"Laura Anne Gilman - Staying Dead" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gilman Laura Anne)

"Did you say something, miss?"

"No, nothing, sorry. I talk to myself when I work. Just ignore me."

And she wasn't really a thief, anyway. She was a retriever, thank you very damn much. A person, as
Sergei would say, of specialized skills, who could bring objects back to their rightfulтАФthe client was
always rightful-owner without the fuss of a police investigation, or the bother of insurance companies
getting involved. Sergei had a way of making everything sound so damn high-class.

All right, so sometimes a legality or two got bent out of shape, in the course of a retrieval. But
bending wasn't breaking. Not so long as she wasn't caught, anyway. And nobody told her mother.

Reaching out, Wren traced a wire gently, pressing just enough to make it resist her touch. According to
the label under it, this section of wires connected to the fire alarm system. Probably not what she was
looking for, since those things were notoriously temperamental. Dropping her hand several inches, she
came to the security alarm. Again, not likely. That would have been the very first thing they would have
checked.

When he'd called with the details, Sergei had made it clear to her that the client wanted this done with an
absolute nil of noise. Which meant, ideally, she'd be the only one on the job. But the guard's words
indicated, to no real surprise at all, that that was already screwed. If the "mondo suits" at the board this
morning hadn't been Mage Council troubleshooters, high-powered magic-users-for-hire, she'd eat her
hat, if she owned one. Oh well. Never assume the client's going to tell you the truth. Especially if it
involves anything that might actually let you get the job done.

But she had one advantageтАФhigh-powered magic-users tended to think in high-powered ways. Which
she didn't, as a rule. Start low on the spectrum, work your way up. Nobody uses more power than they
have to. Call it Valere's Strop to Occam's Razor.

Closing that control box, she opened the one directly below it and snorted without amusement. The
labeling confirmed her initial suspicion: the electrical system for the entire building. Everything that had an
On button was initially powered from this one place. She tsked under her breath. Sloppy, sloppy. With
the quick close-and-yank of current, she could give every overworked, underpaid secretary a day off.

And then end up explaining to Sergei why the job went south. From a jail cell. Not one of your
better impulses, no.

Reaching in, she touched her index finger to one of the wires, and instantly felt a familiar answering hum in
the blood running under the skin. You could describe magic any way that worked, and one mage's
science was another wizzart's chaos. It all boiled down to using the existing energy that was generated by
almost everything knocking about the universe. Call it electricity, call it life force, or chi: hell, call it
Norman if it works. Wren didn't pay much attention to any of the various and contentious schools of
magic theory. She wasn't much for schooling, period. You used what you had.

Every human living could use magicтАФtheoretically. In actual practice, only a small portion of the
population could conduct the charge, like living lightning rods, and an even fewer percentage of them
were what her mentor had called pure conductors. Pures were the elite, the ones who made it to full
mage status. They were generally co-opted by the Council, the strongest and most secretive union ever
to collect dues. The rest of the magic-using population muddled along at various levels of ability, doing
the best they could, finding their strong points and sticking to them.