（外文电子版资料）Pat Cadigan Chris Fowler - Freeing the Angels.pdf

Freeing the Angels by Pat Cadigan and Chris Fowler He was standing on the sidewalk, idly flexing his brand-new arm while he waited to cross with the rest of the blowfish, when he heard his mothers voice in his mind. Unbidden, unwished-for, apropos of nothing, it came to him: Carry on the way you have been, Danny-boy, you be seein angels a lot sooner than you want to. Or maybe devils. You sure got some bad in you, boy. Watch it dont catch you out and take you down. When you go, you want to see them angels waiting to take you in. Danny smiled to himself sourly. Yeah, sure, Momma, thanks for the pointer. He thought of it as typical of everything shed given him, from the charity-shop clothes and cold junk food all the way down to the little stump and four tiny fingers that grew out of his right shoulder, the legacy of her five years in a fertilizer production factory, now completely covered by a brand-new arm from the Universal Prosthetics Clinic. Maybe the sudden echo of her voice in his mind had been his simple acknowledgment that she wouldnt have approved. Getting above yourself was one of the many deadly sins on the Momma-meter, along with whining. As in, Stop whining about your goddamn stump, youre lucky thats all it was. I saw some of the things they took outta women I worked with. And if you think you oughta get one of them fancy prosthetics like some jumped-up poster child, you gettin above yourself, boy. Way above yourself. The sour smile deepened as the light changed. A desperate bike courier, legs pumping as if he were treading water in a panic to keep from drowning, blew through the intersection close enough to flutter Dannys shirttail. He smoothed it casually, enjoying the small fantasy that hed worn completely normal and totally unremarkable shirts all his life, just like anyone else. Not above myself, Momma— just above you. Like the man said about everyone being in the gutter and some of us looking at the stars. Its call