"Stephen Kenson - Technobabel" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kenson Stephen)

"Leave it," the one called Riley says. "Said you don't wanna mess with this
drek. It's bad biz."
"Why not? As long as we're here ..."
"No." Riley's tone flat and cold. "Bad enough we're comin' here for him, but I
ain't messin' with some of the weird-ass mojo that goes down around here.
Beetles are bad enough, but this place gets used for some real magic. Once
we're done with him we're out of it, but if we mess with this place we could
end up cursed or worse."
"You really believe in that hoodoo curse drek?" Weizack asked.
"Take another look at my face, drekhead, and tell me there's no truth to
curses. Ever since the magic came back, it's been nothing but trouble for the
whole world." Riley's voice was heavy with bitterness. "It mighta made some of
the elves and their wannabes happy, but it's just another

way to slot over the rest of us. Proof that mother nature is a slitch with a
sense of humor. Now shut the frag up and give me a hand here. We need to move
this guy before somebody finds us here."
A strong pair of hands grips my ankles and, a moment later, another pair
slides under my shoulders and grips me under the armpits. They lift me off the
ground like a limp rag, all of my muscles still stubbornly refusing to respond
to my mind's demands to move. Just a little movement, a twitch or a blink, to
show these two I'm awake and aware. That's all it would take. But I can't seem
to figure out how to do it.
I feel vaguely sick and dizzy as I'm carried a short distance, swaying gently
between my two porters. They set me down again on a surface that is slick and
soft over the hardness of the ground.
"All set?" Weizack asks, and for a moment I think he's talking to me. Riley
grunts in response and Weizack says, "O.K., let's get going. Crawley doesn't
like to be kept waiting."
"Frag him," Riley says. "I don't take drek from any frag-gin' ghoul."
I hear the sound of a zipper and feel the slick vinyl-coated cloth close
around me like an embrace. The zipper passes up over my head and I'm
completely sealed in ... oh no. They don't think I'm unconscious. They think
I'm dead! But I'm not!
I feel panic grip my heart like a cold hand as my mind frantically screams at
my body to obey. I just need to move, to make a sound, something to tell these
men I'm really alive, that they've got the wrong guy. Dammit, move! I feel my
breathing begin to quicken and I hope the sound will penetrate the heavy
vinyl, but there is no response from outside it.
Two pairs of hands lift me off the ground and swing me like a sack a couple of
times before releasing me. There is a moment of cold, stark terror as I fly
through the air with no sense of balance and no idea where I will fall. Then I
drop

onto something firm but yielding, and roll just a bit before coming to rest on
my side.
There is a clunk of metal on metal and the retreating footsteps of the two
men. Then the sound of doors opening and muffled talk from somewhere ahead of
me. That's when I realize I'm lying on top of a stack of bodies, all of them
wrapped up for delivery just like me. But delivery to where? And are they dead