themselves in the crowd, and in the strange simmering excitement of the possibility of making discoveries.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
