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

Near us, an android pulled up in a small automobile that could have been a million others except that
it had the flat lackluster look of something that had been assembled from a sheet of cardboard. Tab A in
Slot A.
No parking space was there, but a couple of very young kids leapt out, followed by a woman with no
more shape than a potato. "Do it," the kids cried, "do it," as they danced around like water on a hot
stove. The android got out of the car, leaned back in through the open window, and hit something on the
dashboard. The top of the car began to fizz; as it bubbled and popped, the top of the car evaporated.
The light changed, but we didn't move. We iust watched as the fizzing spread quickly; soon the car
was gone, up in nothing at all. The kids cheered. The dead smell was a little stronger now but not much.
My friends continued not to notice it.
"We want Popsicles," the kids demanded in voices that would make dogs whimper.
"Not good for you," the potato woman said as if she'd said it before and had no hope it would do any
more good this time.
I'd been on Earth long enough to know what kids are. If it came to that, kids on T'toom were not so
different. They want what they want when they want it. But when the fat woman denied these kids
Popsicles, one said, "No good at all," and the other said, "You're right, Auntie." Auntie looked surprised
but was quick enough to take advantage of the situation. She herded the kids as she followed the android
toward the beach. They let themselves be herded.
I said, "Did anything unusual happen there, or was I just not paying attention?"
"Nothing to it, dude," Whipper Will said.
The light changed again. When we still didn't cross PCH, far back in the troops. Captain Hook
called, "Are we having pizza, or what?"
As we stepped into the crosswalk, I said, "Another android superpower? Making kids behave?"
"Maybe it wanna-be. Nobody knows, bro."
I noticed three more cars up the street fizzing as they evaporated. In a low voice, as if not wanting to
wake the baby, Bingo said, "SA makes those too. Cars that evaporate on demand. Never again will you
get snaked on a parking place. They're called Melt-O-Mobiles." I said, "Like on the green-and-blue
machines."
Whipper Will shook his head.
"No?"
"Yes. Of course. Just like. But all that SA stuff dogs me. You'll see." He shook his head again.
"I don't care who makes them," Grampa Zamp said. "They smell awful."
"You hotdogging, dude?" Whipper Will said.
Zamp looked confused. "Why not?" he said.
Whatever it was that nobody else could smell, the air was full of it, thinner, then thicker, as it was
pushed around by the sea breeze, but always there.
As we passed a shop a fat guy came to the front of it. In the window were T-shirts featuring spiky
paintings in unnatural colors not usually seen outside a car dealer's showroomтАФT-shirts from Hell.
Above his protruding tummyтАФa thick line of skin and black hairтАФthe guy wore one of his own shirts. It
did nothing for his looks. He cried, "Beautiful T-shirts! You need these beautiful T-shirts."
A crowd gathered, many people in it shouting, "I need a beautiful T-shirt!" Money and T-shirts
changed hands.
I looked again. The shirts were still not beautiful. "Want a shirt?" I asked nobody in particular.
"Grotty shirts, dude," Hanger said.
Thumper nodded and said with disgust, 'Dance club stuff. For gremmies and hodads only."
 We skirted the crowd and came at last to Guido's, a small stucco building with a green-and-red
awning that looked like a flag of the losing side in many bad battles. Along with the squat green bottles in
the window was a flyspecked card that said open. But we were not there for the atmosphere. For the
surfers, this was the temple of pizza.
Out in front a guy in work shirt, jeans, and a Peterbilt baseball cap was counting his change. I studied