"FWLS33" - читать интересную книгу автора (A Future We'd Like to See)

A Future We'd Like To See 1.33 - Research and Design
By Twoflower (Copyright 1993)

"M--" I said, before he pulled the trigger on a nuke
grenade.

The blast, and a terrible, nasty white light... not soothing
'come-into-the-light' light, but a light that outshines all the
halogen lamps in the universe powered by the eternal fires of
Hades--

*

"So who's the fodder?" I asked, suiting up with whatever
twisted machinery they had picked this time.

"Dunno his last name. First name's Y'ipp. Yttian sector
transfer, apparently. He's supposed to be a real whiz with
computers and crud like that," Mac said, strapping on a plastic
backpack arrangement.

"Alright, betting pool. Forty creds say four days."

"Four? Dream on. I saw him earlier, he actually jumped
when someone set off a grenade in the locker room. Two at most."

"Bet," I agreed, doing to traditional fist-bonk closure of
the deal. Mac and I did this for every newbie that walked in the
door. They tended not to last long. I had lasted, sure, because
I had previous combat experience. I worked as a substitute
english teacher on a particularly repulsive little colony. That
sort of experience really hardens you. No cosmetics saleswoman
could possibly handle this job, the career my mom originally
wanted me to undertake.

"What's this thing supposed to be?" Y'ipp asked, with a
heavy Yttian accent. He was toying with the repeating plasma
charger array they had saddled him down with.

"All you gotta know is you point it at the bad guys, and
pull the trigger. Then, usually, one or both of you are gone,"
Mac said, demonstrating the complex actions of pulling a trigger.

"Get ready, you pansies," Kneebiter yelled from the cockpit.
"We're touching down in five."

"Pansies?" I laughed. "I'd like to see YOU go into combat
with this demented tangles of science some time."

"Hey, I gotta pilot," Kneebiter replied, laughing in his