"Metzger-PlanetOfDolphins" - читать интересную книгу автора (Metzger Robert)

destruction?"

"Yes!" screamed Herman. "I'm the one, the goddamned Messiah who will save the
world." He slammed his fist against the tabletop. "But it's not my choice. You
know it. You've heard it all before. Same old record. I can't leave, can't get
out of Vegas and escape it. I'm a Messiah with a gun held to his head. Ishmael
won't let me go, always translating me back here whenever I try and get out of
town."

Dr. Cutler nodded. "Excellent," he said. "You've admitted to the delusion much
more quickly than you normally do. Perhaps you're finally ready to move past it,
to see what is real and what is not."

Herman turned around and walked back to the window. He stared out at Aqualand
and the still-burning pools where the dolphins swam."That's real, you stupid son
of a bitch," he said quietly.

"Exactly," said Dr. Cutler.

"It appears to be getting worse."

Herman leaned back in his chair. He'd resigned himself to talking to feeding Dr.
Cutler the psychogruel that he appeared to so desperately need. it passed the
time.

"A lot worse. Just a few years ago I could have walked right into Aqualand
without them making a move. But now I can't get within a couple of miles of it.
Just last month, a Bottlenose in a trench coat and shades tried to chomp me when
I was panhandling at Caesars."

Dr. Cutler scribbled notes in a tight, controlled scrawl.

"I spotted him though, smelled the tuna on his breath just before he tried to
take off my head."

Scribble.

Scribble.

Herman grinned. He hadn't smelled a thing. The first he had even known about the
Bottlenose was when Ishmael had stepped through the side of a Greyhound bus and
inverted the damned dolphin.

"And I assume that it was Ishmael who saved you?"

"Always," said Herman. "He's got a bigger stake in this than any of us. The
future, the human future is his. He comes from a billion years down the line,
and pops back here just to make sure that everything stays on track, that I do
what has to be done."