"Simon Hawke - The Nine Lives of Catseye Gomez" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hawke Simon)

their feet not to wake up a cat. I made another note about the commissioner. He was obviously more than
just some administrative Joe. He knew how to move quietly.
He also moved pretty damned early. I've gotten lazy in my old age, and I don't quite get up at the crack of
dawn, but I'm not what you'd call a late sleeper, either. It was 6:00 a.m. and Solo was already out and about.
He had left me a dish of milk and a can of tuna by my water bowl in the kitchen. He had also left me a note.
Gomez-
I went for a walk and then I'm going to hit the gym. I'll pick up some stuff on the way back. Should be back
around nine.
Solo
Working out first thing in the morning? Well, the guy evidently liked to keep in shape. That was another point
in his favor. I liked to keep in fighting trim, myself. It helps you stay spry, and you never know when you might
need to call upon the old reserves. I lapped up some milk, then scarfed down the tuna, which killed a couple
of minutes, and then I had to figure out what to do for the next three hours or so. Trouble was, there's not
much to do all by yourself in a strange apartment. I suppose I could have turned on the boob tube by using
the remote unit lying on the coffee table, but there was never much on television I found particularly
interesting. I like watching old classic movies from the pre-Collapse days, which they ran every now and then,
but only late at night. In the morning, all they seemed to have on were talk shows, and watching the idiots
who hosted them always struck me as a hell of a lousy way to start the day.
I thought about doing some reading, but Solo's bookshelves were well above floor level, and while I could've
gotten up there and gently pawed a book out, there was no way that I could hold it. It would've fallen to the
floor, and 1 don't treat books that way. Besides, I hadn't asked Solo if it was okay for me to read his books.
Some people take things like that for granted, but not me. I try to be polite.
That didn't leave a whole lot for me to do. A lot of cats would've been perfectly content to just curl up
somewhere in a nice, sunny, warm spot and lie there listening to their fur grow, but not me. I'm the restless
type and never got into the habit. There was a new city out there, waiting for me to discover it. The only
problem was, how the hell would I get out of the apartment?
I couldn't exactly reach up and use the doorknob. Aside from which, the door was locked. I couldn't use a
window, either, not when I was ten floors up. The sliding glass doors leading out to the balcony were closed,
not that it would've done me much good if I could've gotten out there. I began to see certain serious
disadvantages to this arrangement. I like to come and go as I please, and what I felt like doing at that
moment, more than anything else, was going somewhere. Anywhere. I don't like being cooped up, and I was
starting to feel closed in. I wanted out so bad, I could taste it.
I sat down for a moment to give the matter some careful consideration. Obviously, I wasn't about to get out on
my own, and so I needed help. I thought about it for a few minutes, then went over to Solo's desk, where he
had his phone and his computer.
Now I was never what you'd call computer literate, but, fortunately, I didn't really have to be. Most computers
nowadays are made with thaumaturgically etched and animated chips, which vary greatly in their degree of
sophistication. As usual, you get what you pay for. Just what they're capable of doing depends on how
sophisticated the hardware and software is, but then I wasn't looking for anything terribly sophisticated. I
didn't expect it to be able to open the front door. However, I did think there was a good chance it knew some
phone numbers,
I jumped up on the desk and looked the unit over. It was a Hal 9000, whatever that meant. But the on-off
switch was right there in plain sight, so I reached out with my paw and flicked it on. There was a soft pinging
sound, and the monitor screen lit up with a nice, cool, blue color. Just a plain, blank, blue screen. That was
refreshing. A lot of people go in for cute touches, like faces staring out at them, or nude pinups or what have
you.
"Good morning, Solo," it said, which told me that it had a built-in clock, but no video capability that would
allow it to see anything. It had a deep, cultured, mellow-sounding voice. Pleasant.
"Good morning," I said.
"You are not Solo. Who are you?"