"Molly Brown - Community Service" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brown Molly)

Community Service
a short story by Molly Brown

- Prologue -
Kathy Lopez was asleep in her cardboard hut on the bridge between the
twenty-fourth floors of two buildings protected by the Spiders when she
was wakened by the sound of spinning blades. No, she thought, it can't be.
She stuck her head through the little flap that served as her door onto
the walkway and looked up, but it was hard to see what was happening in
the perpetual twilight of the ramps, far below the thick web-like netting
that had been draped from roof to roof. Then to her horror, the sunlight
broke through. She raised a hand to shield her eyes and saw the net had
been sliced in half. Beyond it, dozens of blue and gold helicopters
hovered, guns trained on the people below. "Terrorism will not be
tolerated. Surrender now," a voice bellowed from a speaker as the choppers
began their descent, "and you will be treated fairly."
The bridges swayed wildly from side to side as people ran towards the
buildings.
Windows were flung open up and down the towers as Spider soldiers ushered
the bridge people in to safety. Then the helicopters opened fire. Several
walkways collapsed, plunging homes and businesses and screaming people to
the ground. Kathy stumbled along the bridge, wheezing and gasping for
breath. She'd just reached a window when the footpath fell away behind
her. A Spider soldier caught her by the shoulders and pulled her inside.
"You okay, Kath?"
The soldier was a corporal named Raymond and she'd known him all her life.
They'd grown up together; he'd been her younger brother's best friend,
before her brother, Louie, had been captured and executed. The room she
was in was a food store the Spiders maintained for the bridge dwellers. It
was filled with row upon row of metal shelves holding bags of flour and
stacks of cans. She sank down onto the floor and reached inside her jacket
pocket for her inhaler.
"Come on, Kath," Raymond said, kneeling beside her. "You gotta keep
moving. Everybody's supposed to head for the basement. We've been in
contact with the Cobras; they're gonna open up the tunnel."
She shook her head; she couldn't do it. She'd never make it down all those
flights of winding stairs.
"You can't stay here, Kath."
The roar of engines became louder than ever; a helicopter appeared outside
the window. Raymond pushed Kathy's head down and leapt to his feet,
reaching for his gun. The room had been strafed with gunfire before
Raymond could manage a single shot.
Kathy lifted her head to see Raymond lying only inches away from her. His
blood was in her hair and on her clothes and she was covered in debris
from the shelves; there was spilled food everywhere. Outside the window,
the helicopter rose slightly, disappearing from sight. Keeping close to
the floor, Kathy slowly began to edge backwards, towards the door. Then
she heard someone coming through the window.
"Freeze, terrorist."
Kathy froze where she was.