"James Patrick Kelly - The Prisoner of Chillon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kelly James Patrick)

I put everything I had into not laughing. It would have been the main
menu for sure if I had gotten that onto a memory dot. The criminal mind at
work! This snake had bitten the world's largest corporation, totaled a stolen
reentry wing, and now he was worried about sounding like a _touriste_ in a
Swiss _bureau de poste_. I was croggled.
"All right," I said, stalling, "all right, how about a compromise? For
now. Umm. You're carrying heat?" He produced a Mitsubishi penlight. "Okay,
here's what we'll do. I'll switch on and we'll do a little bit for the folks
at home. You threaten me, say you're going to lase your name on my forehead
unless I cooperate. That way I can pick up the message without becoming an
accessory. I hope. If we clear this, we'll talk deal later." I didn't know if
it would stand up in court, but it was all I could think of at the time. "And
make it look good."
So I shot a few minutes of Django's threatening me and then we went
down into St. George. I walked into the post office hesitantly, turned and got
a good shot of Django smoldering in the entryway, and then tucked the goggles
into my pocket. The clerk was a restless woman with a pinched face who looked
as if she spent a lot of time wishing she were somewhere else. I assaulted her
with my atrocious fourth form French.
"Bonjour, madame. Est-ce qu'il y a de l'email pour D.J. Viper?"
"Viper?" The woman shifted on her stool and fixed me with a suspicious
stare. "Comment ca s'ecrit?"
"V-i-p-e-r."
She keyed the name into her terminal. "Oui, la voici. Votre
autorisation, s'il vous plait, madame." She leaned forward and pointed through
the window at the numeric keypad beside my right hand. For a moment I thought
she was going to try to watch as I keyed in the recognition code that Django
had given me. I heard him cough in the entryway behind me as she settled back
on her stool. Lucky for her. The postal terminal whirred and ground for about
ten seconds and then a sealed hardcopy chinked into the slot above the keypad.
"Vous etes des touristes americains." She looked straight past me and
waved to Django, who ducked out of the doorway. "Vive les Yankees, eh?" I was
suddenly afraid he would come charging in with penlight blazing to make sure
there were no witnesses. "Vous avez besoin d'une chambre pour la nuit? L'hotel
est ferme, mais....
"Non, non. Nous sommes presses. A quelle heure est le premier autobus
pour Rolle?"
She sighed. "Rien ne va plus. Tout va mal." The busybody seemed to be
speaking as much to herself as to me. I wanted to tell her how lucky she was
that Django had decided not to needle her where she stood. "A quinze heures
vingt-deux."
About twenty minutes -- we were still on schedule. I thanked her and
went out to throw some cold water on Django. I was astonished to find him
laughing. I didn't much like always having to guess how he'd react. Django was
so scrambled that one of these times the surprise was bound to be unpleasant.
"I could've done that," he said.
"You didn't." I handed him the hardcopy and we retreated to an alley
with a view of the square.
It is the consensus of the world's above and below ground economies
that the EU's photonic mail system is still the most secure anywhere, much