"Robert A. Metzger - Quad-World" - читать интересную книгу автора (Metzger Robert)

I just stood there. If killed in this nightmare, I hoped that I'd simply wake up.

The tendons flexed in the exposed parts of his hands.

I squinted, gritted my teeth, then closed my eyes. I wondered if I'd feel anything when my brain was
splattered against the cream-colored walls. For just an instant, an image of someone from Plant Facilities
wiping down the red-stained walls filled my head.

Something tickled deep inside of my head.

I opened my eyes.

His hands were flexing convulsively.

тАЬCrash hard!тАЭ he screamed. тАЬThe Supreme wills it!тАЭ

Every time his hands flexed that same something tickled inside of my head.

тАЬShielded,тАЭ he said, while sneering at me. He re-slung the toaster across his back and pulled his ray gun
from its holster. The gun's tip shimmered a deep purple.

It was one thing to take it like a man, and accept your fate when faced with the prospect of being
raisin-breaded to death by a toaster, but it's something totally different when you're threatened by a loon
in a space-suit who's waving a ray gun. Blind instinct finally took over.

I turned and ran.

тАЬStop!тАЭ he screamed.

Once I started moving it was going to take a hell of a lot more than the screech of a NASA-induced
nightmare to slow me down. I seemed to eat up the hallway. Never had I run so fast. My head cleared,
my lungs sucked down air, and before I would have thought it possible I'd started my turn into the
hallway corner, dropping down to all fours as I did in order to increase traction.

Fzzzt!
Hot air fanned the side of my face.

With the added incentive of ray-gun blasts I was certain that I'd practically fly down the next hallway.

Wrong.

My hands grabbed the wall just as I rounded the corner. And I mean grabbed. My fingers bit into the
soft wall and sank almost knuckle-deep. I shredded a five-foot length of the cream-colored material
before I came to a stop. It seemed to turn to goo in my hands, and I threw the now slimy stuff onto the
floor where it hit with a wet-sounding smack. I crept slowly back toward the corner I had just rounded.

And I didn't have the slightest idea why I was doing this. Inside I was screaming, demanding that my
body turn tail and run down the hallway. I was getting no response. My body continued to creep up to
the corner. I had no idea why I was doing this. Something else was apparently calling the
shotsтАФsomething that was going to get me killed in this nightmare.