"George Alec Effinger - All the Last Wars at Once" - читать интересную книгу автора (Effinger George Alec)

minutes left. Forty-second Street chromium knives found their lodgings in
unprotected Gotham throats and shoulders.
Times Square was still empty when Stevie arrived. Decomposing corpses
sprawled in front of the record and porno shops. A few shadowy forms moved
across the streets, far away down the sidewalk.
 The big ball was poised. Stevie watched it, bored, with murderers cringing around
him. The huge lighted New Year's globe was ready to drop, waiting only for
midnight and for the kissing New Year's VJ-Day crowds. There was Stevie, who
didn't care, and the looters, disappointed in the smoked-out, gunfire black, looted
stores.
It said it right up there: 11:55. Five more minutes. Stevie pushed himself back into
a doorway, knowing that it would be humiliating to get it with only five minutes left.
From the vague screams around him he knew that some were still finding it.
People were running by now. The square was filling up.
:58 and the ball was just hanging there: The sudden well of people drew rapid
rifle-fire, but the crowd still grew. There was the beginning of a murmur, just the hint
of the war-is-over madness. Stevie sent himself into the stream, giving himself up to
the release and relief.
:59тАж The ball seemedтАж to tipтАж and fell! 12:00! The chant grew stronger, the
New York chant, the smugness returned in all its sordid might. "We're Number One!
We're Number One!" The cold breezes drove the shouting through the unlit streets,
carrying it on top of the burnt and fecal smells. It would be a long time before what
was left would be made livable, but We're Number One! There were still sporadic
shots, but these were the usual New York Town killers, doing the undeclared and
time-honored violence that goes unnoticed.
We're Number One!
Stevie found himself screaming in spite of himself. He was standing next to a tall,
sweating black. Stevie grinned; the black grinned. Stevie stuck out his hand.
"Shake!" he said. "We're Number One!"
"We're Number One!" said the black. "I mean, it's us! We gotta settle all this
down, but, I mean, what's left is ours! No more fighting!"
Stevie looked at him, realizing for the first time the meaning of their situation.
"Right you are," he said with a catch in his voice. "Right you are, Brother."
"Excuse me."
Stevie and the black turned to see a strangely dressed woman. The costume
completely hid any clue to the person's identity, but the voice was very definitely
feminine. The woman wore a long, loose robe decorated fancifully with flowers and
butterflies. Artificial gems had been stuck on, and the whole thing trimmed with
cheap, dimestore "gold-and-silver" piping. The woman's head was entirely hidden by
a large, bowl-shaped woven helmet, and from within it her voice echoed excitedly.
"Excuse me," she said. "Now that the preliminary skirmishes are over, don't you
think we should get on with it?"
"With what?" asked the black.
"The Last War, the final one. The war against ourselves. It's senseless to keep
avoiding it, now."
 "What do you mean?" asked Stevie.
The woman touched Stevie's chest. "There. Your guilt. Your frustration. You
don't really feel any better, do you? I mean, women don't really hate men; they hate
their own weaknesses. People don't really hate other people for their religion or race.
It's just that seeing someone different from you makes you feel a little insecure in