"Brantingham-OldFreedom" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brantingham Juleen)

I got to shivering and stumbling because if Free left me, what could I do but
hook myself up to that system I hate and despise or shoot myself? Free was the
only living soul in all the world I gave a damn about.

I followed him for about half a day. I begged him to stop, to come home with me;
I made wild promises; I crawled after him on my knees for a while. Didn't make
any difference. He kept going, tipping my heart out and carrying it off
somewhere.

"If you ever loved me you couldn't leave me this way. That's it, isn't it? You
never really loved me. You were faking it all along, just taking advantage of
me."

* Chasing and bitches and wild smells . . .* he says, more like he was thinking
to himself than answering. Then he turned his head and looked at me for the
first time since he'd hopped down from the porch. *Man, if you loved me you'd
understand.*

Well, I could understand, sort of. For a dog, living in a house with a human
must be something like a human living in the VR world. Everything important
might be there, but with no substance to it, nothing any healthy red-blooded dog
could sink his teeth into. But how could he leave me? I understood his needs.
I'd tried to make sure my kind of life didn't fence him in too much.

"If it's that good where you're going, I'm going with you."

He shook his head again, never slowing for a second. *Can't be,* he said.

That was the end of that. My eyes were burning but I wouldn't give up. I tried
to convince myself old Free had had a stroke or something and sooner or later
he'd come to his senses and I'd have to carry him home. His leg, you know. It
had never been as strong since the time he broke it. I tried but I couldn't make
myself believe it, especially after I started glimpsing people on the streets to
either side of me and slipping through the jungles, all going the same
direction. The dogs were harder to see but I knew they were there from the way
the people were weeping and wailing like they had no pride, no pride at all.

Pride can be some comfort when you've got nothing else left. Freedom might be
ripping the living heart out of me but I wasn't about to shame myself in front
of anybody else.

Some comfort.

We started passing apartment blocks and office buildings, coming to the center
of the city, what used to be the old town square, which had been turned into a
park. It was badly overgrown, of course, except for the old baseball diamond
where the jungle hadn't yet gotten a good grip. There were so many people I felt
like my skin was going to itch me to death; my stomach was churning pure acid. I
hadn't spoken to another live human soul in twenty years and I wasn't about to