"Mel Gilden - Zoot Marlow 3 - Tubular Android Superheroes" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gilden Mel)

stuff. I understand that each of them has a particular superpower."
"Leaping over tall buildings in a single bound?" Zamp said. "Stopping bullets with their chests?"
Whipper Will almost smiled, but it died and curled up like a dead beetle and made a nasty snarl.
Whipper Will was generally a cool dude. Snarling was not like him. He also seemed to have lost the
surfer lilt to his voice. He had spoken an entire paragraph without using the words dude, cool, or gnarly.
Bingo was looking at him worriedly, as if he were a stranger with frightening ideas.
Whipper Will pointed to an android taking a photograph of a mom, a dad, and two small kids. "See
that? The picture that SA android is taking will be in focus, perfectly composed, and perfectly lit. That's
one of their superpowers." He pointed to a couple of old folks approaching the public walkway. They
were being led by an android who also carried two beach chairs, a small library of paperback novels, a
cooler, and a big inflated duck. As they reached the walkway, one of the public trams came along and
stopped right in front of them, allowing them to board. "Another superpower," Whipper Will said. "I
don't know if they make public transportation come or if they just time everything perfectly. But
somehow, if you're with an android and you want a bus or a taxi, you can always get one, and right
now."
I said, "You sound pretty dogged by the whole thing."
"Dogged, yeah." He could not quite bring himself to spit. Instead he just curled his lip again.
A little nervously, Bingo said, "The blue collars identify Superhero Androids the way the forehead
cloths identify Surfing Samurai Robots. The ads say the blue collars complement their beauty. You all
right, Whipper?"
"Cool," he said. "Boss. Bitchen." His tone said he was none of those things. His thoughts did not
make him happy but he continued to think them anyway.
Even walking together, Zamp and I did not attract much attention. Malibu was that kind of town. If
we weren't making the cliffs slide onto Pacific Coast Highway or polluting the ocean, we weren't
important.
Androids were everywhere. I saw more of them as we turned up a sidewalk toward PCH. Some
people had robots following them, but not as many as I would have expected. Not as many as I'd seen
the last time I'd been on Earth or even the day before. I wondered how Knighten Daise, the owner of
Surfing Samurai Robots, was coping. Maybe I should have seen him today, after all.
I said, "What's that?" and pointed to a machine about the size of a coin-operated canned soda
dispenser. It was painted in cool green and blue stripes and had a thick slot all down one side. Across
the top it said Melt-O-Mobile.
"You'll see," Will said as if I'd be sorry when I did.
After that I noticed one of those machines on almost every corner.
The other surfers were not so polite as Whipper Will and Bingo. They made contemptuous barnyard
noises at the androids. Bill got right into the spirit, of course. "Dorks," Mustard said. "Androids drill me
bad. Not cool and gnarly like surf-bots." The other surfers agreed. Captain Hook added, "Hodads," and
made the word sound as if androids never bathed or brushed their teeth.
As we approached PCH, I noticed a bad smell but it wasn't the traffic. It was like rotting slaberingeo
spines, like dirty dishes that had been in the sink too long, like a factory where more people than the
national average would be dying of some wasting disease. "What's that?" I said.
"What?" Whipper Will said. I was a little surprised he was not too preoccupied to answer.
"The smell."
"Something big and ugly is dead," said Grampa Zamp.
Whipper Will said, "I don't smell anything." Nobody else did either. Just me and Zamp. We had the
noses for it.
We stopped at PCH and waited for the light to change. Every shop on the street was doing a brisk
business. People who walked by had six or eight sunglasses hanging from their necks by cords, a
hamburger in one hand and a taco in the other, and a box of fried chicken tight under their arms. T-shirts,
rubber shoes, and souvenir clamshells also moved faster than hotcakes on skids.