"Peter F. Hamilton - Softlight Sins" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Peter F)

abused him from the age of eight - sexually, physically, and mentally.
Abused him right up until the day he finally snapped, taking a kitchen
knife upstairs while the family slept.
The Reynolds trial hadn't dealt with guilt, that was beyond question.
Instead Douglas had fought to establish the level of culpability; arguing
that a degree of blame must lie with the social services, to let it go on
undetected for so long; with the teachers for not spotting the boy's
moodiness; with knowing relatives who had turned a blind eye.
Douglas fully expected to lose the case. The people of Europe were
achingly tired of psychopaths and terrorists and ideology warriors and
street gangs. The death penalty had been reintroduced six years
previously, the Federal Assembly finally bowing to enormous pressure from
the electorate. The jury found Adrian guilty on three charges of murder.
He should have been given a painless lethal injection. But with
providential coincidence Dr Elliot announced Softlight was ready, and
Douglas had asked judge Hayward to consider Adrian as an appropriate
subject for the treatment. Judge Hayward agreed.
Adrian Reynolds was standing by the window wall, a tall skinny young man,
with a weak chin, puffy cheeks, his dark mousy hair lying lank over his
ears. One of the Institute's baggy green overalls hung loosely from his
body.
He turned when Douglas came in, then dropped his eyes. "They want me dead,
don't they?"
Douglas realised the gate and the mob were just visible from the room.
"They don't know what they want." It was true enough. TRUE JUSTICE thought
Softlight was a liberal/scientific cop out, allowing criminals to escape
punishment once again. LIFE! denounced it as a living death, court
sanctioned zombiism. The only thing they had in common was their
opposition to it.


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"Is my will sorted out?" Adrian asked.
"Yes, half to Barnardo's, half to the RSPCC."
"There's not very much."
"Every little helps." Douglas was having trouble keeping his voice level.
If people could just see him like this, see that he cares. He doesn't
deserve Softlight. Maybe I should be on the other side of the gate, join
in the chanting. If only it wasn't so utterly futile.
"They asked me if I wanted a priest," Adrian said. "Last rites and all
that crap. I said no. I said if there was a God then he wouldn't have made
my father."
Douglas half smiled. "You said that to the Institute chaplain?"
Adrian gave a fast wild grin. "No." The humour faded. "Shall we go now? I
don't think there's much point in dragging it out any longer."

Officially it was laboratory complex seven. But Douglas knew the Institute
staff had taken to calling it the Light Chamber; and the press had somehow