"Alex Irvine - Volunteers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Irvine Alexander C)

"Nope." She was still watching her siblings, two perfect Fifties children on another world.

"I think maybe we could get away, though," I said, and held my breath. Iris didn't say anything and
eventually I had to exhale, and then there was nothing to do but take another breath and tell her about
Evelyn.
 ├Дt
This is where I have to ask you whether you wanted this to happen. Did you cull me from the herd,
choose me like you chose my father?

How much of this was you?
├Дt
"She talks to you?" Iris said.

"Sometimes, yeah. More often lately. But we talked some when I was on the ship, too."

"You have to tell the Lodge," Iris said.

"Why? Iris, there are spies in the Lodge. What are they going to do if they find out I've been talking to
Evelyn? Jesus. Bahrani'll have me committed."

"To where? They haven't built a loony bin yet."

She meant it as a joke, but the idea chilled me. What vital project would be canceled so they could build
a nice quiet place for people like me to spout their fantasies in little white rooms?

"They want me to see a psychiatrist. Bahrani wouldn't even admit that there was an AI. I'm scared, Iris.
I'm starting to wonder if they're going to put something in my lunch at school."

She reached across the space between swings and touched my arm. "How about if I start bringing you
lunch? Would that make you feel better?"

I had to laugh. "Yeah. But I don't know if I can tell the Lodge."

Then they killed Julio Furcal.
├Дt
At some point when I was a little kid, the council decided that Grant City needed a cop. This was a
surprise, because the council normally spent their time at each others' throats over things like who should
pay to mow the cemetery lawn since most of its residents had died before Susan Constant came to
CanaanтАФor as they would later put it, "before Grant City was organized in its current form"тАФand it
came as a surprise when they actually transacted the colony's business once in a while. Nobody really
wanted to be a town cop, because at that point they all hadn't gone off the deep end, but eventually Chad
Latta stood up and said he'd be willing. They voted him in immediately and gave him office space in a
back corner of one of the lab complexes. We'd come a long way since then. The lab complex morphed
into a kind of YMCA, and Chad took to the job of being a town cop like he was born to it. Iris wouldn't
go within half a mile of him, and wouldn't say why.

I don't know what he was doing back on Earth, but by the time I was thirteen he'd had a badge and
uniform made, and even took to carrying a gun. There was some deep division in the colony over that,
but already too many of our people had begun the retreat into Fantasy 1956-Land, and they wanted law