Zurich Meet Tomorrow by Alastair Reynolds - Book - Page 10
While Mister Zhang and his associates confer, Amaka wanders
off to the artificial shoreline and takes a call from her mother.
‘I am working today,’ Amaka reminds her gently.
‘You are always working. You work too hard. This lifestyle is
not good for you, always moving, always changing. When are
you going to settle down?’
Her mother, born three quarters of the way through the old
century, lacks a grasp on how the world functions now.
‘You always wear the same dowdy things. Always black.
You live in these bare apartments. You never set down roots.’
‘I have what I need,’ Amaka sighs. ‘I am always comfortable.
I never worry about having a roof over my head – it just doesn’t
need to be the same roof.’
‘I do not like that thing you live with. How can you tolerate
such an aberration?’
Amaka rolls her eyes. ‘You mean Mitsu? She has a name,
you know.’
Amaka’s mother cannot fathom androids. She still has
drawers full of old cell phones, old cables and keyboards,
memory drives, sticky decaying things that could no longer
speak to other sticky decaying things. She hoards these
things like the totems of some neglected god.
‘I was down the market earlier,’ her mother complains, as
if Mitsu has never been mentioned. ‘These children now, and
their fashions, their robots. What is the world coming to?’
Mister Zhang and his associates reach the nitty-gritty now,
the fine details. The consortium already have their hotel
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