"Philip E. High - The Mad Metropolis" - читать интересную книгу автора (High Phillip E)

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The Mad Metropolis by
Philip E. High
Chapter One
THEY DISPOSED OF Cook by the simple expedient of crowding him
against the emergency door of the bar, sliding it open behind his back and
pushing him into the street. They then shut the door in his face and
re-sealed it from the inside so that he could not get back. The entire
operation took only eleven seconds and no one noticed. The operators were
pleased with their success, not to say a little smug. They had been paid a
Purple each for the job and it had been child's play. Too often they had
been paid a couple of Reds for a nasty one which had to be undertaken
under the noses of the Nonpol or virtually in the regular patrols of the
legal police, and those sort of jobs were risky indeed.

This one, however, had been so easy and so casually committed they felt
almost innocent. After all, they hadn't actually killed the man, not directly,
anyway. All they had done was to maneuver him into a position where his
chances of survival for more than an hour were unlikely in the extreme.

As he had at least nine hours before he could hope for any help, his
demise was a foregone conclusion.

Perhaps, fortunately, the four executioners were not thinking men. It
never occurred to them to ask why they should have been paid so much to
dispose of a ninety I.Q. Prole who was exactly the same as the seven
hundred other Proles employed by the Combine.

Cook didn't know either and was in no position to think about it. For
several seconds he was mentally and physically paralyzed with terror. He
thought of beating on the door and shouting that he was outside, but he
knew that before anyone heard him the noise would attract attentionтАФthe
wrong kind of attention.

His only hope was to stand absolutely still and pray for a miracleтАФonly
he didn't believe in miracles. All Cook believed in were facts, and the facts
were that he was out in the street at night. No one went out at night
unless in an armor-taxi or, if rich, in a fast hypnad flyer.

Cook, himself, had never left the Combine since first being employed
there at the edge of eighteenтАФwhy should he? The giant block contained
his place of employment, nine hundred cramped living cubicles, and all