"Cory Doctorow - Liberation Spectrum" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dodd Christina)

Lee-Daniel felt a grin on his face, but didn't know why it was there. He put
his arms around their waists in an uncharacteristically intimate gesture. They
started back from him, but he held them tight. He squeezed, and then gave them
each a kiss on the cheek. Elaine snorted, then Joey Riel laughed. He led them
back to the crowd of CogRads, lined up like drunken schoolchildren, and sat
them down, then cleared his throat, swallowing a sudden sob.

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"Get down," he said to Elaine. She was wedged into a crook and tied off with
an improvised harness made out of nylon rope and carabiners from her vest.
"We've got to get back to the bus!"
"They'll shoot us," Elaine said.

"They can't see us," he said. Laser sights danced in the fog. He heard the
crack of Cobra's rifle.

"He's scared," Elaine said. Next to her, also tied off -- where did Elaine
keep that many carabiners? -- was a young surveyor, one they'd just picked up
in Montana, a kid with a shaved head who had shyly asked him for a job after
meeting Elaine at the local Army-Navy store and getting a tutorial on which
gear to buy and why. He was wrapped around the branch like a serpent, locked
at the ankles, thighs and wrists.

"So am I," Lee-Daniel said. "They're shooting. It's natural. Get him down.
Push him off the branch if you have to."

"What about him?" she said, gesturing at the branch below her. There was
another surveyor, a 40-something lunk who didn't wash enough and farted too
much and blamed it on other people. He was balding and his comb-over hung
limply at one side of his head as he hugged the trunk.

"Push him too," Lee-Daniel said.

The tablet, stuck in his waistband, spoke. It was the Series B man. "Don't
give them any more advice. You shouldn't be liable for what they do in this
situation. Return to the bus."

Lee-Daniel shrugged up at her, caught a whiff of gas that set his eyes to
watering and looked back at the clearing. Cobra was lying on his side, face
away from them. The girl was holding his hand, face covered by a placid mask,
but he heard her sob as she talked into the radio that was clipped to his
chest. Lee-Daniel was momentarily mesmerized by this, his network in action,
people living or dying by it.

A rustle nearby startled him out of it. "Now! Back to the bus!"

Lee-Daniel climbed the tree. He got up to the first surveyor's branch, Ole
Stinky, and he gave the man a shove. He fell like a stone. He stepped on
Stinky's branch, grabbed the kid by an arm and yanked, hard. The kid dropped,