"Peter David - PSI-man 2 - Deathscape" - читать интересную книгу автора (David Peter)

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November 1, 2021
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November 2, 2021

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MOST CARS THAT came and went from the large building known throughout Boulder,
Colorado, as the Internet Propulsion Laboratory used the single main road that ran to and from
it. There were small connecting roads off to the side, but they led to high mountainous areas.
No one lived there. People lived in town, or in the suburbs, but the idea of residing up in the
mountainous regions? It was absurd.
As noted, no one lived there.

But hiding out thereтАж that was something else again.



Up one of the steepest, most mountainous of roads drove the van. The sky was overcast
and gray, much as it had been the day before and the day before that, and probably the way
that it would be in all the succeeding days. The sun was setting, although the only way to tell
was that the gray was simply becoming darker gray. There were stories of how, decades earlier,
it was possible to sit on a cliffside and watch a great, glowing orb drop below the horizon line,
the daylight being given over to night, stars appearing in the night sky. Just stories, though.
Fantasies that many living in present days could not even remember.

The van was carefully neutral and nondescript. At the moment it was painted gray. Two
weeks ago it had been blue, and eight weeks before that, white. Rattling around in the rear of
the cargo bay was a small pile of license plates for easy conversion. It rolled up the incline on
tires that were rapidly becoming threadbare, coughing in protest as gears shifted to urge it the
rest of the way up the hill.

The van suddenly made a sharp right turn into a small pathway that no one would have
been able to spot if they hadn't already known it was there. It swayed from side to side, the
rattling becoming even more pronounced, and the man who was riding in the rear of the cargo
bay held on with grim determination, uncomplaining, perhaps even resigned to his difficult lot
in life. Nevertheless, he grunted slightly as if to register token protest.
 The driver heard it and took immediate umbrage. "I'm doing the best I can, dammit," he
snarled. There was no passenger seat next to him. They had ripped it out to provide as much
room as possible.

"I know you are, goddammit, just drive," snapped the passenger. "Jesus, Buzz, get your
head out of your butt, okay?" His legendary patience was starting to wear thin, and because of
the abruptness and harshness of his reply, it startled the driver into silence.