"G. Howell - The Human Memoirs" - читать интересную книгу автора (Howell G)

impatiently drumming a tattoo on the well-worn upholstered armrest. "So, did
you bring it?"
"Love you too," he retorted, flopping into the second chair. She glared
at him. "All right! I got it," he waved the plastic case under her nose. "Why
did you have to wait for the last minute anyway?"
"I had other business," she growled.
He'd heard that one before. "Sure. More important than your finishing
grade?"
"Yes."
 "Oh? What? Someone die?"
She stared at him, then began to bristle. "None of your business!"
"All right." He shrugged. "Sorry. Forget it. Anyway, you could have
booked some of the libraries disks earlier in the year."
"I didn't know they'd all be booked out. That festering video they
showed; suddenly everyone wants the disks. Great timing," Mas scratched
fingers against the wooden countertop, "Just in time for a thesis. Why on
earth did they set THIS as the topic?!"
"Come on. You know it's customary for every Academy graduate to do it."
"Every year?" she asked with a wrinkle of her nose. "You'd think the
'Great Learned Ones' would be filled to the back teeth reading all those
recycled essays. Most of the students just load a thesis saved a year ago and
rewrite it. If you look through the files you'll see they all seem remarkably
similar."
"Those files're supposed to be locked!"
"Huh!" she snorted. "You of all people should know the locks they use
are a joke. There's no way they can keep a dedicated system wanderer out. If
you know the right people and right software, you can get access to anything."
"You wouldn't!"
She just grinned at him.
Perhaps she would. That was her style: all take and no give. He didn't
know why he'd agreed to help her. A strange one she was: Only recently
arrived at the Academy, perhaps not even from the east coast. Intelligent
enough - in the Academy that went without saying - probably smarter than he
was, but also incredibly aloof and arrogant. Nobody knew anything more about
her other than that she kept herself separate from everyone else, never
entering into relationships: a frigid bitch to all appearances. He'd never
known anyone who had even claimed to have spent a night with her. He had
never found her files in the admin system. She seemed to be a nobody, but
nevertheless she held some kind of sway over the establishment, that was the
only way they'd been able to bend the rules and get into the Library after
hours.
Her arrival at his dorm had come as a complete surprise and her request.
. . no, her demand for help on this project had left him flustered and
tongue-tied. Perhaps if he'd been thinking straight he wouldn't have agreed to
help. It was his high academic achievements that'd caught her attention and
he knew in his gut that when she'd squeezed him for all he was worth, she'd
dump him.
Somehow, he didn't care.
Frigid she may be, but she was also undeniably attractive; any
red-blooded male would gladly give a testicle for a chance to be shut in a