"Vonda N. McIntyre-Steelcollar Worker" - читать интересную книгу автора (McIntyre Vonda N)

"No hot date today?" Jannine said.
Neko drank half her second beer and pushed her food around on her plate.
 "I'm not really hungry," she said. "I guess I'll go on home."
"I thought you wanted to talk. That's why I got the room."
"I wanted to talk about the helix, and all you want to say about it is 'No big deal.' So, OK. So maybe
we're building them a nerve toxin or some new bug."
"What do they need with a new bug? There's plenty of old bugs."
"Right. So it's no big deal. So forget it."
"Maybe we're building some new medicine."
"I said forget it." Neko pushed the plate away and stood up.
"If it was anything bad they'd classify it, and we'd never work on it. I don't even have a security
clearance, do you?"
Neko didn't reply.
"Do you?"
"No. Of course not. I mean..." Neko looked embarrassed. "I guess I used to but I'm sure it's expired
by now."
"Why did you have a security clearance?"
"If I could tell you that I wouldn't've had to have it!" Neko said. "I've got to go." She downed the last
of her second beer and hurried out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
Jannine watched her through the room's transparent walls till she disappeared. She was surprised by
Neko's weird reaction.
"Sorry," she said to the walls. "Didn't mean to be nosy."
She ate her dinner, more because she'd already paid for it than because she still felt hungry. For the
same reason, she lifted weights for a while and pedaled on the bike till her hour ran out. She got down,
retrieved her I.D. before she got charged for more time, and left the private room for the ASes to clean.
The tavern was still crowded, but quieter. She made her way through it without bumping into anyone.
Outside, the sky had clouded up. It looked like more rain. Jannine trudged toward home. At her last
job, her coworkers had created a complicated system of intramural sports. There was always a team to
join, or a team that needed a substitute. Any warm body would help. They welcomed a warm body who
was a halfway decent player. At this job, though, her coworkers went straight to the tavern or straight
home, or did something with some group that didn't include Jannine.
Maybe it's getting time to move on, she thought. But she didn't want to move on.
Morning rush was over; the streets were quiet for daytime. In the middle of the night, when she came
to work, delivery trucks created a third rush hour.
The mist grew heavier. The droplets drifted downward. The rain began. It collected in her hair. Damp
tendrils curled around her face.
Her apartment was nothing special: a one-bedroom, the bedroom tiny and dark and cold. It always
smelled musty. Not quite mold. Not quite mildew. But almost. Jannine looked at her unmade bed. She
imagined crawling between the cold, wrinkled sheets.
"Shit," she muttered, and returned to the living room. She turned on the entertainment console and
flipped through a hundred channels on the TV, fifty channels per minute, leaving them all two-d. Nothing
interesting. She should've rented a movie. She could call something out of the cable, but it took too long
to work through the preview catalogue, even on fast forward. All those clips of pretty scenery or car
chases or people making love never told her what the movies were about. Usually the clips were the best
part anyway. She left the remote on scan and tossed it onto the couch. The TV flipped past one channel,
another.
Jannine went to take a shower. As she went through the pockets of her sweat-damp clothing, she
closed her fingers around the note.
"Shit," she said again.
She smoothed the crumpled paper, staring at it, afraid to find out what the black marks said. Maybe it