"Sharon Green - Mists of the Ages" - читать интересную книгу автора (Green Sharon)
along. The stroke was set up as a solo and thatтАЩs the way he intended keeping
it, but he didnтАЩt mind the idea of having company on the ride back. He also
intended having something to show off, and you know how he enjoyed showing off.тАЭ
They all smiled faintly at the reminder, also remembering how we used to tease
him about it, but no one interrupted.
тАЬThe location of the stroke was in one of those open high-rise enclaves that
pretend to be closed, the kind that keeps out no one but the innocent people who
live there,тАЭ I continued. тАЬFor anyone with a little skill there are a dozen
private ways in, and Seero took one of them. He intended using the top of the
north tower to reach one of the penthouses in the south, so as soon as he left I
found a way into the west tower. I wanted to watch him without being in the way,
you understand, which I might have been if IтАЩd gone up with him to the north.
тАЬBy the time I reached the roof of the west tower, heтАЩd already set his line
onto the balcony wall of his target apartment,тАЭ I said, raising my cup to sip
from it. тАЬA minute later he was moving up the line by shifting his coasters an
armspan at a time, making it look as easy as he always did. Going back it would
be downhill, of course, and heтАЩd simply hold on and let gravity do all the work.
He reached the balcony, dropped down to it after locking the coasters in place
on the line, then went to half-kneel in front of the balcony doors. He already
knew what sort of a lock was on them, and even Mal could have gotten it open
without a key.тАЭ
That time they chuckled, knowing how badly Mal did with anything that had a
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lock. If anyone was ever born to be honest Mal was it, a point finally brought
home to him the time heтАЩd lost his key ring. After finding it impossible to get
into his jump-around heтАЩd had to walk home, and then had discovered that we, who
were his neighbors and who kept a spare set of his keys, were out. HeтАЩd decided
then and there that heтАЩd be damned if heтАЩd simply sit down and wait until we got
back, so he began trying to pick the lock on his door.
By the time Tris and I got back there heтАЩd apparently been at it for hours, and
had reached the point where he wouldnтАЩt have used a key even if heтАЩd had to
spend the rest of his life out in that hall. It was do or die with no other
acceptable options, and Tris and I were trying to decide whether or not to
mention something rather important to him when Ricco showed up. Ricco, having no
idea about what was going on immediately congratulated Mal, and when Mal looked
up at him blankly, Ricco reached over and opened the door with a simple turn of
the knob. At some point or other Mal had managed to pick the lock, but the
tragedy of it was Mal hadnтАЩt noticed. It took quite a while before we were able
to get Mal to stop crying, but once he was back to normal his mind had been made
up. He still considered himself one of us, but he never tried breaking into
anything again.
тАЬI watched Seero fade through the balcony doors, and automatically checked the
time,тАЭ I went on with a sigh, wondering if Mal knew how really fortunate he was.
тАЬSeeroтАЩs maximum time on a stroke never went beyond nine minutes, no matter what
he had to leave behind. Better to get out and come back some other time, he
always said, rather than stay that extra minute or two and maybe lose all your
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