"Cook, Robin - Invasion Txt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cook Robin)

Candee reached out and touched it. "Ouch!" she exclaimed. "It's hot."

Hearing a babble of voices, Jonathan and Candee looked around them. Other kids had gotten out of their cars as well. A pall of acrid smoke hung over the scene. Every radio that had been on, whether playing rap music, rock, or classical, had blown its fuse. At least that's what everybody was saying.

10:15 P.M.

Dr. Sheila Miller lived in one of the city's few residential high-rises. She liked the view, the breezes from the desert, and the proximity to the University Medical Center. Of the three, the last was the most important.

At age thirty-five, she felt as if she'd been through two lives. She married early in college to a fellow premed student. They'd had so much in common. Both thought that medicine was to be their consuming interest and that they should share the dream. Unfortunately, reality had been brutally unromantic because of their arduous schedules. Still, their relationship might have survived if George hadn't had the irritating idea that his career as a surgeon was more valuable than Sheila's path, first in internal medicine and then in emergency medicine. As far as domestic responsibility was concerned, it had all fallen on her shoulders.

George's undiscussed decision to accept a two-year fellowship in New York had been the straw that broke the camel's back. The idea that George expected her to follow him to New York when she'd recently accepted the position of head of the University Medical Center emergency department showed Sheila how mismatched they were. What romance had once been between them had long since evaporated, so with little argument and no passion they divided up their collection of CDs and back issues of medical journals and went their separate ways. As far as Sheila was concerned, the only legacy was a mild bitterness about assumed male prerogatives.

On that particular night like most nights Sheila was busy reading her unending pile of medical journals. At the same time she was taping a TV presentation of an old movie classic with the idea of watching it over the weekend. Consequently her apartment was quiet save for the occasional tinkle of her wind chimes on her patio.

Sheila did not see the shooting star that Candee saw, but at the same moment Candee and Jonathan were startled by the destruction of Tim's car radio, Sheila was equally shocked by a somewhat similar catastrophe with her VCR. Suddenly it began to spark and whir as if it were about to launch into orbit.

Startled from the depths of concentration, Sheila still had the presence of mind to yank out the power cord. Unfortunately that maneuver had little effect. It wasn't until she disengaged the cable line that the machine fell silent although it continued to smoke. Gingerly Sheila felt the top of the console. It was warm to the touch but certainly not about to catch fire.

Silently cursing, Sheila went back to her reading. She vaguely toyed with the idea of bringing the VCR to the hospital the following day to see if one of the electronic technicians could fix it. She justified the idea with her busy schedule. There was no way she could take the time to schlep the thing to the appliance store where she'd bought it.

10:15 P.M.

Pitt Henderson had been slowly easing himself down so that he was now practically horizontal. He was sprawled on the threadbare couch squeezed into his third-floor dorm room on campus in front of his black-and-white thirteen-inch TV. His parents had given him the set on his previous birthday. The screen might have been tiny, but the reception was good, and the image was clear as a bell.

Pitt was a senior at the university and scheduled to graduate that year. He was premed and had majored in chemistry. Although he'd been only a slightly above average student, he'd been able to snare a position in the medical school by evidencing hard work and commitment. He was the only chemistry major who had opted for the work-study program and had been working in the University Medical Center since his freshman year, mostly in the labs. Currently he was on a work rotation and clerking in the emergency department. Over the years Pitt had developed a habit of making himself useful wherever in the hospital he was assigned.

A huge yawn brought tears to his eyes and the NBA game he was watching began to fade as his mind began to drift toward sleep. Pitt was a stocky, muscular twenty-one-year-old who'd been a star football player in high school but had failed to make the team in college. He'd weathered the disappointment and turned it into a positive experience by concentrating that much more on his goal of becoming a doctor.

Just when Pitt's eyelids touched, the picture tube of his beloved TV blew up, scattering shards of glass over his abdomen and chest. It had been at the same instant that Candee and Jonathan's radio as well as Sheila's VCR had gone crazy.

For a second Pitt didn't move. He was stunned and confused, unsure if the disturbance that had shocked him awake had been external or internal, like one of the jerks he'd get on occasion just before falling asleep. After pushing his glasses up on the bridge of his nose and finding himself staring into the depths of a burned-out cathode ray tube, he knew that he'd not been dreaming.

"Holy crap!" he remarked as he heaved himself to his feet and gingerly brushed the thin shards of glass from his lap. Out in the hall he heard multiple doors creaking against their hinges.

Stepping out into the hall, Pitt glanced up and down the corridor. A number of students in all manner of dress, male and female, were looking at each other with dazed expressions.

"My computer just blew a fuse," John Barkly said. "I was on the Internet." John lived in the room right next to Pitt's.

"My freakin' TV exploded," announced another student.

"My Bose clock-radio practically caught fire," said another student. "What the hell's going on? Is this some sort of prank?"

Pitt closed his door and eyed the sad remains of his beloved TV. Some prank, he mused. If he caught the guy responsible, he'd beat the crap out of him...

2

7:30 A.M.

Pulling off main street into Costa's 24-hour diner, the right rear tire of Beau Start's black Toyota 4Runner hit the curb and the vehicle bounced. Sitting in the front passenger seat, Cassy Winthrope's head bumped against the passenger-side window. She wasn't hurt, but the jolt had been unexpected. Luckily she had her seat belt on.