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

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"CHUCK, THERE WAS nothing we could have done."
Dakota was saying the same thing for what seemed the hundredth time. And, as before,
Chuck did not seem to be paying attention, or at least he didn't seem to believe it. Instead he
just sat there opposite her at the table in the diner, rapping his knuckles in irritation on the
stained tabletop.

Dakota shook her head as she studied him. His hair and beard were dark, and she knew by
this point that although the beard was that natural color, the hair most certainly was not. The
beard helped hide a jaw so square you could slice a pizza with it, and the fake color in his hair
hid the blondness. He had a high forehead that made it seem to Dakota as if he had a great deal
on his mind, whichтАФif you counted knowing that you were a hunted man by a forbidding
government agency (not to mention the fact that you were potentially the most powerful
telekinetic on earth)тАФcould certainly be counted as a great deal.

The gaze of his blue eyes hugged the tabletop. He had eaten his side order of spaghetti,
leaving his entire veal cutlet over. He hadn't been in much of a mood to eat, and Dakota really
couldn't blame him. StillтАж he had to snap out of it.

"Chuck, you hear me?" she said. "Earth to Chuck Simon."

He glanced up at her, "Don't use my name in public," he whispered.

"Finally something that got a response out of you," she said with a small measure of
satisfaction. "Did you hear any of the other words I said?''

"I heard them. I justтАФ"

"Just hated to hear them."

He shrugged his broad shoulders.

They were in a run-down diner in a run-down section of town. Boulder, like most cities
since the start of the twenty-first century, had skidded downhill. The well-to-do lived far out in
large palatial estates with guards and monitors or, even more popular these days, in
underground cooperatives that were exclusive and pricey. The "tunnelers" were people who
were convinced that nuclear holocaust was not too far off, and the cooperatives were designed
for survival of that unfortunate (but probably inevitable) time. The best known was First Strike
Estates, a virtual town unto itself where Mayor H. H. Hunter held sway, and any intruders
were shot on sight.

But the poor and the not-so-well-to-do only had the cities in which to take refuge. Boulder
was one such. Once a nice college town, albeit with a major drug problem. Now drugs were
not a problemтАФat least, sales weren't. Money never changed hands, because of the Cards.
Instead, everything was done with barter. Snap was the drug of choice, and Snap could get you
anythingтАФfood, vehicles, sexтАФanything.

Chuck Simon was not interested in Snap.

He was interested, rather, in the vehicle they discovered quite by accident off by the side of