"Anderson, K.J. - Sky Captin and the World of Tomorrow" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anderson Kevin J)

Polly pressed the receiver close to her ear as Editor Paley's phone rang. She knew the older man would still be there. In fact, in such an emergency, he was probably standing at his window along with a few other reporters, watching searchlights scan the heavens and trying to make sense of the ominous fleet of flying iron giants.
On the third ring, Paley picked up the phone. "City desk!" In the background, she could hear that the newsroom was in a chaotic frenzy.
"It's Polly, Mr. Paley! I'm your reporter on the scene. Right here, in the midst of it all."
"Polly?" He didn't sound pleased at all. "Listen to me - you get out of there!"
"That doesn't sound like a good decision, Mr. Paley. Don't you want to sell newspapers?"
He grumbled. "Tell me what's going on. They're calling for Midtown to evacuate."
With rapid-fire chatter, Polly explained while flipping through pages in her small notepad. "Listen, Mr. Paley, I don't have much time. I met with my contact in the theater and got some information. Everything ties together with the disappearances. I'm sure of it."
"What ties together? What are you talking about, Polly?"
Watching the military tanks pull into position, she wedged the phone between her shoulder and ear so she could scribble another note. "I need anything you can dig up for me on a Dr. Walter Jennings and someone named Totenkopf. A project named Unit Eleven. Get me a phone number, an address, anything you can find. It's important."
"Totenkopf? Who is he?"
"That's what I'm hoping you can tell me. A German researcher or something. I think he may be involved with the missing scientists. Meanwhile, I'll see what I can find out around here."
"Uh, Polly - you do know they've set up a restricted perimeter? You're supposed to evacuate."
"I'm supposed to get a scoop for the Chronicle, Mr. Paley, so don't ask me to leave now."
On the phone, she heard him call to a copy boy and bark orders. "You there, dig up some information on this - fast as you can." His voice became louder as he spoke directly into the phone again. "Polly, listen to me. I'm your boss, and I want you out of there right now. Do you hear me? Hang up the phone, close your notebook, and just get out of there."
Polly turned to look through the window of the phone booth. "Wait a minute... I see something." Her eyes widened. "It's coming into sight now above the Palisades! They're... they're huge! They're crossing Sixth Avenue. Fifth Avenue. A hundred... a hundred yards away."
From inside the phone booth, Polly moved her eyes slowly upward, amazed at the massive size of the machines heading her way. They were taller than some of the buildings. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "My God..."
Desperate gunfire erupted all around her.
At the Chronicle's city desk, Morris Paley could hear the chaos through the telephone receiver. Out of his office window, he saw bright spotlights and the sparkling flicker of repeated gunfire from ground level. He clutched the phone. "Polly?" There was no answer. "Polly!"
On the corner of Fifty-third Street, the receiver swung freely inside the empty phone booth. The editor's faint voice called after her through the dangling telephone. "Polly! Polly!"


5

March of the Giant Machines
Calling Sky Captain!
A Dangerous Photo Opportunity

While the police hunkered down in formation behind their squad cars, preparing to open fire, Polly sprinted away from the phone booth. Her camera dangled on its strap, and she knew she had to get closer - but the police barricade was right in her way. Everyone else had already evacuated or found secure shelter.
Her shadow cast a trim silhouette against the brick foundation of a tenement building as she ran down a narrow alleyway, sneaking around the squad cars.
"Stop! Hey, lady - come back!" A police officer blew a whistle at her. "Aww, c'mon, lady! I can't go chasing after you - we got giant monsters coming this way!"
Polly didn't answer as she caught her breath in the darkened alley, then checked her camera, ready for the best shot. She would do whatever it took to get the story or snap an award-winning photograph. Besides, she didn't see any of the male reporters from the New York Chronicle putting themselves in danger for the sake of a scoop.
When the ground around her began to shake as something enormous moved past the narrow opening of the alleyway, she wondered if she might have made too brash a decision. She looked up - and up - at what was coming her way. "I should have brought my wide-angle lens."

A line of military vehicles sped down Fifth Avenue in a hasty retreat, jeeps overloaded with anxious soldiers training their rifles behind them. Tanks clattered along the pavement, knocking parked cars aside as they fell back from the approaching menace.
Booming impacts followed them, each footfall a slow and inexorable thunderclap. Even at their top speed, the tanks and jeeps could never get out of the way in time.
With plodding movements, towering monstrosities stomped in lockstep through an abandoned intersection, looming as tall as the corner building. Hulking mechanical giants walked side by side down the streets of New York City, crushing everything in their path.
These robot monsters had arms and legs thicker than the girders that formed the tallest skyscrapers. Round swiveling joints marked what would have been elbows and knees. Each disklike hand bore three curved metal claws, a garden rake large enough to rip a furrow down the side of a battleship. Square torsos studded with rivets as large as manhole covers contained the mechanical systems, engines, and power generators. Each armored chest bore the sinister emblem of an iron-winged skull.
The heads of the robot monsters were shaped like heavy welding helmets. A single antenna rose from the right side of each helmet, and a broad bright panel of glowing glass served as the blazing wide eye of a cyclops.
Hiding in side streets, police trained their machine guns on the robot monsters. They fired in vain, a constant barrage of bullets that did nothing more than sketch bright sparks across the metal. The iron giants strode down the deserted city street, not intimidated, not even slowed by the gunfire. One huge foot came down on a squad car, flattening it into scrap metal as a policeman flung himself to the side.
Side by side, unstoppable, the robot monsters marched toward their unknown destination.
Scrambling from his ruined squad car, the disheveled police sergeant raced for a call box, shouting into a two-piece handset. "They've broken through the perimeter. Send reinforcements. Send us everything you've got!"

At command headquarters for New York City Defense Operations, a radio operator received the urgent call for help. At times such as these, the local military and the NYPD could not face the threat alone.
A flashing red light on the wall added urgency. The radio operator opened a scarlet three-ring binder, flipped tabs, and reached the relevant section. He'd done this before. Taking a deep breath, he grabbed his desktop microphone and broadcast on the necessary frequency. "Emergency protocol 90206. Calling Sky Captain! Come in, Sky Captain! Repeat, calling Sky Captain and the Flying Legion. Come in, Sky Captain."
Radio waves pulsed out from a special transmitting tower atop the Empire State Building. Amplifiers and booster stations received the signal and retransmitted it across the city, over the North American continent, the Atlantic Ocean, and across Europe. At the speed of light, the distress call crisscrossed the planet, summoning the brave aerial hero wherever he might be.
As the robot monsters lumbered ahead, the radio operator's voice continued to echo through the sky.
Then, from far out in the lower part of New York Bay, racing in from the Atlantic and through the Hudson River Narrows, a rumbling roar cut like a sword through the thick cloud base. Superfast engines drove the plane forward like an angry hornet, between Staten Island and Brooklyn, then over Manhattan.
Bursting through the murk, a P-40 Warhawk swept in between the tall buildings, flying as if obstacles meant nothing. The ferocious fanged mouth of a snarling tiger was painted across the plane's nose behind the blurred circle of the furious propeller. A painted pair of glaring red eyes seemed to search for targets ahead. Three 20mm machine guns mounted in each wing extended forward, loaded and ready to fire upon the mechanical monsters.
Sky Captain had arrived. Wedged into the cockpit of the battle-worn fighter, Captain Joe Sullivan worked the controls as if they were extensions of his fingertips. He felt his plane and sensed its movements with an uncanny instinct.
The radio operator's static-laced voice came again through a tinny speaker in the headset: "Come in, Sky Captain..."