"Steven Gould - Jumper 02 - Reflex" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gould Stephen Jay)

The man reached over and pulled the covers slowly down, all the way to Davy's feet.

He was dressed in a hospital gown and his bare legs stuck out. A clear plastic tube ran out from
under the gown with stretches of clear yellow fluid within. Oh, Christ! It was a urinary catheter. He
thought about jumping with it in place and winced. However, that wasn't what was keeping him from
sitting up.

They were more elaborate than the usual ICU restraining straps. The cuffs were padded but they
were surrounded by stainless steel and the chains attached to them with small padlocks looked heavy
enough for playground swings. The man lifted the covers a bit higher and he saw the same restraining
cuffs at his ankles.
 They know.

The distorted voice on the speaker confirmed this. "We were relieved to find you're restrainable.
You tried to teleport several times as you were coming out from under the anesthetics."

The stiffness in his shoulders suddenly made sense. He lifted his right knee and winced. Those
joints had been stressed, too.

"What do you want?"

There was a noticeable pause. "Ah. Well, we'll get to that. You rest for right now. You've still
got some recovering to do."

The attendant chose this moment to pull the covers back up to Davy's chin.

Davy blinked. "Recovering? From what?"

Again, there was a pause. "Just recovering."



They brought him food two hours later. One of them was the first man, recognizable by his ears
and bushy eyebrows. The other was obviously female but dressed and masked the same. The chains
clanked behind him, lengthening to the point where they could crank the back of the bed up and he
could lift his hands high enough to feed himself. They worked without talking and the voice from the
other side of the mirror was silent, making Davy wonder if one of his attendants was the voice, or if it
had been this man or that bitch who shot Brian. He remembered the ambulance crew and
wondered how many people were involved in his capture and keeping.

The food was a surprise. The soup was lobster bisque, the bread was fresh whole-grained, the
salad was baby greens. This is not from an institutional kitchen. On the other hand, the silverware
was plastic and the plates and bowl were paper. His brain thought he was starving but his body quit
abruptly after a few bites of each dish.

"What if I need to defecate?" He asked abruptly. The male held up his hand and reached under
the bedside table, bringing out a stainless steel bedpan.

"Yuck. Why don't you just bring a portable toilet and put it beside the bed. Surely you could