"Chalker, Jack L - G.O.D. Inc 2 - The Shadow Dancers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Chalker Jack L)

when it can't get no worse, like I told you. But there's maybe a couple of
hundred other worlds so close to ours that I exist, and this is the only one in
which I married Sam. The other me's wound up whores and maybe addicts or stuck
in lousy marriages or dead or somethin', but I'm the lucky one.
Now, not too many people know about this, but one world found out that this was
so and figured out a way to go between the worlds. How the hell they ever did
that, or even figured out that the other worlds existed, I can't imagine, but
they did. This network to go between is kinda weird, like a long tunnel, but it
runs mostly like a railroad, with switchmen and stations and stuff like that. Of
course, even the ones who run the thing, called the Labyrinth, which Sam tells
me is a word that means a maze and comes from one of them ancient mythology
stories, only have stations on a few hundred, or maybe thousand, worlds. They're
pretty closemouthed about that. They keep explorin', keep lookin' in at ones,
until they find ones that have somethin' they might need. Might be an invention,
or just a bright idea, or some raw material they need-anything. When they find
somethin' like that they set up a station and put in a permanent crew and then
they also recruit locals to help run things.
They don't really care about the worlds they move into, 'cept as how they can
make a profit from it, and one of the things they move into and eventually take
over is organized crime, which seems to exist one way or another everyplace.
Like here the Mafia and a bunch of other big crime groups are really wholly
owned and operated by these dudes from another world-and most of the crooks
don't even know it. They also got a legit arm, the General Ordering and
Development Corporation, or G.O.D., Inc. as we all call it when we don't just
say 'the Company.' You may never have heard of it, but chances are you're one of
their customers. You know all those things they advertise on late-night UHF TV
stations and all them cable stations-knife sets, pen sets, crazy gadgets that
never really work, discontinued and outdated merchandise, cheap imports, that
kind of shit. You know what I mean. They have an 800 number to call to order or
an address at the station, but down right at the bottom, in real small print,
they have to put their name and headquarters address of who they really are and
where they're really at. Well, that's where you find General Ordering and
Development, Inc.
Most all the folks who work for that company don't know who or what it really
is, neither. Just the ones at the very top, and some of the company security
people, and them that run and secure the stations.
They can't have a station just anywhere. First of all, most places each world is
totally isolated from the others, but there's always a bunch of weak points. A
lot of disappearances, people bustin' into flame, visions, ghosts, you name it
come from them weak points. Most of them ain't too useful, though; I mean, you
build a station in downtown Philadelphia somebody's gonna find out sooner or
later. They go for the isolated, middle-of-nowhere places, which are few and far
between these days, and they also got to be ones they can buy up lock, stock,
and barrel. The big station here's out in a hick town in redneck Oregon called
McInerney-the only place they could buy up and control that was away from
everything and everybody. They got a second little station up near State College
in Pennsylvania, which is also middle-of-nowhere wilderness, but since they
stuck both Penn State University and the biggest state pen up in there it ain't
the favorite spot. It's mostly automated and used only when necessary.
They got the company headquarters smack in the middle of downtown Des Moines,