"Bruce McAllister- Kin" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mcallister Bruce)

twitched again, and the boy saw that it was smaller than the
others, crooked but strong.
The boy nodded. Yes, he should have thought of that.
"Why..." the alien asked then, "does a man named ... James
Ortega-Mambay ... wish to kill your sister?"
When the boy was finished explaining, the alien stared at
him again and the boy grew uncomfortable. Then the creature
rose, joints falling into place with popping and sucking
sounds, legs locking to lift the heavy torso and head, the long
arms snaking out as if with a life of their own.
The boy was up and stepping back.
"Two hundred ... is not enough for a kill," the alien said,
and was gone, taking the same subterranean path out of the
building which the boy had worked out for him.
****

When the man named Ortega-Mambay stepped from the
bullet elevator to the roof of the federal building, it was
sunset and the end of another long but productive day at
7
 Kin
by Bruce McAllister


BuPopCon. In the sun's final rays the helipad glowed like a
perfect little pondтАФnot the chaos of the Pacific Ocean in the
distanceтАФand even the mugginess couldn't ruin the scene. It
was, yes, the kind of weather one conventionally took one's
jacket off in; but there was only one place to remove one's
jacket with at least a modicum of dignity, and that was, of
course, in the privacy of one's own FabHome-by-the-Sea. To
thwart convention, he was wearing his new triple-weave
"gauze" jacket in the pattern called "Summer Shimmer"тАФ
handsome, odorless, waterproof, and cool. He would not
remove it until he wished to.
He was the last, as always, to leave the Bureau, and as
always he felt the pride. There was nothing sweeter than
being the lastтАФthan lifting off from the empty pad with the
rotor blades singing over him and the setting sun below as he
made his way in his earned solitude away from the city up the
coast to another, smaller helipad and his FabHome near
Oxnard. He had worked hard for such sweetness, he
reminded himself.
His heli sat glowing in the sun's last lightтАФpart of the
perfect sceneтАФand he took his time walking to it. It was
worth a paintbrush painting, or a digital one, or a multimedia
poem. Perhaps he would make something to memorialize it
this weekend, after the other members of his triad visited for
their intimacy session.
As he reached the pilot's side and the little door there, a