"FWLS62" - читать интересную книгу автора (A Future We'd Like to See)

roasting 'em in acid, filling 'em up with arrows, whatever.
Pain. Not-nice stuff. Sometimes even people who I had no real
anger against, just people I saw on the street.

I choked these impulses back, though, since society told me
they were evil and I wanted to be good. I wanted to be somebody,
maybe have a wife, some kids, grow 'em up somewhere nice and safe
where they wouldn't have to worry about life the way I had.
Didn't turn out that way. Dropped out, flunked out, shifted out
of the economic loop and had to struggle to live.

Then the contact showed up and promised he could get me out
of all that. I didn't mind; I thought I was a good person, and
would only do what I needed to survive. Looks like I wasn't good
at all. No way to go back now without denying the truth.

If that's what I'm supposed to be, though, so be it. I'll
kill and maim and generally run amuck if that's what I'm supposed
to do, and keep it up until I'm stopped. There's nothing else I
can do.

*

I ought to be getting home, I thought, watching her from
across the table as I sipped my coffee. They're going to be
looking for the guy who blasted the tar out of a crime scene, two
doctors, and several innocent bystanders. I ought to be getting
home, and I ought to be getting while the getting's good.

I couldn't help it, though. She even came to me, for crying
out loud. Singled me out in the entire bar of hormone-injected
pricks to chat with. I like conversation, really, and always
welcomed another opportunity to do stuff to someone, but I was in
a rush.

"Hey, don't drink that stuff so quickly," she warned,
lowering my coffee cup. "Gives you heartburn."

"I've felt worse," I said. "It's just coffee, anyway."

"Around here, that's not a constant," she joked. "Never
know what they put in that stuff. Good to the last drop, at
least, until you get the shakes and need to come back for another
drop."

"That's nasty," I said.

"Isn't it? I don't trust any bar around here. That's why I
drink bottled," she said, flashing her shoulder-strapped thermos
at me. "You never know who to trust."