"Ellen Datlow - SciFiction Originals vol.1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Datlow Ellen)

"No fair, I got no leverage," he complained grinning as he pushed her arm down on the counter effortlessly, careful
not to crush her fingers.
She grinned back at him and then gave him one upside the head; not too hard, though. "Don't get all misty just
because you beat the champ one time." She flexed her own hand, as if she had a mild cramp. "Feels good, like the real
thing. Only realer. How much were you holding back?"
"All of it. Sibelius came by some military stuff, surplus leftovers, she said."
Vic looked at her screen and tapped a finger on it. "So that's where that went. Anonymous auction, not that you
heard it from me."
Danny made an elaborate dismissive gesture with his right hand. "You know Sibelius-you don't ask her questions
and she doesn't have to tell you lies."
Vic leaned on the counter. "Well, if your arm really did come out of that lot, you may have gotten the deal of the
century, my man. It was an experimental batch. The mad scientist behind it got himself cooked in some kind of stupid
accident and the military warehoused everything. Sat for six months until the inventory database got scrambled and
ceased to officially exist."
"Gee, I wonder how that happened," Danny said, admiring his fingers.
"Happens all the time," Vic said serenely. "With no official existence, there was no official sale and no official
income lining any official's pocket. Not that I told you anything. What would I know anyway? I'm just a humble trader,
a go-between, a matchmaker for goods and services."
Danny looked at her with exaggerated puzzlement. "Huh? Whudja say?"
"I said, I'll have to thank Sibelius for this."
He blinked, the puzzlement becoming real. "You will?"
"Oh, yeah." Vic's smile was thoughtful. "How'd you like to make that new arm pay for itself?"
"Well, that is kinda what I had in mind," Danny said. "You know, doing jobs I couldn't before."
The trader nodded. "Good. Because it so happens I've got a vacancy for tonight. Does that fit in with your busy
social schedule?"
"Sure. What do I have to do? Bend some iron bars? Crush beer cans?" He snapped his fingers rhythmically. "Keep
the beat?"
"Later. First get down to Jeremy's and pick up some code for me. It's special, I don't want it getting intercepted or
scrambled."
He couldn't help showing his disappointment. Errand boy again.
"Hey, that's only the beginning," Vic said, reading his mind, or at least his expression. "I'm going to need a lot of
help from you tonight, and I don't mean I want you to sit the store while I'm out. I can't get this done without you."
Danny laughed a little, feeling both sheepish and relieved. Anyone else might have been patronizing him or
setting him up, but not Vic. "Okay. I'm on the case."
j

The blowfish, mainly of the tourist persuasion, were lined up for Eye in the Sky, which was just starting to jump. The
sumo wrestler on the door was making the usual big show of passing them through after a thorough visual inspection
of their clothes, their faces, their jewelry, and, presumably, their coolness quotients. The sumo wrestler's name was
Rakishi, and legend had it he really had been a sumo before bad knees had relegated him to ruling the ingress with
guest list and stun-stick.
Danny didn't look at any of the overdressed would-be clubbers, fearful he'd see some of the people he'd cajoled
into buying guidebooks or letting him run errands for them. All he'd need would be for one of them to call out Errand
boy! in front of that lard-ass on the door. Rakishi would never let him forget it.
Relax, he told himself as he trotted up the crystal steps to the entrance. The errand boy they knew was a gimp with
one arm. They weren't expecting to see him with two good arms. Nonetheless, he decided, tomorrow he'd get a new
haircut, and maybe a dye job just to make sure.
"Say hey." Rakishi tapped him on the chest with the stun-stick and then left it there. He made a business out of
counting Danny's arms and legs and pretending to think it over. "Sorry, I don't see your spare parts on the guest list,
and even if they were, you couldn't come in here dressed like that."